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sports audio scorecard

carmen

carmen

a tossup today. BC with the 2.4khz military grade audio response (carrier AM over house wiring? really?). or the overdriven mics Skype-ish awfully EQd Harvard with clipping and artifacts

congrats to the local teams, both of who won..

to top it off 90.1 was severely interfereing with 90.3, playing some kind of christian mass in kreyol
 
my favorite moment in this regard a Berklee "Synthesis Department" concert with loud 60 Hz hum buzzing out of Bang&Olufsen speakers, and all sorts of whitenoise/diginoise added by the macbook's cheap onboard DACs.

fascinatingly, the "guest performer" had a small capacitive RF probe and was actually amping the noise coming off an ipod as part of her performance. if you cant beat it , join it?!

i dont consider myself a snob. basic grounding principles should be understood by a "synthesis" grad?

its just that the students do an enthusiastic job announcing the game but its basically unlistenable
 
In all honesty, I do think you're going to gradually - but noticeably - see a lot of college radio sports coverage get a lot better in the next couple of years. There's been something of a revolution brought about by three things:

  • Cheap ($300), portable netbook computers. Alternatively, the fact that a huge majority of college students have their own laptops, too.
  • Skype releasing the SILK codec which yields near-CD audio quality.
  • 3G Wireless Internet USB "cards" becoming increasingly common and affordable.

The tricky part is, as always, the actual broadcaster gear. Lots of places make the mistake of not mixing on a real mixer and instead try to do it all on the netbook/laptop itself. You really need good headsets (Beyer DT290 or the AudioTechnica BPHS-1 come to mind) and you need a portable mixer - the Conex FJ700 is a good choice there. An external sound card with balanced I/O...even quasi-balanced like the M-Audio gear often is...is also a real good idea.
 
WMWM isn't doing it--actually Moore Sports Online is--but WMWM is, for the 3rd time in
4 years, carrying Thu's traditional Beverly High/Salem High game (though we are doing a call
in afterwards). Sounds good; one year, maybe the first time we had it, there was torrential
rain but they managed to still do the broadcast (with laptop/cell phone modem) with only a couple
glitches (no protected booth, they were in the stands!) High school games but done on
Salem State U. radio
 
The Yale broadcast on WELI New Haven was embarrassing technically. The audio was shrill and scratchy with a noticeable hum in the background, much like the BC broadcast cited by the original poster. This wasn't a student radio production; this was supposed to be a professional broadcast on the market's top-rated AM station. So what did we have here? Harvard shortchanging the visiting radio crew or Clear Channel taking the ultra-cheap route?
 
So what did we have here? Harvard shortchanging the visiting radio crew or Clear Channel taking the ultra-cheap route?
Click to expand...

As someone who helps produce over 100 college games a year, across nine sports...all but one at the D3 level...I would not automatically jump to blame the station. There are a lot of true a$$crack pressboxes out there with near-useless telco available. And if there's one thing I've learned from Dr. House, it's that everybody lies. The phone line that you were promised was "true POTS" is really a useless PBX. The "really strong 3G signal" is one bar, or is AT&T when you need Verizon (or vice versa). The "free and open internet" is actually a guest login system that's incompatible with your Comrex Access. Or Tieline iMix. Or your Macbook. Grrrr.

As for WMWM, one thing I forgot to mention is that several smartphones now come with Skype (and the SILK codec) built-in. You have to be careful that they're not like an iPhone and force you to only use it with wifi (and not with 3G) but that's also a better-than-average way to call a game. And literally all you need is the cellphone. I mean, sure an external mic would be nice...but technically you can get away with just the 3G cellphone with Skype.
 
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