Reimagining Crowd Mics for Broadcast with the DCA901 

Key Takeaways

• Broadcast mixer Matt Manix used the DCA901 broadcast microphone array to capture audience response at large-scale live events while reducing the number of crowd microphones required.
• Steerable coverage allows engineers to adjust crowd pickup zones in software, eliminating many of the placement and repositioning challenges associated with traditional audience microphones.
• The DCA901 enables flexible audience capture for concerts, festivals, arenas, stadiums, and surround-sound productions by directing lobes toward specific audience sections.
• By replacing large numbers of conventional crowd microphones with a smaller number of arrays, productions can reduce setup complexity, labor requirements, and deployment time.
• According to Manix, the DCA901 delivers the sound quality required for professional broadcast mixing while making audience and crowd capture significantly easier to manage. 

For broadcast music mixer Matt Manix, capturing a crowd on a large production can traditionally require 24 to 30 microphones and multiple A2s to set them up. With the DCA901 broadcast microphone array, he says one person can deploy two or three arrays to cover the same kind of space.

Once the show starts, he can also change where he’s listening from in software instead of sending someone out to reposition crowd mics. On a 16-hour production day, Matt says the difference can add up to thousands of dollars in labor costs. 

Audience Capture Shapes the Broadcast 

Matt owns Method Audio and is a broadcast music mixer whose work spans award shows, festivals, sports performances, and major televised events. At the 2026 March Madness Music Festival, Matt and his team used the DCA901 arrays as audience mics to capture crowd response while he mixed the performances from the broadcast truck.

For Matt, that crowd sound is essential. “Our job as broadcast mixers is to bring the live event into someone’s home,” he says.

The audience gives a broadcast its energy and scale. Capturing that sound means working around PA, lighting, staging, cable paths, and cameras. Every conventional audience mic needs a physical position, and the position you want isn’t always available.

“The fewer things that someone’s going to see on camera, the better,” Matt says. 

Steer Audience Coverage Without Moving a Mic 

Matt typically deploys the DCA901s stage left and stage right, away from the PA pattern and out of camera shots. From those positions, he can steer pickup toward different parts of the crowd.

“With the DCA901, I’m picking one spot and being able to steer into multiple different directions,” he says. 

At concerts, he often focuses several lobes on the first seven or eight rows. Those tend to be the fans who arrived early, know the songs, and react the loudest. In a stadium, additional lobes can cover the lower seating level and farther sections of the venue.

For surround productions, Matt has also deployed arrays around the front of house or mid-venue sections and aimed pickup toward the rear audience to help build the back of the sound field.

Despite the different technology, the approach is similar. Matt treats the lobes much like traditional audience mic pickup patterns, choosing narrower or wider coverage depending on what he wants to hear.

That coverage can also change with the show. At a festival, the first few acts may have a relatively small crowd near the stage. By the time the headliner comes on, the audience may be significantly larger. Rather than moving mics as the crowd grows, Matt can adjust the pickup zone in the software.  

Steering also helps when the production creates a dead spot. Subs, front fills, lighting, and set pieces can leave gaps between conventional crowd mics. Instead of finding another place for another mic, Matt can point a lobe toward the section he wants.

He says a change that might otherwise mean “maybe an hour” of moving 20 microphones can be handled in software in seconds or minutes. 

Sound Quality Comes First 

Even with all of the workflow benefits, Matt’s first requirement is simple. “They sound great. So that’s why I’m going to grab them first,” he says. As Matt puts it, “If it didn’t sound good, we wouldn’t use them no matter how cool the technology was.”

For Matt, DCA901 hasn’t changed the sound he’s trying to achieve. It has changed how easily he can get there. He says he hasn’t heard a degradation compared with the larger multi-mic setups he used before.

“It seems to be about the same sound quality, but it’s just easier to get,” Matt says.

Fewer Crowd Mics Change the Production Math

That “easier to get” audience sound can also change the labor required to capture it.

“We can have one person deploy two or three DCA901s for the same space where we’d put 24 or 30 mics out,” Matt says. “That saves the production quite a bit of cost.”

On a 16-hour production day, he says that labor savings can add up to thousands of dollars.

Matt still supplements the DCA901s with other audience mics when it makes sense, particularly when he can get a smaller mic closer to the crowd or needs to keep hardware out of a shot.  

He has used DCA901 across theaters, arenas, and outdoor productions, from roughly 3,000-seat venues to festivals with tens of thousands of people. 

His Advice to Another A1: Try It in Your Workflow 

For Matt, the best way to understand DCA901 is to hear what it can do in a real production.

He recommends spending time with the software, thinking carefully about where the arrays will be deployed and deciding which parts of the audience you want to capture. He recommends that engineers get hands-on with a pair, whether through a demo or rental, and evaluate them in the environment where you’ll actually use them.

“Think of them as if they were a traditional microphone with a certain pickup pattern and just point the lobe into that area,” Matt says. “You just try them. You have to get your hands on them and try them out.”  

Matt says he was up and running with the software in about 10 to 15 minutes.

See what DCA901 can do for your crowd mic and audience capture workflow. Contact us today. 

FAQ: DCA901 for Broadcast Crowd and Audience Capture

How is the DCA901 used for broadcast crowd capture? The DCA901 can be deployed as an audience microphone for broadcast, allowing A1s to capture crowd response from multiple sections of a venue without placing large numbers of individual crowd mics throughout the audience.

Can the DCA901 replace traditional crowd microphone deployments? According to broadcast mixer Matt Manix, a small number of DCA901 arrays can cover spaces that would traditionally require dozens of audience microphones, while also reducing deployment time and labor requirements.

How does steerable coverage help during a live event? Steerable lobes allow engineers to adjust audience pickup zones in software rather than physically moving microphones. This makes it easier to adapt to changing crowd sizes, venue layouts, and production requirements during an event.

What types of productions can benefit from the DCA901? In the article, the DCA901 was used across theaters, arenas, stadiums, concerts, festivals, and televised live events to capture audience reaction and crowd energy for broadcast audiences.

Does the DCA901 change how broadcast mixers approach audience capture? The overall goal remains the same: capturing crowd energy and audience response to make the viewer feel like they are in the environment. The key difference is that engineers can direct and adjust coverage through software, giving them greater flexibility when working around PA systems, staging, cameras, and other production constraints.