Audio-Technica y Allen & Heath captan el ambiente sonoro de los Campeonatos Mundiales de Esquí Alpino

Audio-Technica provided the entire ambient microphone system for the 2025 Alpine World Ski Championships held in Saalbach Hinterglemm. The company TV Skyline, based in Mainz, was contracted by the Austrian public broadcaster ORF to produce international television sound.

For the production, Audio-Technica microphones were used in locations such as the Starter’s House, the track and the stadium using lapel, shotgun and boundary mics as needed to capture the atmosphere of the race and put spectators at the center of the action.

Chosen for their discreet design and sound performance, omnidirectional subminiature lavalier microphones BP899 and surface microphones U851R They were placed in the Starter's House to capture highly detailed sound without being visible. Custom windscreens were used for the U851Rs to capture the best possible sound without impact or wind noise. In the stadium, high-resolution sound imaging was achieved using directional shotgun microphones, including models BP4073, BP4071L (long) and BP4029 (stereo), ensuring that the television audience was completely immersed in the atmosphere of the race.

Given the nature of the 2025 Alpine World Ski Championships, one of the main challenges of the audio broadcast was capture the audio of the athletes themselves. Parabolic reflectors equipped with Audio-Technica cardioid condenser microphones were used ES933 low profile in the jump zones, supported by sound technicians to perfectly capture both the noise of the wind in the air and the jump. A specially developed microphone was also used, based on the BP899, integrated into competitors' helmets, tuned for frequency and level response, and similar to helmet microphones used in MotoGP motorcycle racing.

Allen & Heath dLive para la premezcla

Race start times were arranged so that competitors would start while the previous runner was still on the track, and the main control room would always follow the previous competitor until he crossed the finish line.

Por ello, se habilitó una sala de control independiente para la mezcla de la parte superior de la pista, equipada con soluciones de mezcla de Allen & Heath. Una consola dLive S5000 with a MixRack DM0 were integrated into the audio infrastructure using MADI and Dante, using a Dante interface 128 x 128 and a sMADI interface card. Four DT168 stageboxes located at the top of the track captured the ambient microphones and sent them to the Dante network. In this way, the upper part of the course could be pre-mixed to perfection until the main control room took over and followed the runners to the finish line.

Robert Little, CEO of TV Skyline, comments that "the effort we put into miking the track with Audio-Technica microphones paid off in the form of excellent sound. Spectators were able to enjoy the Championships via the television broadcast as if they were in the stadium or on the track. Audio-Technica was able to meet the enormous material requirements in the shortest possible time and provide a complete microphone. The clever use of technology by the TV Skyline team, together with the innovative solutions of Audio-Technica ensured an impressive sound background.”