Anatomy of a Broadcast Mix - Eurosport World Cup

Working on the Soccer World Cup can be a bit crazy at times. We’re over in South Africa with Eurosport and with a team of about 40 people there are over eight different languages spoken.

Mixing a live broadcast with a comms feed in one ear, the studio in the other, taking your cues in French, German, Dutch, English and African is a good exercise in concentration.

At first glance, you’d think that mixing 3 or 4 lapel mics, remote crosses and replays would be really simple, hardly even requiring any sort of dedicated sound mix really, but when you sit back and look at the whole picture, you realise that things build up, and the complexity level is far beyond what you see at first.

This article ‘pulls apart’ the sound mix setup for the Eurosport World Cup studio feed and we’ll go through each of the terms and techniques that you may not understand or have come across before. Whether or not you ever have to use these, it’s a look in, an understanding of something new.

The Big Picture

Let’s start at the top and drill our way down.

We have 16 inputs as follows:
Ch 1-4 Studio lapel mics.
Ch 5-8 EVS or video replay machines, (2 x stereo machines).
Ch 9-12 Audio feeds from Paris (2 x stereo feeds)
Ch 13 Audio feeds from remote reporters and live crosses.
Ch 14 Audio feed from the Skype computer
Ch 15-16 Duplicated feed from Paris.

We have 14 outputs as follows.
1-4 Full program or ‘mixed’ output (2 x stereo pairs one is a backup)
5-6 IFB aux feeds to the presenters (Post Fade)
7 Program aux feed to comms (Post Fade)
8 Program aux feed to vision and graphics operators (Post Fade)
9 Program aux feed to studio floor speakers (Post Fade)
10 Mix minus aux feed to remote (Post Fade)
11 Mix minus aux feed to Skype (Post Fade)
12 ‘Pre Hear’ aux feed to director/Producer (Pre Fade)
13-14 Monitor mix for me.

In more Detail

Input Sources:

Ch 1-4: The studio mic inputs are mostly lapel mics, though at times we use handheld mics if they want to see the Eurosport logo on the mic cover. We do a couple of ‘stand ups’ which are just very short pieces to camera outside in the sun, and for this we use the handhelds due to the high level of ambient noise, including the now famous vuvuzelas!

Ch 5-8: EVS (or LSM) is ‘instant tapeless technology’. These machines can simultaneously ingest and playback video, they are the source for slow motion and instant replays as well as highlight packages and presentations. We are using two machines for the World Cup and I receive a stereo feed from each.

Ch 9-12: The feeds from Paris are for a couple of purposes. One is so that we can see what is coming off-air, to see how it looks and sounds from the broadcaster, some of the highlight packages and replays come direct from Paris into our studio, and for some programs we are live as a part of the show being broadcast in Paris, as a guest on talk shows etc.

Ch13: The remote feeds and crosses come in from reporters in other locations such as Durban and Capetown, much the same as when they cross to a reporter for the weather in the nightly news.

Ch 14: The Skype feed is exactly what you’d expect, the show takes calls from Europe live on Skype so that people can ask questions to the experts panel in the studio.

Ch15-16: The duplicated Paris feed is so that when the presenter needs to hear what is coming from Paris but we don’t want it to go out to air, I can feed it into his earpiece or the studio speakers quietly and nowhere else. It’s simply a copy of Ch9-10, however it doesn’t go to the stereo out bus, just the auxiliary busses.

Output Sources:

1-4: There are two full program outputs, one goes to air, the other is for redundancy. You don’t want to lose your show when you’re live, and things do go wrong, so there is always a full duplicate mix both vision and audio being sent to Paris on a second fibre.

5-6: There are two IFB (Interruptible FoldBack) sends. These are the sends that go to the hosts earpieces. They carry the Paris, EVS and remote feeds. It’s ‘Interruptible’ because the aux send from the audio console goes into the comms matrix. This means that the producer or director (or whoever else has a key on their comms panel for the IFB) can interrupt the send by talking to the host. When they press their comms key for IFB, the audio mix is ‘ducked’ or turned down by a preset amount so they can talk over it to give the host directions.

7: Program feed to Comms. This is a full mix of the show sent to the comms matrix so that it can be fed to camera operators headsets, technical directors comms panel etc.

8: Program feed to vision and graphics. This is also a full mix, however the hosts and guests mics are louder in proportion so that they know exactly where they are up to in the show.

9: Program feed to studio floor speakers. The speaker in the studio is fed all the replays and packages. This is so all those in the studio can hear the replays and commercial breaks. Mics are not sent to avoid feedback.

10: Mix minus to remote. This is a full mix of the program ‘minus’ the remote location channel. When we cross say to a reporter in Durban, he needs to hear the program, so he knows where the show is up to, and when they are about to cross to him for his report. Of course, if he also received his own channel back into his ear, not only would it be confusing, but it could well result in feedback, so it’s a complete mix “minus” his own voice. This feed goes via the comms matrix too, so the producer can talk to him before we put him to air.

11: Mix minus to Skype. As above, but sending to the Skype computer.

12: Pre Hear send. This is very simply a pre-fade send of the hosts mic from the audio console into the comms matrix. This means that even when I have the hosts fader down, during commercial breaks and the like, the producer can still talk to him on his IFB and hear him via the Pre Hear key on the comms panel.

13-14: Monitor mix for me, full program of course.

So that is the nuts and bolts of the inputs and outputs.

It’s all being handled on a Yamaha 01V96;.