Dan Dugan, Inventor of the Automatic Microphone Mixer – PES 101

My guest is Dan Dugan of Dan Dugan Sound Design, inventor of the automatic microphone mixer! He has been active in the professional audio industry for more than 50 years, and is a board member of the Nature Sounds Society. We discussed his automixer as well nature recording – DEEP stuff. Enjoy.

Topics discussed:

• Speed round: Sennheiser MKH 416, Sound Devices 788 T recorder
• Automixer: His invention licensed into the Sound Devices 633 and 688, Yamaha mixers, Waves “Rack,” Waves LV1 (virtual console, touchscreen, 64 channels Dugan Automixer), and others. Also available as “black boxes” that patch into the insert points of mixers. Its Gain Sharing algorithm is where the magic happens 😉
• Nature recording: How to deal with airplanes?, the “Dawn Chorus” when the birds wake up in the morning, which in the summer starts around 4:00 AM. In Spring there is an evening chorus, too. Records nature using a scientific protocol, which allows him to get permission to camp in places no one is normally allowed. Uses an 80’ snake between his “camp” and the mics.
• Mics: Sennheiser MKH series mics are good for dealing with humidity and self noise. Lower than 16dba self-noise starts to be quiet enough to record soundscapes. “Light” system: electrets, 14dba self noise. Adequate “Heavy” system: MKH mics, 8-10dba self noise, RF condenser, uses 55 db of gain. Rode short shotgun, RF condenser type as well. Best to use mics with hot output so you don’t have to preamp it as much.
• Basic rig recording on 4 channels. Technique: use stereo array for front channels (MS, XY, AB, ), pair of omni mics on a 12 inch diameter Jecklin disc baffle with mics on either side, and 2 outrigger mics toward the rear. Front pair is the imaging pair – gives you a panorama of images, rear speakers are fair apart and are “uncorrelated” and they just fill in. Sound Devices 744T Recorder, with its pre-record buffer of up to 8 seconds!

Thank you, Dan, for doing such great work your whole life and for being a great guest!

Comment below with any questions or comments.

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