The NFC Championship match-up between the Seattle Seahawks and the Green Bay Packers last weekend had people on the edge of their seats for more than one reason. Aside from Seattle\u2019s come-from-behind win in a gripping fourth quarter, viewers might have found themselves leaning in to hear the on-field player audio, as fans in the stands at CenturyLink Field ramped up their notorious \u201c12th-man\u201d noise effect during Green Bay possessions \u2014 of which there were many in the first half. As a result, Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers went to a silent count to set up plays.<\/p>\n
A1 for the game was Fred Aldous, who is also Fox Sports\u2019 audio consultant and senior mixer, and he says the nuanced relationship between the broadcast audio and the stadium sound is underscored now that some fans are empowered by the force of their own SPL.<\/p>\n
\u201cSeattle is actually a great place to mix,\u201d he says, somewhat counter-intuitively. \u201cThat\u2019s because the crowd is so loud that it actually creates a nice foundation for the mix,\u201d he explains. \u201cAlso, I don\u2019t have to fight with the PA in Seattle, because the PA doesn\u2019t compete with the crowd, which makes it easier for me to build a mix that keeps the viewers in the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aldous refers to a philosophical difference between stadium-management styles. Some styles tend to let the bowl sound develop organically, as in Seattle and in Kansas City\u2019s Arrowhead Stadium, where the crowds tend to lead the show. They contrast with venues like Dallas\u2019s AT&T Stadium, where a $40 million Mitsubishi videoboard stretching nearly from one 20-yard-line marker to the other seems to encourage a louder PA system, making it difficult for Aldous to get a comfortable balance between on-air announcers and stadium crowd sound.<\/p>\n
He notes that Dallas Cowboys\u2019 FOH mixer Gary French has \u201cbeen directed to make the sound as big as the video screens, to make it more of a rock show than a sporting event. It makes it harder for me to dig for the crowd by itself. I have to compete with the music and the announcers in the PA system there. That\u2019s not the case in Seattle.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, the Seahawks\u2019 fans present the A1 with a challenge and, at the same time, reveal the different fan cultures in the NFL. Aldous notes that, as loud as Seattle\u2019s \u201c12th man\u201d got when Green Bay had the ball, you could have heard a pin drop at Lambeau Field when the Packers had the ball during the Division Playoff win over the Cowboys the week before. In fact, the audio was so clear that Rodgers\u2019 now-famous \u201cNew York bozo\u201d dummy play call \u2014 a reference, some speculate, to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who was sitting with Cowboys owner Jerry Jones at the game \u2014 was as intelligible as it was ambiguous.<\/p>\n
During the Seahawks-Packers game, player microphones were placed on the centers, which Aldous and other A1s regard as optimal for the clearest quarterback audio, versus mics lodged in the padding of the guards\u2019 uniforms. (The choice belongs to each team.) In the first half, when Green Bay dominated, the crowd may have been progressively more muted as the points piled up, making the audio more accessible, and they also left plenty of room for the mics to pick up Seahawks\u2019 quarterback Russell Wilson\u2019s cadences. But, by the fourth quarter, the crowd was once again roaring, and Rodgers was reduced to silent calls.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a condition that Aldous says he\u2019s seeing more and more as partisan crowds become more consciously and strategically vociferous. He recalls mixing the Super Bowl last year and Fox Sports execs commenting that they couldn\u2019t hear Peyton Manning call his signature \u201cOmaha\u201d plays. \u201cI told them it was because Manning went to a silent count,\u201d Aldous says. \u201cI can put up a microphone, but I can\u2019t make him speak.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The NFC Championship match-up between the Seattle Seahawks and the Green Bay Packers last weekend had people on the edge of their seats for more than one reason. Aside from […]\n More<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[3337,583,3614,8587],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74936"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staging.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74936\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}