Multiple Sound Source Talk Show Style Mix

[sundontlie]

I have a show that is set up like "The View". Multiple hosts plus guests placed semi circle around a big table. Everyone is talking over everyone else making it sounds quite messy.

Normally, I would isolate who was talking and manually pulled down the other tracks to clean up the mix. Though with 10 iso tracks plus guest mics it's a lot to manage quickly. The signal to noise is such that talking and not talking are close to the same volume so using the waveform isn't always working as I'll miss a quick comment or side note. Expanders are running to help though with the high signal to noise it's not much help.

It is taking awhile to ingest the conversation, decide who is leading, which comments need to be heard and then mixing it. Does anyone have any tips or thoughts as to how to quickly get through cleaning up all the open mics inherent in a show like this? Any thing would help. Thanks.

[soundthinker]

Check out Dan Dugan's line of auto-mixers.

http://www.dandugan.com/


-jim

[Postman]

Is this live or a remix? If it's live, then an auto mixer may be very helpful as long as the gain change is only something like 5db per mic. You don't want to miss a new person's first words. Auto mixers have an unfortunate consequence in your situation where if you have the thresholds set low enough to turn on for normal speech, they all turn on when one person in the room gets very loud, which kind of makes things worse. Ya cannu change the laws of physics. If this is a remix situation, I don't understand the question.

[soundthinker]

Originally Posted by Postman

Auto mixers have an unfortunate consequence in your situation where if you have the thresholds set low enough to turn on for normal speech, they all turn on when one person in the room gets very loud, which kind of makes things worse.

This is true, but at least for every mic that crosses the threshold they lower all the mics enough to keep the noise floor relatively constant. For example:

If one mic is above the threshold, it's not attenuated.
If two mics are above the threshold, they both are attenuated 2dB
If three mics are above the threshold, all three are attenuated 3.5dB

I use these mostly for live mixing of shows like you are dealing with but have used them in post-production on occasion for pre-taped shows. Set them up as a post-fade insert and use the Pro Tools automation to help them along a bit. A control surface would greatly speed up this process.

-jim

[idris]

I may be missing something here, but could you use Duckers? (ie a Limiter with the sidechain fed by the other channels.)
This may be the same as a n Automixer.

[Postman]

If one mic is above the threshold, it's not attenuated.
If two mics are above the threshold, they both are attenuated 2dB
If three mics are above the threshold, all three are attenuated 3.5dB

I stand corrected then! Years ago I used an automixer on a gig. It didn't reduce overall gain with more active mics, the inputs were either at full gain above threshold or reduced gain. It turned me off of auto mixers. What you describe is much more practical. "Gain sharing" I think Dan Dugan called it. My experience (and earlier comments) are based on gating technology.

[soundthinker]

Originally Posted by Postman

It didn't reduce overall gain with more active mics, the inputs were either at full gain above threshold or reduced gain. It turned me off of auto mixers.

Yeah, I can see why.

I've only used the Dugan units and they've been great. Sure licensed the algorithm from Dan a while ago and had a similar device.


-Jim

[jeremiahmoore]

Ditto on the Dugan recommendation. It's a pretty smart algorithm, also balancing the noise floor so it remains relatively constant and doesn't pump.

I believe there is work underway toward a plug-in version as well.

-jeremiah

[jeremiahmoore]

This quick note from Dan Dugan (who is apparently having difficulty logging in to the DUC at this moment...)

- Dugans don't have thresholds
- Shure has never done anything like gain sharing.

[Postman]

I think I had used a Shure unit.