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Crowd Noise In A Gym

R

Robert Bass

The station I work for does High School Volleyball and Basketball broadcasts during the fall and winter months. My question is, how do you deal with excessive crowd noise during these types of remotes? We had a playoff Volleyball game last night, and the large crowd drowned out our sportscasters through much of the broadcast.

This is an NCE Station, so of course money is an issue. Is there an inexpensive remedy, such as a specific sportscaster headset we should look at? Perhaps a headset with an unidirectional pick up pattern?

Thanks,

R
 
Unidirectional headsets are a must, but I wouldn't stop there. Even using them, you're going to have occasions when the crowd noise will drown out your announcers, but they'll be much less frequent. At that point, a mic processor with a reliable (and well-set) AGC section comes in handy. Keep the microphones turned down about 6 decibels or so lower than you'd normally use them and let the AGC make up the difference. Then, as the crowd noise picks up, your mic sensitivity will be lower, causing less of the crowd noise to be picked up and more of your announcers' voices to come through thanks to the processor. Until you get the right settings worked out, of course, make sure your board op is riding the pot to sort out the kinks. It may take a couple of broadcasts to get everything just so, but it should work well once you do.
 
Josh C. said:
Unidirectional headsets are a must, but I wouldn't stop there. Even using them, you're going to have occasions when the crowd noise will drown out your announcers, but they'll be much less frequent. At that point, a mic processor with a reliable (and well-set) AGC section comes in handy. Keep the microphones turned down about 6 decibels or so lower than you'd normally use them and let the AGC make up the difference. Then, as the crowd noise picks up, your mic sensitivity will be lower, causing less of the crowd noise to be picked up and more of your announcers' voices to come through thanks to the processor. Until you get the right settings worked out, of course, make sure your board op is riding the pot to sort out the kinks. It may take a couple of broadcasts to get everything just so, but it should work well once you do.
Click to expand...

Actually, I am the board op... or rather game day studio producer. ;)

I have already done one of your suggestions, which was to put an AGC in the path between the incoming audio and the console. It has indeed done some wonderful things, especially with our football broadcasts. Not only does it help better balance the mic levels between our two sportscasters, it also brings up the football stadium crowd noise, resulting in a smoother mix overall. :)

We don't use a stand alone crowd mic in the gyms, like we do with football games. The crowd noise in the gyms comes through the mics on the sportscasters headsets. That's why I was thinking we need to try unidirectional mics. The present headsets must be omnidirectional.

Thanks!

R
 
Local high schools have been using the radio shack computer headsets with a modified plug on the end replacing the mini plug.

Sounds good but not half as rugged as the shure sets.
 
I have never done this, but I have read this suggestion so many times through the years. Try it.

Take two mics. Two of the same make and model would be a good thing. Wire them so one is reverse polarity from the other. Put one mic right in front of the announcer. Put the other several feet away, but not near some local sound source you don't want.

The crowd noise enters both mics equally and because of the reverse polarity should become self canceling.

The announcer's voice comes in on one mic only so there is no reverse signal to cancel it out.

There are some noise rejecting headset mics that do this internally, inside that one relatively small mic, through mechanical means. Pilots use them to reduce the airplane noise as they talk with air traffic control.
 
Considering we typically have two sportscasters at each broadcast (i.e. one is the announcer while the other does color), I'm not sure the reverse polarity trick would work for us. That is an intriguing idea though!

I looked up the headsets we use, and the pick up pattern is Super-Cardioid, which does seem most ideal for a noisy environment broadcast. They are these: http://www.loyola.com/av/products/audio/sennheiser-headphone-hmd25xq.html. Whatever mic we use, it needs to be really good quality, since many of our remotes are carried over a Comrex Codec.

Back to the AGC unit, should we use a high ratio during remotes from gyms, or a low one? The AGC unit I am using, is a loaner unit from my home studio, and I am inserting it into the remote broadcast through a patch panel. I know this may not be totally ideal, but I'm trying to see if the unit can do what is needed, before I suggest making this a permanent install. It's the Symetrix 422 model.

Thanks agaain guys, and keep those ideas coming!

R
 
Robert Bass said:
Back to the AGC unit, should we use a high ratio during remotes from gyms, or a low one? The AGC unit I am using, is a loaner unit from my home studio, and I am inserting it into the remote broadcast through a patch panel. I know this may not be totally ideal, but I'm trying to see if the unit can do what is needed, before I suggest making this a permanent install. It's the Symetrix 422 model.
Click to expand...

I never used Symetrix 422 and I've never heard how it works, but generally I'd try high compression ratios. The background noise might be higher when the announcer is not speaking, but he'll "push" it down more when speaking and he'll be more intelligible. You'll have to try it though...


Regards,
Goran Tomas
 
OK so just curious, should higher rations be used for open stadium broadcasts like football?

R
 
I've always had good results with Sennheiser (sp) headsets - they work well in placing the announcer voice "above" the crowd. Of course having talent that run proper levels at the gym helps greatly.

Another trick that I have used in the past is putting a noise gate at the studio - works well espcially when using a Marti feed.
 
When I was a one-man news department, I found an Electrovoice RE-10 in a pawn shop for 10 bucks. It had a slot down the side, and offered what they called "polar rejection". I was able to get clear audio from interviews in noisy crowded rooms. A great mic, til my intern degaussed a cart with it in her hand....
g
 
AKG D58 is a small noise cancelling microphone. It may be discontinued, but there's one on Ebay at this time. I have also worked with a David Clark headset that had two mic elements back to back & produced decent audio while the morning team jumped from a plane at 4000'. I don't recall the model or cost of that one (they may have been rented for that occasion). The out of phase identical elements method is commercially available. If you know anyone who's involved in the actual Indy 500 broadcasts or other extremely noisy events, they'll have the answer...it may not be cheap, but it will solve anything a high school gym can throw at it.

On a side note...I've run into situations where I've been asked to change the sound signature of a station that broadcasts high school ball games 3 hours a week & music the rest of the week. They didn't like the AGC action bringing up the crowd noise during extended quiet passages. In that case, peaking the console VU meters at -10 during the game solved the problem without butchering some great sounding audio the rest of the week.
 
Maybe the average listener does not even notice it, but any station that does sports coverage with a fast attack and fast release aggressive leveling/limiting system where the crown noise pumps and pumps and pumps drives me NUTS because I know what is going on, and I can't reach into the radio and change it. Since baseball is usually slow paced, it can be the worst offender.
 
Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:
Maybe the average listener does not even notice it, but any station that does sports coverage with a fast attack and fast release aggressive leveling/limiting system where the crown noise pumps and pumps and pumps drives me NUTS because I know what is going on, and I can't reach into the radio and change it. Since baseball is usually slow paced, it can be the worst offender.
Click to expand...

I hear ya there. I like it when a fast attack and slow release is used, in particular with baseball. It sounds a little smoother to me. This seems to be the approach KRLD has been using during Texas Rangers Baseball broadcasts. And even though I know what is going on, the slow crowd noise volume increase when the announceers stop talking, does not bother me at all.

I could see needing a fast attack and fast release during remotes like professional football, where the crowd noise is REALLY loud. If the engineer knows what s/he is doing when setting the attack and release times, the pumping action is far far far less noticeable.

R
 
Robert Bass said:
OK so just curious, should higher rations be used for open stadium broadcasts like football?

R
Click to expand...

I would actually say no, because in most of those cases the announcers are sitting in the press box, right? If so, you're actually going to mostly get the noise of those in the stands just in front of the press box, and not the reverberating noise of the entire crowd as you would in a gym. You may still want to run the ratios at about the same level as you would in the gym just to get the announcers' voices above that level of crowd noise, but you wouldn't need much more, I'd think.
 
Josh C. said:
Robert Bass said:
OK so just curious, should higher rations be used for open stadium broadcasts like football?

R
Click to expand...

I would actually say no, because in most of those cases the announcers are sitting in the press box, right? If so, you're actually going to mostly get the noise of those in the stands just in front of the press box, and not the reverberating noise of the entire crowd as you would in a gym. You may still want to run the ratios at about the same level as you would in the gym just to get the announcers' voices above that level of crowd noise, but you wouldn't need much more, I'd think.
Click to expand...

Yes they are in a PB, but there is another mic outside the PB that serves as the crowd noise mic. I'm not sure where that mic is mounted, and it's routed to the broadcast booth for our use, through the stadium PA system.

R
 
In that case, I'd say it's a good idea to run that mic's feed through the same AGC as your announcers' mics (if you aren't already). The higher compression, in that case, would help. Just make sure you've got the crowd noise mic at a lower level than the announcers.
 
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