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for either instant on-the-air produc-
tion or webcasting and things like
that. You can use the automatic mix
instantly on the air. Or if you’re do-
ing post-production, you may find
that the automatic mix will work for
95 or 99 percent of the program and
you just might have to go back and
use the multitrack channels to mix
a few things where people are over-
lapped or something, and you want
to make that different.”
Tatooles tells us how the part-
nership between Sound Devices and
Dugan came to be: “I’ve known Dan
personally for many years, and so has
my business partner, Matt Ander-
son, who’s our president. Matt and I
worked at Shure, Inc. I was there for
about 10 years, and I managed their
mixer and signal processing prod-
ucts. Within that group, I had a few
products that were designed specifi-
cally for sound reinforcement. The
first one was called the FP410, with
the popular SCM810 coming a few
years later. The FP410 was the first
portable, battery-powered automatic
mixer. This was in 1991. Fast for-
ward many years, and now we have
extremely capable portable field
mixers and recorders. We recognize
that these mixers and recorders are
being used for production and that
the material is being recorded and
then post-produced. But there’s still
validity to the automatic mixing
context for production. For example,
in this day and age, there is so much
unscripted dialogue and lots of ac-
tors moving in and out of scenes.
Sometimes there’s simply no way
to manage all of the cues. You don’t
want to up-cut anybody, and you
don’t want to have to always rely
on going back to your ISOs to remix
things. If you can get a great mix,
then go for it and use whatever tool
you can. So that’s why we imple-
mented MixAssist initially. We had
always known about Dan and held
his algorithm in high regard, as
do the many users who use it. Be-
cause the Dugan algorithm is now
available in add-on cards for big-
ger mixing consoles and integrated
into many of the Yamaha consoles,
there’s this whole group of profes-
sionals who have been exposed to
the benefits of the Dugan algorithm,
and we wanted to have the actual
Dugan algorithm. We didn’t want a
substitute. We didn’t want to have a
‘Dugan-like’ thing. We wanted Dan
to contribute to making this a great
implementation. So we worked di-
rectly with Dan to implement that
in the 688.”
Dugan adds: “I’m pleased to
work with Sound Devices because
I’ve known them and respected
them for a long time. I’ve always ad-
mired their products, and I use them
myself. Besides the invention busi-
ness, another thing I do is nature
recording for the Nature Sounds So-
ciety, and I use Sound Devices out
in Yosemite National Park to record
nature in surround sound.”
