LOS ANGELES—In the absence of fans at sports events over the last year, Fred Volger launched Sonofans, an immersive sports crowd performance system designed to help broadcasters replicate crowd noise. To do so, the Sonofans sound library used recordings captured by DPA microphones.
Sonofans’ library of crowd reactions have been curated from events over the last 15 years, recorded by DPA’s 4091 Omni Condenser Mic, 4560 Binaural Mic and MMA-A Digital Audio Interface. Volger had these recordings from previous recordings of USC football games in the mid 2000s.
During the pandemic, Volger has supplied those audio files to professional and collegiate baseball, soccer, boxing, football, basketball and bowling broadcasts on U.S. sports networks.
For some of the sports—i.e., boxing and bowling—Volger recorded new sounds at places like a park or a big box store, particularly using the 4560 Binaural Microphone and MMA-A Digital Audio Interface. Some of these recordings were also blended into sounds for football or baseball.
“It works great for creating the authenticity and realism of a crowd,” Volger said.
