AES Germany Research Colloquium #5: Gain Sharing Automatic Microphone Mixing

The new AES Germany Research Colloquium aims to provide a platform to discourse on a specific audio topic and create a bridge between basic research, manufacturers and users in audio technology.

Gain Sharing Automatic Microphone Mixing

Dan Dugan will recount how the gain sharing algorithm was invented through persistent experimentation and an astonishing stroke of good luck. He will explain its simple calculations. A real-time demonstration will illustrate the almost magical result of the simple math.

Dan Dugan – CEO Dan Dugan Sound Design

When Dan was a child, his parents took him to theater and concerts. He always wanted to go backstage to see the light board. In his teens he built a huge model circus and two small pipe organs. He was very active in music, singing bass in choruses, madrigal groups, and his church choir. Dan studied math and physics in college but dropped out to work full-time in the theater doing lighting. That became his first career.
At age 24 Dan specialized in theater sound, working at the Old Globe in San Diego and ACT in San Francisco. The title “Sound Designer” was created in 1968 “to describe what Dan Dugan does.” He also provided sound services for eight seasons of the Mondavi Jazz Festival and engineered several independent record albums.
Dan demonstrated the first effective automixer at the New York AES in 1974. Today his invention is commonly used (but not heard) in conferences, talk shows, news panels, sports panels, and election debates. The Cinema Audio Society gave Dan their 2018 Outstanding Product award. He received an Engineering Emmy in 2020.
Dan does scientific research in the national parks, making longitudinal studies of soundscapes over time. He works in his laboratory in San Francisco, manufacturing his inventions and editing his immersive soundscape recordings.

More information

• Company Website
• other Professional Website Nature Sounds.org
• Paper: Application of Automatic Mixing Techniques to Audio Consoles
• Paper: Automatic Microphone Mixing

Join Meeting

The colloquium will be held in English with a presentation of 60 minutes, followed by a 30-minute discussion.

Link to register in advance for this meeting. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

The Meeting Format: We will be hosting this meeting using Zoom. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar. For most participants, audio and video are muted during the presentation. In the discussion they can be unmuted (indicated by the raised hand function). This will be explained again at the beginning of the meeting. For a better quality we suggest to use a headset with microphone. The presentation will be recorded. By turning on your camera you are consenting for your image to be used in a photograph of the event.