Telling Stories: How Podcast Pushing Faders is Giving a Voice to the Sports Broadcasting Audio Community

2024 marks the twentieth anniversary of when the podcast was first created, and in the present day there isn’t a restrict to what you’ll be able to hearken to. With greater than three million podcasts out there to obtain, over 500 million listeners are getting their information, true crime and comedy repair direct from the cloud. Punters are spoiled for selection, however you’ll be able to rely the variety of podcasts devoted to broadcast audio mixing on the fingers of two fingers.
Chris Eckford’s Pushing Faders, purchased to listeners in affiliation with SVG Europe Audio, is one in every of them. (The different is the Idle Hands podcast which high Canadian A1 Andrew Stoakley recorded through the pandemic, chatting with sound supervisors working throughout a variety of sports activities within the US and Canada. Also, Eckford featured within the collection’ solely UK episode.)
Read extra SVG Europe Audio joins forces with audio broadcast podcast Pushing Faders
Podcasts are the apparent medium for individuals who work in sound, however not for the rationale you would possibly assume. An skilled sound supervisor who has been freelancing since 2019, Eckford spends plenty of his working life in a automobile, travelling to jobs and pulling into motorway service stations. These are the proper time to compensate for podcasts, and he reckons the identical is true of his fellow freelancers, and why when he’s chatting with them for Pushing Faders he usually asks what their favorite service station is.
“I’ve had suggestions from listeners that say listening to the podcast is like having the individuals in within the automobile with you, however that’s the place that query comes from!” says Eckford. “When you’re working in outdoors broadcasting, you’re all the time having to cease someplace for a espresso since you’re in the course of a 4 hour drive; it occurs so much!”
All about teamwork
Eckford is speaking in regards to the military of freelance engineers, sound supervisors, ensures and A2s that he works with “in a carpark” on broadcast jobs, and it was whereas working on the Women’s World Cup 2023 in Australia that he thought it might be good factor to present all these individuals a voice.
Because in the identical means that soccer groups pull collectively in pursuit of a standard objective – pun fully supposed – the identical is true of the a whole lot of people that come collectively to supply protection for viewers at house. While each may need a singular speciality, they’re all striving to create the identical factor. It’s completely a group effort.
“The authentic idea was to make it very job particular and to function the vary of people that contribute to the evolution of soccer protection,” says Eckford. “It was solely 30 years in the past that soccer protection was all mono, and it has rapidly moved by way of stereo, 5.1 encompass, and now immersive. I used to be eager to speak with all of the those who have performed an element in how sports activities audio protection has developed.
“I’ve interviewed individuals like Ian Rosam and Robert Edwards about how they created the sound for the Premier League and the World Cup, however I’ve additionally spoken with individuals like Henry Goodman at Calrec, Nevile Hooper at NEP, and Mick Dwyer who was with Dolby for a few years. All these individuals come from fairly totally different backgrounds, however their careers are all intertwined with one another and play essential roles on this evolution.”
Learning on the job
Eckford is aware of all about this evolution. In addition to managing the sound on the Women’s World Cup, he has coated the World Cup, the Euros, and Premiership soccer for Sky, in addition to a number of different sports activities. But his thought to present a voice to individuals in that wider soccer audio ecosystem rapidly developed into one thing else, tied into his personal expertise of studying on the job.

“The first time I combined soccer for Sky I took images of the desk settings as a result of I’d by no means formally discovered combine soccer. But speaking to Ian Rosam about why the assault time for the compressors on the ball kicks is 45 milliseconds was a Eureka second; I knew that Sky did it that means as a result of it was a set vary on the desk, however I by no means considered why it was like that and that anyone had discovered that the size of a ball kick is 45 milliseconds”

Growing up in Barnsley in South Yorkshire, Eckford first acquired into audio with a BTEC in Music Technology and inside a number of years was growing his abilities in probably the most Yorkshire of how.
“I began an organization recording brass bands and choirs; there are plenty of them in Yorkshire,” he laughs, “however in 2010 a household good friend advised me a few trainee sound engineer place at Televideo in Sheffield. Within a 12 months I used to be mixing easy soccer and four-camera rugby jobs, and I used to be made head of sound inside about three years.
“Some of the perfect sound assistants I do know have come out of Televideo as a result of we had been engaged on jobs the place we would’ve been the one sound help, however there have been 5 positions to rig; you change into good at discovering your means round. I used to be mixing and guaranteeing on the identical time, and being thrown on the deep finish means you grew to become very resilient.”

Chris Eckford [right] with freelance OB sound supervisor and assure engineer, Bob Stephens in Qatar on the Men’s World Cup 2022

Adapting the strategy

The lack of formal coaching programs for broadcast audio will not be unusual. Consequently, most of Eckford’s coaching was on the job. It taught him that totally different sports activities require totally different setups, workflows and necessities, and the shortage of coaching meant that the most typical approach to get began was to inherit what has gone earlier than.
It is one thing that also impacts the trade in the present day, and one of many outcomes of the Pushing Faders collection has been to demystify among the approaches which sound supervisors apply when approaching a specific sport.
“Pushing Faders began as one idea, however then it developed after I realised that it may’t be that particular,” explains Eckford. “Most of the sound supervisors I’ve spoken to have discovered on the job in an analogous means as I did, however they’ve tweaked what they’ve discovered to enhance the output. We’ve all developed our roles by studying one thing new, or making a mistake, or being compelled right into a change which seems to be helpful.
“The first time I combined soccer for Sky I took images of the desk settings as a result of I’d by no means formally discovered combine soccer. But speaking to Ian Rosam about why the assault time for the compressors on the ball kicks is 45 milliseconds was a Eureka second; I knew that Sky did it that means as a result of it was a set vary on the desk, however I by no means considered why it was like that and that anyone had discovered that the size of a ball kick is 45 milliseconds.
“At first I did marvel if individuals would need to speak about how they work or whether or not it might really feel like they had been giving freely the keys to their kingdom, however each particular person I’ve requested to return on the podcast has been lifeless up for it.”
Whims of the occasion
Another profit has been discovering out how individuals have needed to modify the best way they work, as a result of even in sports activities the place settings are standardised or copied from a earlier desk reminiscence, there are all the time changes to make and new issues to study.
Eckford says: “In sports activities, you’re all the time on the management and the whims of the occasion. At the World Cup we’ve a predetermined microphone diagram, with secondary positions if it doesn’t work at a specific venue, however there have been nonetheless a few grounds which didn’t work for any of the designated positions. Even when you might have a transparent thought as to what you need to do, you continue to need to make it work when it doesn’t.
“In the podcast with Lynn Munro about how she mixes Wimbledon, she was explaining that she couldn’t get precisely need she needed due to promoting and the truth that the Rycote windshields having to be a particular shade of inexperienced to slot in. It’s much like soccer the place your mics across the pitch could be affected in the event that they’re within the flawed place and blocking the promoting boards.”
Future plans
As effectively as pursuing its authentic agenda to highlight the people who contribute to the top outcome, Eckford is eager to open the door to find out how extra individuals are mixing sure sports activities: “I’d like to speak to the individuals who combined the dwell Squid Games, primarily as a result of it had round 400 radio mic channels recording to time code and I’d like to understand how that was all managed. I’m making an attempt to get the one who mixes the UFC, in addition to the one who mixes the Super Bowl as a result of I’m such a giant fan of the NFL!
“I don’t know what number of non-sound have listened to it, however I’d like to get some suggestions from any that do to search out out what they’ve taken from it and what they assume we do. Just a few weeks in the past I used to be speaking to a digital camera operator I’ve identified for fairly a number of years, and he had listened to the podcast and mentioned it now “is sensible why you do all these things that you simply do”! It provides non-audio individuals within the manufacturing chain extra empathy and understanding about what sound is about.
“And it’s additionally been good to study individuals’s careers quite than simply speaking to them in passing in a carpark.”
Pushing Faders is now purchased to listeners in affiliation with SVG Europe Audio. Eckford commented on the affiliation with SVG Europe: “I’m very blissful to have SVG Europe onboard with Pushing Faders. Having the backing of such an important trade useful resource exhibits that individuals are eager about what the friends of the podcast need to say, and hopefully it should change into a good way of sharing data and data all through the trade.”
Pushing Faders is out there on all the same old