While he used the USC soundbites as the basis for Sonofans, Vogler still had to find a way to capture and create sounds that differed from sport to sport. “Boxing and bowling don’t sound the same as football, baseball or basketball, so I needed to record additional audio,” he says. “To accomplish that, I went into smaller crowds – like those visiting a park or a big box store – and then used the audio as a basis for enhanced sounds.”
John Root, regional sales manager, DPA, first introduced Vogler to the
4560 Binaural Microphone and
MMA-A Digital Audio Interface. “The low profile of the binaural headset mic enabled me to be in a small group or gathering of people and capture more genuine speech patterns and distinct sounds,” says Vogler. “I was able to interject those recordings into boxing and bowling matches, which have smaller, more individualized crowd voices compared to large stadiums. The mic, in combination with that mic pre, worked incredibly well.”
In addition to utilizing the binaural recordings for the more intimate sports events, Vogler also blended the sounds into the arena-style games, like football and baseball. “It works great for creating the authenticity and realism of a crowd,” he explains.
Though much of the initial Sonofans files were based off Vogler’s recordings, he also found himself weeding through the network’s past broadcasts to cull chants specific to each stadium or team. “The network has somebody who operates a trigger pad with reactions – the cheers, claps, boos, etc. – and then a mixer adds the bed of crowd sounds, like the chants,” he explains. “Interestingly, only the people at home are able to hear these sounds. While the players on the field have some audio piped in, they don’t get the same experience as the broadcast viewers. It would be great to take that binaural microphone into a stadium to create an immersive experience for the coaches, players and managers that could also be blended into the live broadcast.”
A recording engineer, mixer and sound designer, Vogler has worked on some of the industry’s leading commercial recordings, including the LA Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl. As a longtime user of DPA microphones, Vogler says he continues to be impressed by the solutions they develop. “I’ve been using their products for 25 years or so, and they’ve put out some really clever stuff over that time,” he concludes. “They’re discreet and camera-friendly, but also get a good sound from everything.”