Mic choice in a stadium for crowd noise?

[Glacierjay]

I am doing a trailer for a feature and we are doing a shoot in a football stadium during a game.  Was wondering what mic or mics to use for crowd noise?  Stereo or Mono?  All answers will be greatly appreciated as this is my first "real" sound job!!

Thanks

Jay

[Philip Perkins]

Have you talked to your client about what they want/can use?  Stereo would be very nice in that situation if they can handle it.  The audio should be loud enough that even a low-end stereo one-point mic will work, with great detail and headroom to be had in higher end mics.  (Low-end, stereo mics that run on a single AA battery; high-end: Sanken, Neumann, Sennheiser stereo mics--rentable if you are in a big city).

Philip Perkins

[Glacierjay]

Hey Philip, thanks for the reply. I am looking at renting a Sanken CSS5. Have you had any expeience with this Mic.  I will be renting from TREW AUDIO so if Glen Trew would like to chime in it would be great.

[David Waelder]

I think that editors and post mixers are always delighted to get ambiance tracks in stereo. If you have such a mike in your kit, this would be the time to break it out.

But, truthfully, I recommend that you use whatever is already available in your kit. Almost any professional grade mike would be just fine. Cardioid would be better than shotgun because you probably don't want to be isolating voices; rather you probably want a sense of the whole. But, hey, if a shotgun is what you've got, just aim it in at a 45-degree angle and you'll get a good representation of the stands. If there's ample money in the equipment budget, then, by all means, rent a Sanken or Neumann stereo mike. But if funds are tight, rent what you need for the other scenes in the picture and use what you have for the ambiance.

When I do have some time to record ambiance, I first obtain about 20 or 30 seconds of overall tone from a distance or camera perspective. With that accomplished, I ask my boom operator to circulate among the crowd picking up snatches of different sounds from the participants so the audio slides from one detail to another. One thing or the other (or a combination of the two) is likely to serve post well.

David Waelder

[Don Barto]

Not that you should necessarily do this on your shoot....but just so you'll know, on televised football games the crowd pickup is very often done with a pair of medium shotgun mics mounted on a stereo bar fastened to the top of a 16-20' pole lashed to the railing at the first row of seats on the 50 yard line.  The mics get  phased usually across the field at the crowd on the other side of the stadium.  Big high profile pro games in surround may do something else, but the games I work on are mostly like that.  On the stereo bar, the two shotguns are phased straight out and parallel to each other (and parallel to the ground)...maybe to be more of a primary and a backup, than a stereo pair.  To hear this kind of micing, watch any college football game on TV.  Usually a lot of low end gets rolled off  at the console to minimize wind noise—the mics go up with just a very minimal (cheap) foam pop filter, and sometimes plastic sleeving if it looks like rain.  I've never had the opportunity, but I bet putting cardioids or hypercardioids into really good wind protection and recording them flat would sound great.  Micing the crowd from very far away with a narrow patterned mic is what people are used to hearing when they watch a televised football game, and it totally gets around the problem of hearing too much of individual people in the crowd.  But I'm sure other perspectives could be both interesting and useful.  The sound of the crowd is extremely loud...and so is the PA system usually!

[RPSharman]

My hope is that you would have ample opportunity to get crowd noise.  I agree with David that unless you are being paid well enough to rent a stereo mic, then using what you have is good.

Whenever I have crowd scenes, or am recording usable ambient noise for a big scene without worrying about dialog, I like to use matching mics in a crossing pattern whenever possible, simply recording each mic to its own track.  I take notes for the editor describing perspective and placement, and if I feel I have recorded it well once from a current perspective, I'll move the mics somewhere else.  For a big crowd, like a real stadium, I'd also try a pair of shotguns far away from the source and far away from each other but still crossing, and maybe a cardiod in the middle pointing straight in (if you have the extra track).

Have fun,

Robert

[soundtrane]

But if funds are tight, rent what you need for the other scenes in the picture and use what you have for the ambiance.

David Waelder

MKH418S with a dual Ph supply - don't record the S track when doing dialog, and you have a shotgun as well as an MS mic.

-vin

[André Boisvert]

MKH418S with a dual Ph supply - don't record the S track when doing dialog, and you have a shotgun as well as an MS mic.

-vin

Going a bit OT here, anybody know how a 418 in mono mode compares to a 416?

[chrisnewton]

Hi Jay, If it's not sync sound you're looking for, how about a Zoom H2 or H4? They're very inexpensive (200 - 400 bucks) and have built-in stereo mics. Use your regular mics for the rest of the show. If you buy one of the zooms (or other make of handy recorder) you can always use it afterwards for transcription/backup/fun recording. I got some good results for crowds at a big soccer match recently. With loud crowd sounds you get at big sporting events these recorders work great. Have fun whatever you do.

Cheers, Chris Newton 

[Glacierjay]

Thanks for all the replies but I just found out I got bumped because only four people will be allowed on the field and sound is the first to go.  Not sure what they will be doing for sound now but all your replies will help me on later jobs. (Sound just not as important as the producer going on the field!)

Thanks

Jay

[Eric Toline]

Thanks for all the replies but I just found out I got bumped because only four people will be allowed on the film and sound is the first to go.  Not sure what they will be doing for sound now but all your replies will help me on later jobs. (Sound just not as important as the producer going on the field!)

Thanks

Jay

I think you meant field and not film?

Eric

[studiomprd]

For radio, we hang a mic out of the booth, usually an omni, like a 635; it is a suppliment to any EFX feed we may get from TV as well as plan B if we don't get a feed, or have a problem with it.

When we did the 22 channel sound for NHK's experimental ultra HD (shown at NAB 007), we had Schoeps's all over the stadium, including some on improvised "trees" with 5 mic's on them.

For TV sound, depending on the size of the broadcast, we do one to four pairs, usually about as already described, pointing across to the other side of the field, but the crowd is plenty loud, and so the crowd behind the mics is in there, too!

on sitcoms we mic the audience with  cardioid's above the audience, alternating the panning L-R-L-R ... along the length of the bleachers.  Sometimes we do that across the stadium, too.

[randythom]

Hi, Jay!

This was to be your first gig, and your question is typical of a "about to do my first gig" kind of a guy.

The question is equipment-centric.  "What kind of mic should I use?"  David properly switches the subject to some degree away from the gear itself to the more important question of WHAT THE GEAR SHOULD BE AIMED AT.  Figuring out what to record should always precede and shape the decision of what equipment to use.  I'm often asked "What mic should I use to record a car?"  At least ten questions should come before the "what kind of mic" question.  In our gear crazed world, the assumption is too often that the main thing that matters is what tool to use.  In reality, figuring out WHAT TO RECORD at the football game is 100 times more important to the artistic success of the enterprise than figuring out what equipment to use.

Randy