Copyright ©1997, RF Specialties Group.
More microphones are being
tucked into nets, put under diving boards, and placed on playing courts, particularly
at the larger sports venues, where every crack of the bat and whir of the ball
is given the play-by-play by sportscasters.
"Broadcasters are looking for that 'surround sound,' and as a result they're buying mikes that have historically been in the recording studio," observed Tom Krajecki with Shure Brothers, who cited the Shure Beta 87, a supercardioid condenser, as being a hit with the sports crowd. Designed specifically for the music industry with extended high frequency response, the Beta 87 has found its way onto the field because of its excellent feedback rejection and hi-fi quality. True, this mike isn't for every sports application, as it requires phantom power and is susceptible to all the problems associated with condenser mikes, humidity included, but it is a definite asset in some sports bags.
With more feeds back to the studio going from the 3-1/2 kHz to the 15kHz world, thanks to ISDN, Jeff Brownstein of Beyerdynamic said field engineers are challenged to produce better audio. This, in turn, requires new mike techniques on the part of station personnel, and that is making the microphone headset, with its noise canceling properties, more desirable, said Brownstein.
Both Brownstein and Krajecki reported increased interest in their microphone headsets. "I think the trend is to make sporting events, especially when you're broadcasting in stereo, sound more realistic," assessed Dan Montecalvo, sales engineer for Audio-Technica. A good all-purpose microphone for recording sporting events, he continued, is a stereo directional which stations can use to pan the sound field in stereo. Stereo microphones like the Audio-Technica AT822 and AT825 have two directional capsules on the end, one for the left stereo pattern and the other for the right stereo pattern, and include a stereo port for input to a portable DAT.
Wireless mikes also are coming more into play these days along with a whole new set of problems. "There's always going to be potential for RF problems with a wireless, especially if the venue is in a stadium with lots of concrete and steel girders where you'll get reflections," said Krajecki. A good unidirectional antenna can help cut through some of the problems, he stated. But, at the very least, a UHF or VHF wireless mike should have a variety of frequencies to choose from, especially as the odds are broadcasters will be competing with DTV for available frequencies. Shure, for example, offers 191 UHF frequencies for its line of wireless microphones and Sennheiser mikes are available in frequencies across the UHF band, which can be ordered in coordinated groups of eight. Also, Lectrosonics' new 200 series of wideband synthesized UHF microphones have proven to be excellent performers, and are tunable to 256 frequencies in 100 kHz steps.
Broadcasters will want at least three to four microphones in their sports
bags, each selected for a specific application. For microphone details and pricing,
call your field representative at RF Specialties.