On an NFL game day, the mix isn’t just sound, it’s the heartbeat of the broadcast. The goal is simple: Make viewers feel like they’re standing on the field without overwhelming the action. Neither Daniel Haggard nor Jeremy Katz originally imagined themselves shaping the audio for primetime NFL games, but once they found their way into broadcast audio, both discovered the rare mix of pressure, precision and excitement that keeps them coming back.

Haggard started in the early 2000s in Syracuse, back when the workflow was still mostly analog and troubleshooting was half the job. His big break came in 2015 when veteran mixer Wendel Stevens invited him to join NBC’s “Sunday Night Football,” a leap that meant six months on the road with a brand-new crew.

“It was terrifying and thrilling,” he said. “Only 6 million people watching.”

Seven years as an A2 gave him hands-on experience with RF, comms and field audio. That training made stepping into submixing a natural next move.

Katz’s route looks different. He cut his teeth working with bands, eventually landed at regional sports networks before joining Prime Video’s “Thursday Night Football” four seasons ago. His philosophy is straightforward: “My job is to capture everything happening on the field and hand the A1 something solid and clean. I try to be as aggressive as I can, and the A1 can decide what’s safe for air.”

Katz said the key is chasing clarity, not noise for the sake of noise.

Showing and Telling
Both mixers talk about audio in practical, picture-first terms. If something is happening on screen, the viewer should hear it—simple as that. From the quarterback’s cadence to a clean catch or the thump of a tackle, the goal is to match the energy and detail the cameras are showing. Anything that’s unnecessary, distracting or muddy doesn’t belong in the mix.

One tool they fully agree on is the mic mounted on the SkyCam. Hovering just above the action, it’s positioned closer to the players than almost any other microphone. Katz calls it “the best mic on the field,” and Haggard uses it as a bed of natural sound.

From there, player mics provided by the league give him extra detail on the line. He brings them up after the huddle breaks, rides them through the snap, then pulls them down quickly to avoid smearing the rest of the soundscape.

Parabs are another staple. Both mixers prefer committing to a single parab per play rather than blending multiple at once.

“Quality over quantity,” Katz said. “You get a clearer picture when you’re not stacking too much.” Haggard agreed that picking the right mic and trusting it is part of the craft. Sometimes you guess wrong, but when you guess right, it feels perfect.”

Nowhere is that more true than with the most coveted sound in NFL audio: the “doink.”

Across crews, mixers keep a friendly, season-long competition over who can capture the best goalpost hit. Katz joked that the entire “TNF” truck starts cheering the moment a kick drifts toward the upright.

Haggard remembered one playoff game where everything lined up: the contact mics on the post, the 416s under the crossbar, the tension of the moment and Mike Tirico’s call. “If that mic was down, it would’ve ruined the whole moment,” he said. “Instead, it was perfect. I rode the adrenaline all the way back to the hotel.”

An Art and a Science
Mixing the NFL isn’t easy—you’re dealing with massive crowd surges, stadium PA music, sideline chaos, sweaty linemen, unpredictable ref mics and dozens of camera perspectives that shift direction every few seconds. You’re anticipating where a play is going before it happens. You’re making choices that millions of viewers will react to instantly.

Both mixers emphasize that it’s a creative craft, not just a technical job. You learn by watching others, borrowing ideas, shaping your own style, and adjusting to each game’s personality. “There’s no single right way to mix,” Haggard said. “You pick up techniques, try new things, and keep refining. That’s what makes it fun.”

For viewers at home, the result is seamless: Every snap, tackle and catch lands with clarity and intensity.

Behind the screens, it’s hundreds of subtle decisions: mic choice, fader ride and EQ tweaks that make the difference between a flat, lifeless broadcast and one that truly feels alive.

I often hear there is a shortage of top-tier sound mixers. I think I have heard that since I did my first show with ESPN back in 1983, and I would say there was possibly a shortage of television technicians at that time, particularly in audio. ESPN found me in a recording studio and was patient enough or, as Donna Shackett once said, “desperate enough to train you.”

I was told that in the early days of ESPN, the Big Three television networks, ABC, CBS and NBC, even discouraged their union technicians from working freelance for the fledgling all-sports cable network.

Is the shortage of qualified people because the education, recruitment and training process is flawed, or what?

I quickly learned there was a process for grooming audio folks. You started in the field and worked (earned) your way up the ladder into the OB truck or studio. This was the opportunity to find a mentor, because training was on the job.

There was limited technical or college curricula and it was a time when good troubleshooting skills and some electronics went a long way. Now there are schools with audio OB vans. While this may be good for the school’s recruitment, the graduates are probably a ways off from mixing an event and are now probably in debt.

More Automation, More Stress
When I hear that there is a shortage of top-tier qualified mixers, I tend to think that there is a shortage of certain qualifications. As early as May 2021, I wrote in TV Tech about computer-driven mix automation before the term AI was even used. The new-era audio supervisor/producer role is not about beautiful-sounding productions; it’s about getting on and off the air cleanly, not up-cutting announcers or playback, and making sure the director’s and producer’s headsets are working flawlessly.

The audio supervisor must not only plan for multiformat audio output for a potentially wide range of playout options—plus plan for archives—but also program the traffic over intercoms. The job can be intimidating.

When I talk to some audio assistants, I have often heard there is not enough money to move up for the stress that comes with the “hot seat.”

What Went Wrong?
The change from analog to digital technology accounted for increased productivity, but also demanded an increase in technology skills.

It did not help that the development and learning curve of almost all broadcast equipment was happening at the same time. The analog-to-digital migration seemed to develop first with intercoms. It wasn’t enough to have exponentially more channels; there were now significantly more options and possibilities—and often more headaches. The largest shows often required an intercoms specialist, but just getting a couple of channels of intercom on a basketball game with an inexperienced audio crew and a grumpy engineer in charge sometimes seemed daunting.

Digital technology is well-entrenched, and there are far fewer new devices. Operationally, the equipment has more similarities than differences, which relieves some of the audio mixer’s anxiety.

There is more demand for content than ever, which translates to more productions, producers, technicians and engineers—often doing multiple tasks.

To head off labor issues, in 2014 ESPN hired hundreds of audio technicians in a move that the network said was to “insure continued technical support” with its meteoric growth in sports production not only for ESPN, but also for ABC.

How and Where to Start
So how do you get an entry-level job in broadcasting? The press on AI would lead you to believe that it will replace entry-level positions. Just like with most television audio professionals, you start in the field or on the stage and work your way up. With more productions than ever, there is a lot of on-site setup that has to be accomplished. Besides the basics of needing to set up microphones, there are still a lot of intercoms.

For the new-era audio supervisor, managing all the audio at an event will become the norm. They will be mapping the signals, mixes and outputs, plus all communications, as well as supervising the setup crew—and maybe from a distant location.

AI has proven itself as a mixing assistant for effects and even enhanced supplementation. When I wrote about AI, “audio intelligence,” I was told by some television directors and producers that I was full of it. Maybe, maybe not. Computers (AI) are good at logical replication, such as camera rotation over a baseball diamond, but I have never seen a computer set up a microphone or headset. Come to think about it, I have never seen a producer or director pull cable or program an intercom.

If you want a job in television, learn how to properly set up microphones and program a mixing console or intercom. Those entry-level jobs are not going away or getting replaced by high-powered computers, like some production and directing jobs.

I once told a university class that if they ever saw a television truck, follow it and volunteer to unpack, pull cable or whatever you can do to make yourself useful.

RASTATT, Germany—Lawo has begun shipping v12.0.0 software for its current mc² mixing console systems with native support for the HOME mc² DSP App that runs on generic CPU platforms using cloud-native technologies and an increase in the mc²36 MkII console’s processing channel count to 384.

HOME mc² DSP, Lawo’s audio processing HOME App for mc² mixing console systems, is an alternative offering to the A__UHD Core processor in a CPU-based package for production workflows based on Lawo’s unified, open HOME platform where operational agility is key. It runs on generic CPU processors and offers next-level granularity for Lawo’s mc²-grade DSP processing, the company said.

The HOME mc² DSP audio engine provides the familiar mc²-style signal processing architecture; support for mono, stereo, 5.1 and immersive formats; and the ability to handle up to 2,048 input processing channels. Other highlights include 256 aux busses, 96 groups, 96 sums, support for 32 automix groups, a downmixing function for stereo, 5.1 and immersive processing channels, as well as a co-mixer feature for monitoring and other collaborative purposes, it said.

The latest version adds 128 processing channels to Lawo’s standalone mc²36 MkII console with on-board A__UHD Core technology for a total of 384 (previously 256) channels with up to 256 busses. This expansion is free of charge and requires no additional license for mc²36 MkII consoles, it said.

The release also includes all of the features introduced with v10.12.0, such as improvements to channel assignments and management, Waves integration, a more intuitive user experience and increased security features under EBU R143 cybersecurity guidelines. Users who haven’t yet installed v10.12.0 may install software release 12.0.0 directly to access all features introduced by versions v10.12.0 and v12.0.0, the company said.

Release notes for v12.0.0 and v10.12.0 are available online.

More information is available on the company’s website.

Immersive sound for broadcasting is all about spatial orientation, sonic separation and hoping that the listener can reproduce some dimensional sound through speakers or headphones. Clearly the sound mixer can’t control the sound ecosystem or how the consumer listens to content, but it seems that immersive sound reproduction is a moving target and certainly creating a compelling sound mix that may well be heard over speakers, soundbars and headphones is no easy task.

Horizontal Layers
The problems often begin with overly conservative sound design, but as sound practitioners we must start somewhere and build forward. Typically, sound design looks at audio as horizontal layers—for example, immersive sound proposes an ear-level horizontal layer of sound and a stratus of sound above the head of the listener. NHK, the national broadcaster in Japan, has even recommended that there should be sound projected from below ear level.

When immersive sound was initially contemplated and tested it was reasoned that these above sounds should be captured and placed into the upper sound zones and reproduced by the height speakers. Even basic sound design principles would suggest that the sound mix should be what you would hear as if you were there. Horizontal layers of sound are fine for basic immersive sound production and academic consideration, but if the “real” sounds above the spectator’s head are diffused atmosphere and excessive PA noise, then not much of these sounds are particularly constructive to an interesting immersive soundfield/mix.

Further I would argue that too much atmosphere in front of the listener is boring, fatiguing and impacts speech intelligibility and is one reason why the immersive sound mixer should consider alternative mixing designs. For example, most soundbars project the sound from in front of the listener and I believe that this should be a major consideration for the sound designer/mixer. 

Since most immersive soundbars project frontward, upward and sideways then the question is—are up-firing soundbars projecting more atmosphere in front of the listener, thus diluting the mix? This could be the case if the front left and right height channel are used primarily for ambiance and atmosphere. 

Basketball, For Example
Consider that if the front height channels are projecting sounds from the front and upwards, then it makes sense to use the front height channels to reinforce the screen action, dialogue and ancillary audio. Front Soundfield Reinforcement (FSR) is a concept that I have promoted since a presentation I made at Germany’s Tonmeister conference in 2016. 

FSR basically supports using the complete front vertical soundfield—left and right channels along with the left and right height channels to mix a front “soundframe” around the visual presentation. For example, basketball has a clear top frame with the net and hoop and bottom frame with the floor. By placing some sounds in the vertical perspective this design helps to elevate a 2D image into a 3D soundspace.

Testing of basic immersive sound production began in 2014 with NHK in Japan and later in 2016 with NBC testing various microphone schemes at the Olympics and American football. In 2016, Seoul Broadcasting System adopted ATSC 3.0 and used the MPEG-H encoder to transmit the 2018 World Cup into the homes of Korea.

 The 2018 World Cup was probably the first major sporting event that made available an immersive sound mix with the addition of an overhead atmosphere layer constructed from Schoeps microphones. Felix Krückels was the sound designer and worked with Helmut Wittek on an immersive array, the ORTF 3D, which was described as a “double-layered ORTF using eight microphone capsules.”

Capturing immersive sound with ambisonic or 3D array-type microphones creates a stable dimensional foundation, but is not necessary to create an immersive experience, particularly with sports sound. 

For example, according to NBC Sports’ Karl Malone, director, sound design, NBC has created immersive sound at Notre Dame football games for several seasons and uses a variety of mono and stereo microphones to create immersive sound. Simple immersive sound production does not require 3D microphones or 3D mixing busses, however virtually all mixing consoles used by the broadcaster—Lawo, Calrec and SSL—have 3D panners, which easily allow for spotting/placing the sound elements around the intended listener. 

What 3D sound does need is more adventurous sound designs and a good understanding of encoding and how decoding/rendering affects the sound design. In my basketball example I suggest a pair of lavaliere microphones to capture the backboard and net swish and to route these sounds as audio elements/objects to be rendered into the front left and right height channels. 

An experienced sound practitioner might ask, “What happens to these above sounds in a stereo or surround mix?” Interoperability between formats has been a problem, but digital sound, metadata and rendering solved some of the conversion issues between formats. Dolby Atmos, Auro 3D, DTS:X and Fraunhofer MPEG-H are examples of encoders for distribution of immersive sound; and when the audio reproduction device detects a particular codex it will renderer the proper balance and spatialization appropriate for the reproduction device and the number of transducers. For example, with a Dolby Atmos enabled up-firing soundbar it should project the net sounds above the listener.

The wide range of reproduction devices does not guarantee similar sound experience, but I would argue that just about anything is better than rear-mounted television speakers.

Hope is not a strategy; successful immersive sound is in the mix. 

Petaluma, Calif.— Point Source Audio (PSA), manufacturer of specialty sub-miniature body-worn style microphones, has launched Mic Finder, an interactive web-based tool designed to help sound teams—from TV to theatre—pinpoint specific mic elements and mic styles to suit applications from corporate presenters to rock n’ roll musicals to violin mic’ing.

Expanding beyond traditional lavalier and headset style microphones, recent advances in the company’s approach to body-worn mics include the patent-pending Confidence™Collection microphones highlighting built-in redundancy, and the EMBRACE™Collection of concealable microphones that are twice patented. The company emphasizes that these additions present a world of fresh possibilities when sound teams are challenged with unique requisites—from facial hair to drop hoop earrings—when fitting mics on actors or speakers.

The Mic Finder web tool is accessible online via desktop, tablet, and mobile devices. The tool presents a series of questions to narrow microphone choice and shares successful experiences from real-world examples that best match the users’ needs.

“What we’ve learned in working closely with our customers is that no two mic’ing situations are the same; the smallest variable can make one mic selection perfect in one situation, and a disaster in another,” said Yvonne Ho, sales and marketing VP for Point Source Audio.

Users looking for the right microphone simply select the relevant application with various considerations from Mic Finder’s menu settings. Product recommendations are then presented along with customer use cases including:

• Mics that hide
• Mics that survive heavy water/sweat
• Mics for fast-moving musical theatre
• Mics for preaching
• Mics that fight feedback
• Mics that shape and bend
• Mics that accept custom color
• Mics for bearded performers
• Mics that backup themselves

Besides finding the right microphone performance features, sound teams must also battle variables such as costuming, concealment, venue size, loudspeaker placement, vocal projection, and more. Ho explained with examples: “We get questions routinely on how to head mic an actor with no hair, or one who sweats heavily, or sometimes both at the same time.”

The novice sound person can learn about mic choice with consideration for speaking or singing, whereas those new to Point Source Audio mics can discover unconventional mic’ing possibilities including how EMBRACE microphones can be used for violinists or boom headsets for flutists doubling on several instruments in one performance.

The company expects to continue expanding the tool with new products and technology solutions alongside noteworthy applications in real-world environments. To access Mic Finder, visit www.point-sourceaudio.com/mic-finder

About Point Source Audio

Point Source Audio (@PSA_audio) manufactures and distributes worldwide their SERIES8, EMBRACE, and CONFIDENCE collection of miniature microphones—a unique line of headset, earworn and earmounted microphones known for their robust bendable boom and waterproof features. The company also holds two patents for the EMBRACE concealable microphone as well as the patent for the world’s first modular in-ear comms headset that is supporting the hearing health for audio, lighting and camera techs using headsets everywhere from sports to space. Founded in 2004, Point Source Audio is headquartered in Petaluma, Calif. For more information call (415) 226-1122 or visit www.point-sourceaudio.com. Follow the company on Twitter at www.twitter.com/PSA_audio.

Few shows have captured the imagination in recent years quite like “Killing Eve.” And that’s saying something, given the golden age the TV world has been enjoying for the past decade or so. In an era where blockbusting budgets, A-list casts and CGI extravagance have become commonplace on the small screen, the first half of 2019 has already treated TV audiences to new seasons of “Game Of Thrones,” “Stranger Things,” “Big Little Lies,” “Jessica Jones,” “Black Mirror,” “Good Omens,” “Catch-22” and “Chernobyl” to name but a few.

All of which makes the success of “Killing Eve” all the more remarkable. In essence, it’s a show that has taken the fundamental principles of great storytelling—impeccable writing, endearing characters and peerless performances—and subverted them to create something that is not only unique in today’s TV landscape, but can also be seen, and indeed heard, over the squall of fire-breathing dragons, explosive special effects and Hollywood sheen emanating from the competition.

Like the first season in 2018, the second season of “Killing Eve,” which concludes in the U.K. at the end of July, has drawn plaudits from across the globe, scooping numerous awards and proving a major hit once again with the public. For the uninitiated, the show is based around the relationship between British Intelligence investigator Eve Polastri (Sandra Oh) and Russian assassin Villanelle (Jodie Comer) and takes place across an array of glamorous European city locations.

And while plaudits from across the globe have been bestowed upon “Killing Eve’s” writing team and its star turns from Oh and Comer—the show won BAFTAs for Best Actress (Comer), Best Supporting Actress (Fiona Shaw) and Best Drama Series—equally crucial to its success is the work of its sound production crew. In April of this year, “Killing Eve” was announced as the winner of the sixth annual AMPS (Association of Motion Picture Sound) awards for excellence in sound for a television drama, which recognize the importance of “clear dialogue and impressively crafted sound in any feature film or television drama.”

According to location sound mixer Steven Phillips, “Killing Eve’s” second outing was all about refining the process, as opposed to any major upscaling on the work carried out in season one.

“We had to accommodate the fact that the first series was so successful, which made shooting on the streets difficult; ADs had to mask out paparazzi or people walking down the street so they can’t interfere with the shoot or see spoilers,” he explains. “Everyone knows the cast now and we don’t want to hear people walking past and saying ‘oh wow, it’s her off ‘Killing Eve.’”

For Phillips, the key challenges with location mixing on the show remain the same—battling with the bustling sound of the busy city locations and clearly capturing dialogue.

“Sometimes it feels like trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear because we film in some especially noisy locations, like London, Rome, Paris and Bucharest,” he continues.

“When you see cities on screen you have to hear it too, but not too loudly, so we have to get rid of most of it and provide the post production team with as clean a dialogue track as possible, then they can cut the sound to the picture wherever they want. One of our tricks is to put up an atmos mic, so we can provide a clean track of traffic background or an aircraft going across. We capture all that out of the ordinary sound so that we have a clean effects track that can be put underneath. This way we can keep that atmospheric sound without making a big thing of it. This really helps the guys in post production.

“We also shoot a lot of two-camera stuff, but we have limited shooting time, so sometimes we are forced to shoot ‘tight and wide’ (the camera teams might film with 135 or 180 and 50 or 25 mm lenses at the same time). This means we can’t get anywhere near the actors for the tight shots, so we radio mic everyone. Radio mics have their own challenges and on ‘Killing Eve’ some of the costumes are really noisy or tight-fitting, so hiding the mic pack can prove difficult. Villanelle is famous for her costumes and in the first series I had second assistants working exclusively with the costume department and cast to figure out where to put mics, with some being sewn into the outfits or placed in the cast member’s hair.”

The show’s international feel poses different yet equally difficult challenges for supervising sound editor and dialogue editor Tom Williams, whose role entails editing all location sound and recording and editing all ADR and crowd sound.

“My biggest challenge is the multi-lingual main cast and loop group,” he says. “I was working with a voice coach in ADR to get the pronunciation right, while still trying to preserve the magic of the performance. The female prison scene was fun, with six hyped-up Russian ladies in the studio! Preserving the dramatic scenes (the episode one hospital murders are brutal) is very important, while also adding humour where possible. For example, Villanelle loved her food and we reflected this with exaggerated eating Foley. This was straight off the bat with the first ice cream scene. Historically you don’t see assassins eating much!”

With such a variety of contrasting locations in which to shoot, one of the most vital tasks for the sound crew was achieving consistency. And, as re-recording mixer Nigel Heath explains, it was crucial that the show’s audio component was not only even from scene to scene but from series to series. “The second season was very much a continuation of the first,” Heath elaborates. “With a much publicized new writer on board, I was mindful of the potential for critics to compare the second season to the first, so I worked hard to ensure sonic consistency so the ‘box set’ audience would feel it just as a continuation.”

Heath also highlights the soundtrack as one of the key elements to the show’s success: “I work in conjunction with my amazing assistant (now co-mixer, Brad Rees), and my job is to blend together all the incoming ingredients from the various sound editors involved in the project, dialogue, sound effects and sound design, Foley and, of course, music. The producers and directors had a clear idea of what they wanted to achieve with the soundtrack from the start, and the styling was soon ‘solidified’ during the post production of series one episode one. The score was by David Holmes and Keefus Ciancia and, together with music supervisor Katherine Grieves, they loaded the show with awesome sounds.”

Though delighted to see the bar being raised in the realm of TV sound production, Heath does express a slight concern with the fact that the great work being done behind the scenes may be lost on those consuming shows through less than ideal audio platforms, such as flatscreen TVs and mobile devices.

“It’s great to see more ‘near feature film’ values appearing in TV work when it comes to sound,” he continues. “But I worry that sometimes it’s easy to forget that most punters hear it on very basic kit in a non-ideal domestic listening environment. To me it’s slightly ironic that as methods of sound acquisition and distribution have improved, an increasing number of devices used for the actual reproduction of said sound have become less sonically satisfactory.”

However, in spite of the dichotomy between premium audio and far from premium listening devices, sound effects editor/designer Darren Banks, insists there is no room for anything other than the very highest production values in television today.

“The standard of TV drama sound is rising all the time,” Banks says. “The line between a high-end drama soundtrack and movie soundtrack has become increasingly blurred in regards to quality and content in the last few years. Alongside that, viewers’ expectations have also risen, and so has the scrutiny.”

For Philips, the increased scrutiny and closing of the gap between film and TV sound is a testament to the great work being done not just on “Killing Eve” but across the medium as a whole.

“Everything on TV is driven by what’s done in film,” he states. “It’s just that we have less time. The number of radio mics used, along with the multi-track machines and multiple headsets handed out to production now is an indicator of how important sound has become. In the ‘90s, a TV drama might have had a sound crew with two people, now it’s three or four trained crew. The gap between TV and film is severely narrowed now. The budgets and timeframes aren’t as big, but we use pretty much identical kits.”

With a third season already in the pipeline, the team is already relishing the prospect of reconvening and discovering where “Killing Eve” can be taken next.

“On the second series, nearly everyone came back, and across the board it was a really nice atmosphere,” Phillips concludes. “We had a good dialogue with the editors and production, they were supportive and it’s not always the case that you get that level of support and understanding from a production. We were working as part of a bigger team where everyone was trying to help each other. That’s why it was wonderful to win the AMPS award and I’m thankful and honored that the work of the entire sound team has been recognized.”