Audio for Televised Sports Broadcasts Primer

1. INTRO / Set Up is EVERYTHING.

2. Mult. Sheets (your Road Map to Happyland)

3. Prioritizing Signals

4. Routing Inputs to Groups. (Ride the bus)

5. TEST

6. That’s Lunch (Or Not)

7. Mixing It Up (Broadcast)

8. Tear Out

9 Glossary of terms.

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1. Intro / Set Up is EVERYTHING.

As the Lead Audio Engineer (A-1 / Mixer) for a Remote Sports Broadcast,

your primary reason for getting a paycheck is providing a quality / tested audio set-up well in advance of the actual "Air Time" for the event.

This includes patching of all signals that contribute to the audio landscape. i.e. Announcer Microphones, FX microphones located throughout the field of play. Video Tape Recorders (VTR), Intercom, Up-Link to VyVx Fiber and / or Sattelite.

If your set up is good the rest of your event will go wonderfully. Realise that you often have more than adequate time to relax and do thorough work the first time. Hurrying will result in many mistakes that will result in random "FIRES" that tend to combust at the exact moment that will be WORST for this live event.

Lucky for you, there is a Fireman that comes with every remote truck (EIC - Engineer In Charge). The EIC's job is to ensure setup goes well. The EIC is your friend. Many have eclectic personalities ranging from Coarse to Happy go lucky. Most are a ball of yarn comprised of a fine blend of attitude and wit. Most balls of yarn will get tangled quickly when not handled with care. If you have difficulty during set-up please ask the EIC to come visit you in the audio room when he has a moment and eventually he WILL come help. The Remote truck IS the EIC's baby. He knows more about the remote truck than anyone else on earth. RESPECT is encouraged. During setup you may discover that a piece of equipment isnt working to your satisfaction. DO NOT attempt to fix this yourself, even if you know how to fix it. The EIC needs to know about EVERY Broken item on his truck, and may get peeved if you start spinning the screwdrivers instead of him.

My first step in Set-Up is knowing what is needed. Talk to the Director and Producer of the TV broadcast as soon as possible. Ask all your questions when you meet them. Knowing what needs to be set-up is half the battle. I prepared a worksheet with all of my typical questions as to not get blindsided by any elements of the show. (Attatchment “Audio FAQ”). Now that we know what is needed for this event, lets fill out our Mult. Sheet. (Figure 1)

2. Mult. Sheets (your Road Map to Happyland)
Mult. Sheets (Multi Pair Cable) are your road map to where all of your signals to and from an arena or venue are located wire wise. Audio Mult.s generally have 12 pair of wires which you can use to send and receive signals to the venue. I use my mult sheet to sort out locations within a venue. If you look at the first column (MULT. E) you see the Pair # or wire #. Next column is the actual signal on said wire #. Lastly column three (Con.) is the “Connection” where on the audio mixing console this siganl will be patched or to what input / output / intercom / IFB.

Within a audio mult you will see like signals grouped together for ease of use patching. Microphones are with Microphones. Intercom with Intercom and so on.

So looking at the second Column of Mult. E we see PxP Hdst. (headset) grouped with all the other headsets. Stik = Handheld “Stick Mic”. IFB = Interuptible Fold Back. Where your announcers hear themselves along with an interupt from the Director / Producer. Stage / Stats refers to Stage Manager Intercom, and Statisticain Intercom.

Fill out your mult sheet as fully as possible prior to patching. This will help you patch quickly, efficiently and properly. It will also serve as a reference if you need to trouble shoot later on.

Fig. 1 Mult. Sheet

3. Prioritizing & Patching Signals

It is helpful to know in advance, which signals are the highest priority.

And complete the patch for these signals in order.

Before I start I always like to patch either my computer audio out or a CD player into the mixer and route it to a tape group which will then route to the IFB mix. Take a moment and discover how the IFB is fed in the patchbay and make that patch. Patch a separate IFB beltpack and a good pair of headphones that you can use for testing and tweaking the audio mix in the IFB later on. But once you hear your CD in the headphones relax and enjoy your musical selection until the rest of your patching is done. If the camera operators bitch about your music selection remind them that you are not a DJ.

Take a few minutes to make sure the audio mixer is ZERO’d out.

This is especially true on analog mixers. Touch every knob and fader to make sure it is set to ZERO.

Aux sends can be especially frustrating if you find out later on that the aux send you used for talkback also has a VTR assigned to it. Zero the board out. If it is a digital mixer ask the truck EIC which is the best “Default Setup” to load before you get started.

PRIMARY SIGNALS

1^st - Patch Power ( INTERCOM / IFB ) – this helps your A2 / assistant in the field during his setup. He / She will get power and a light when he plugs in a IFB box or Intercom beltpack. This inspires confidence and eases the tension. Take a moment to “Dial Up” ( assign intercom channels ) to the external intercom boxes at this time as well.

2^nd - Announcers Microphones without them you might as well not broadcast any audio.

3^rd – Talkback Talkback is a “Off Air” way for your announcers to talk to your director without being heard over the air. The announcers headset boxes have this circuit built in with a push button to engage the talkback function. This should go into a input on your mixer then routed to a speaker near the director and producer to listen to. Announcers, directors and Producers get really grumpy when talkback doesent work.

4^th Audio to Transmission / Recorders. Commonly 4 channels of audio are transmitted from a remote broadcast. Most modern broadcasts send out Stereo Program ( your audio mix ) on Audio 1 & 2, Stereo FX is sent out on channels 3&4. Ask the Director or Producer for the flavor of the day. VTRs / EVS recorders always record a split of Mono Program (channel 1) and FX on channel 2. More modern broadcasts will utilize 4 audio channels to record stereo program and stereo fx. Again, ask the people making decisions.

5^th on my list is VTR / EVS (video tape) outputs to the mixing board. You will need an individual fader for each audio channel coming out of the VTR. Most modern VTRs have 4 outputs, Ask the director what the machines will be recording and if you will need all 4 audio channels for playback. Digi Cart machines, DVE / Replay sounds, Mix Minus and the score bug box also fall into this group.

6^th Interconect from the Remote Truck to the “House” is 6^th. This supplies signals to and from the Arena system. Signals such as P.A. to truck. Program to “House” so they can record the TV broadcast. FX to “House” to record.

7th FX are dead last. Believe it or not, I and an assistnat have done sports broadcasts using only camera microphones (Easy). The director / Producer didn’t notice. I DID! But this was in a very poorly wired arena which resulted in a horrible day of Set-Up / trouble shooting / headaches / nausea / vomiting.

SECONDARY SIGNALS

(auxilary speakers / compressors / camera program / intercom program)

The secondary signals are important, but not as CRITICAL to a succesful sportscast. If the secondary Signals didn’t work, nobody at home would notice.

Camera and Intercom Program - I usually use a matrix output or a program audio DA to feed camera program and intercom program.

QKT ( Quick Key Telephone ) is a backup audio feed if all goes to crap on the primary transmission path.

Very useful in the old days of satellite uplink, but rarely gets used today.

MIX MINUS – a signal that gets routed to the IFBs ONLY ! If the show you are working on has a studio show that throws or talks back and forth between the point of origination and your remote TV truck you will need Mix Minus. It is called mix minus because it is not included in your mix output. Likewise at the station sending audio to you on Mix Minus, it is their mix, minus your announcers so that they aren’t hearing themselves echoing back.

4. Routing Inputs to Groups. (Ride the bus)

Groups ( also refered to as busses ) are used to control signals of a similar content. Think of it as a school bus and all the kids from your bus stop all go to the same place. An example in the audio world would be voices on microphones should be routed to the announcer group. The announcer group fader will then be used to easily control the overall level of all of your announcers in the main mix with a single fader.

My general group setup is as follows ( assuming you have stereo groups, if using mono groups use 2 per reference )

Group 1 – Voices ( make this group mono if possible )

Group 2 - FX Stereo

Group 3 - Crowd Stereo

Group 4 – Tape Stereo

Now go from one end of your mixing board to the other and route each input to the proper group it should be associated with. Also make sure that the groups are routed out to the main mixing buss.

Ask the EIC where to build your audio behind the cameras. By sending your program and fx split to the tape machines you will be able to track either the full mix or just the FX mix when tape is played back in real time.

5. TEST

Test everything!!!! Your A2 will eventually want to test out the setup, if he dosent you should want to test the setup before you go to lunch. Test from your mixing console position taking the time to set a decent audio level from the microphone on the channels input meter, then check the audio at the mix meters. Adjust fader if needed. When you are done setting level and testing the first headset, ask the A2 to stayput while you go to the directors headset. Take the time to go to the directors headset and try interrupting the A2 from the directors position as well as checking that you can hear talkback. Every once in a while a cable can come loose from a intercom station and although it should be the EIC’s responsibility, you will get drilled for the error.

Now go back to the audio room and resume testing every microphone, IFB and intercom position you patched. Fix any errors NOW! You will not have time later.

Next test VTR playback with the VTR operators and any sound effects / noise makers involved with the show. Copy the audio data from the shows ZIP disc to your digicart hard drive for easy use later in the show.

6. That’s Lunch (Or Not)

Now that you have completed your testing you will probably have to do some light pre-production including tracking VTRs and maybe adding music from the digicart. Make sure you have good uniform audio levels going out of the mixing board, because you will be tracking them during the broadcast and there is nothing more frustrating than having music be loud on element #1 and #3 but quiet on elements #2 and #4. My method is that all pre-produced elements should have sound effects peaking at 0db VU (-20 in the digital world dbFS) music should be set at a comfortable under level (-7db VU) this way when you put a VTR fader at its “Zero” mark on the console it is going to have the sound effect and music exactly as you created it in pre-production.

Take some time before or immediately after lunch to listen to your FX mics to get a balance of the individual mics loudness and sound using gain and EQ. When you go full fader on FX mic 1 it should be relatively balanced to FX mic 2 and so on.

Now its lunch time, if you are lucky. If there is anything still not passing the test you should feel obligated to attend to it before going to lunch for an hour and hoping you get time to fix it when you come back.

I always pack my lunch, and this is for many reasons. Primarily this is for that day when things aren’t going well and you simply don’t get a chance for lunch. Secondarily you are maximizing your money. $10 is a lot to throw away, especially when you might be freelancing a week solid of gigs. That’s $70 you could have bought a huge packed lunch each day for less than half that price.

7. Mixing It Up (Broadcast)

Early on in the day you should ask who gives audio their commands. Usually it is the producer, but every show is different. Make an effort to move that person to a speaker behind you (out of the middle of your mix) I usually find a Producer HOT MIC output and put that in a speaker behind me. This will help your ears sort things out.

Get your FX mix balanced quickly. At the beginning of the event have the FX group all the way down on the fader. Push one FX mic ( nearest the beginning of action ) at the game at full fader. Now once the action is about to start, gently fade up the FX group to a reasonable level under the announcers voices. Now go about mixing on the FX mic input faders. If you set a decent balance before the show on your FX mics, you should be able to go from fader to fader without much noticeable change in the mix.

8. Tear Out

Take time to reset your audio mixer to zero. Undo any EQ knob changes and aux sends and routing. The next guy wont be real happy if he didn’t check the audio board before he began setting up. Pull all of your patches. Then head outside to coil up the audio mults.

Make sure to thank the Producer and Director at the end of the night. Apologize for any glaring mistakes and take any comments or critique they may give you to heart. They want you to be a better mixer everytime they see you. They will also start requesting you if you did a good job and are easy to get along with. Also make sure to thank the crewing agent for using your services, the next time you talk to them or send them a short email.

Kyle