Thundering Hooves Get the Immersive-Sound Treatment

Wireless mics get closer to the equestrian action, changing workflow in the process

Qualification tournaments for the 2024 Summer Olympics have been ongoing for months for the staples like swimming, track, and gymnastics — and for the three equestrian disciplines. That process has been part of a five-week series of high-level international events at Spruce Meadows in Calgary, AB, culminating in the Masters Tournament final in September.

It’s a high-stakes series (with a total purse of more than C$4 million, the Masters is the richest show-jumping event in the world) and not surprisingly, gets a lot of coverage. Beginning before the competitions, 13 weeks of live and clip shows are carried by Rogers Sportsnet Canada (the full season) and Sky Germany, with highlight shows on Sky UK and ESPN in the U.S. and streaming on ClipMyHorse.com and the official Spruce Meadows livestream.

A Q5X PlayerMic transmitter is implemented in a bouquet at a fence in the equestrian jumping competition at Spruce Meadows.

As with mainstream sports, coverage of equestrian competitions is moving to an immersive-sound model, with producers using close-up sound to give viewers an on-the-field perspective. For the first time, on the entire competition arena at Spruce Meadows, an area roughly equivalent to two football gridirons, effects audio is captured wirelessly, which allows microphones to be placed closer than ever to the jumps.

That’s being accomplished by production company Outside Broadcast Canada (OBC) and contractor RF Wireless (RFW), which deployed and manages 14 Q5X PlayerMics at the jump points. Eliminating wired microphones has enabled more microphones to be deployed closer to the action than in previous years, and the video production is cleaner because A2s are not constantly on the field moving wired shotgun mics around. Instead, the PlayerMic transmitters are fitted with Sennheiser MKE 2 sub-miniature omni-directional lavalier capsules and concealed in the jump obstacles, such as in floral bouquets next to the jump fences.

“The use of the [PlayerMic] has been a game-changer,” says Ben Boriss, VP, production, RFW. “The absence of cabling, coupled with zero battery changes and remote controllability, has allowed them to capture immersive audio with zero visual and physical interruption to the field of play during competition. It’s an example of how another sport is bringing viewers ever closer to the action.”

Ahead of this year’s competitions, Spruce Meadows had asked that a way be found to streamline the look of the events, with the goal of improving coverage and being less intrusive on the field of play but to do so cost-effectively. Outside Broadcast Canada President Bruce Elder saw the opportunity to do that via audio.

Outside Broadcast Canada’s Bruce Elder: ““Before, if you were watching the event on television or streamed, you had to imagine a lot of the effects sounds. Now you’re hearing them for real.”

“By utilizing the wireless microphones on all jumps on the international ring,” he says, “we have been able to provide the client with an extremely clean look and a significantly improved effects-audio mix. There are no longer audio personnel with long shotgun mics on course attempting to hide from cameras and competitors. We have created a submix position with a Midas 32 [audio-mix] console and a MADI connection to the Calrec console aboard the primary Dome Productions mobile unit. That submix position is also home to all RF microphone receivers and IFB transmitters. Our client and the networks airing these productions have been thrilled with the results.”

That submix is managed by effects mixer Trevor Senger, who notes, besides a cleaner-looking production, the additional benefit of more-intimate sound. “The ability to control the transmitters remotely has dramatically reduced our visual impact on the course. Personally, I’ve enjoyed being able to instantly adjust frequency, mic gain, and transmitting power from my submix position. Very rarely do we have to send a technician onto the field of play, and simply recharging batteries at night or between jumping events if the day is running long is all that is needed.”

Audio Enhances Enjoyment of the Sport

Elder sees the sheer amount of sound, as well as the nature of it, as game-changing for the sport. “We’re hearing not only the sounds of the hooves hitting the ground on jumps but also the sound of the front of the hoof just barely touching the top rail of the jump, the breathing of the horse and the rider mid-jump, and the splash of the water jump.” The array of new sounds, he notes, includes the characteristic lip-fluttering raspberry horses often make.

Wireless mics offer several new advantages over the sport’s earlier workflows. For instance, A2s can quickly reset the microphones if the wind changes, eliminating the need to add physical wind filters or implement a low-pass filter on a mic channel that’s suddenly windward-facing. Even the submix position itself is new, allowing A1 Dave Anson to focus on crowd sound, EVS replays, music, and other audio sources while Senger concentrates on the FX audio.

(In fact, Elder points out, the notion of a separate submix for effects is still a rarity in Canadian sports broadcasts, even for mainstream sports, because of lower, advertising-constrained production budgets: “The submixer concept hasn’t quite made it up to Canada yet. So every day is a big day for the A1.”)

“Before,” Elder says, “if you were watching the event on television or streamed, you had to imagine a lot of the effects sounds. Now you’re hearing them for real, and they sound great.”

RFW has deployed the PlayerMics for back-country snowboarding and mountain-biking competition broadcasts and will also provide Sony 2400 wireless handheld cameras for the Masters Tournament at Spruce Meadows. But Boriss considers wireless sound particularly beneficial for horse-jumping coverage.

“Although [the Q5X is] designed for and typically worn by people,” he says, “when OBC approached us about transitioning to a fully wireless solution for their show-jumping broadcast, we figured the Q5X product would be a perfect fit. It has allowed them to push the boundaries of what would be possible in a traditional effects-audio approach using cabled mics and camera mics [but] without interruption to the field of play. We are excited about how it has turned out and are looking forward to continuing to challenge the norm.”