The History Of Sound Shark Audio

Sound Shark Audio is the consumer products division of Klover Products, Inc. Klover Products was incorporated in March of 2012 in order to produce parabolic microphones for Fox Sports to use on the sidelines of NFL and college football games. The photo below shows the prototype the very first prototype parabolic microphone built for Fox on the sidelines of the NFC Championship in January of 2012. This prototype was so well liked that Fox asked to purchase fifty units for the next season. That order led to the formation of Klover Products.

Klover Products was incorporated by Patrick Santini, Paul Terpstra, and Paul's wife Diane. Patrick brought years of experience in the entertainment staging. Patrick founded Kernwer LLC, which provided temporary stages and structures to the television broadcast industry. Patrick’s stages have been used at nearly every major sporting event including the MLB All Star game, the World Series, the NFL playoffs and the Super Bowl. Kernwer’s specialty was stages with the ability to go from on air to clear for the game to continue in less than ninety seconds. Kernwer has now been sold and Patrick is concentrating on his new company, ModTruss, Inc.

It was because of his staging work with Fox that led them to ask Patrick if he would like to build a parabolic microphone.  Their audio experts had become dissatisfied with the audio collectors that they were using and they were looking for new alternatives.

Paul brought years of experience in engineering and product design. Paul operates an engineering consulting company called Innalytical Solutions.  Paul has been been involved with automated machinery for his entire career and has been providing Patrick with engineering services for several years.  These photos show a stage that Patrick and Paul joined forces to create for the 2013 Super Bowl.

In 2013 Klover Products introduced a smaller parabolic microphone to meet the needs of baseball. The larger unit actually had too much reach for a baseball park. This fact was realized at the 2012 MLB All-Star game when the parabolic microphones behind home plate picked up the waterfalls in the outfield of Kauffman Stadium. This 16-inch parabolic has since gone on to be used at the All-Star game, league championships, and the World Series.

Randy Gardner, a freelance producer from Upland, California, visited the Klover / Kernwer booth at the 2013 Convention for the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), and asked if it would be possible to create a small parabolic collector that could be mounted to a camera or hidden in a corner. Randy worked in reality TV and was looking for a solution to the “change in character” that people go through when they see a microphone on a stick hanging over them.

Over the next year Klover Products developed a nine-inch diameter parabolic collector which we introduced at the 2014 NAB convention as the Klover MiK 09. Our other products were the Klover MiK 26 and the Klover MiK 16. You get the idea.  Since that time the Klover MiK 09 has been used for various television & movie productions as well as for MLB baseball games, NBA / NCAA basketball games, and championship boxing match.  This photo shows the unit in use at the NCAA basketball tournament.

Later in the spring of 2014, Will Crocket, a photographer consultant from Chicago, Illinois, agreed to test one of these units. Will loved the product and was the first to suggest that we offer a more user-friendly version of the product for the non-technical videographer. This suggestion led to the creation of the Sound Shark.  Will went on to use the small parabolic mic for a project where created an automated system to create souvenir videos for visitors of The Ledge at Chicago’s Willis Tower. (You can see the full story here.)

Obviously we owe a debt of gratitude to both Will and Randy. The Sound Shark probably wouldn’t be here today without them.