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Lead

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This lead is really long and hard to wade through, and has a lot of terminology that will leave most novices scratching their heads. I'm pretty good at saying what needs to be said with fewer words... and making sure that the reader gets the information most essential to understanding the concept.

I'm going to have a crack a simplifying the lead. Anything I don't understand or think should be moved to other parts of the article I'll paste below. First of all, automixers are used in live sound mixing, correct?--Atlantictire (talk) 05:19, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Cut: "Invented by Dan Dugan in 1976" this is in body of article and not essential to overview of concept.
  • Moved to other sections: balances multiple sound sources based on each source's level, quickly and dramatically[1]

Wherever automixers are used in live sound reinforcement, their main benefit is that they work to maintain a steady limit on the overall signal level of the microphones; if a public address system is set up so that one microphone will not feed back, then, in general, multiple microphones will not feed back if they are automixed. The equivalent number of open mics (NOM) present at the output of the automixer is kept low, regardless of the actual number of open mics.[2]

A skilled audio mix operator can greatly enhance the performance of a sound reinforcement system but will never be able to anticipate with perfect accuracy which participant will speak next in a free-wheeling discussion. Sudden interjections by panelists may be lost completely, or the beginning of a word may be absent until the operator responds as quickly as humanly possible to fade up their audio signal (this loss of the beginning is called upcut).[3] A properly adjusted automixer can help in avoiding lost words or phrases due to upcut mistakes or lapses of attention.[4]

  • But trust me, unless you are the kind of person who edits WP articles on live sound mixing minutia, you don't care. And I mean that in the nicest way possible. :)
  • Ok. What do you mean by "blending the signals"? I thought the whole point of an automixer was to prevent microphones that were not being used from generating audio signals.--Atlantictire (talk) 09:06, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The dynamic microphone always delivers a signal to its preamp. The only way to prevent it from doing so would be to unplug it! In automixing, once the microphone signal has been amplified to line level by its preamp, the signal is sent to the automixer circuitry. There, the strongest line level signals are allowed to pass through at full or nearly full volume but the weakest signals are made much, much weaker before they are passed through. Binksternet (talk) 10:45, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
K. So, instead of saying "blending", which doesn't tell me very much about why this equipment is useful, let's say it attenuates the strength of a signal from a mic that is not being used. You can go into how this is done in the body of the article, but it it's not important that it be covered in the lead. Also, it's clear from the 2nd sentence that you use this device when several mics are operating simultaneously, so you don't need to say that twice :)--Atlantictire (talk) 13:31, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
One more thing: "protocol" is technical jargon and needs a link. I realize for people who have been immersed in the language of this field for a while, this may seem silly but unless you work with computers and electronic devices there's a very good chance you may not know what a protocol is. You'd be surprised at the context some people come across these concepts in... and then how difficult it is to learn about them from wikipedia b/c of all the prior knowledge the articles often assume you have!--Atlantictire (talk) 13:59, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ "Rane Pro Audio Reference;". Rane. Retrieved 2011-03-12.
  2. ^ Dan Dugan (January 1998). "The Right Mix: The applications of automatic microphone mixers are numerous and varied; know when and how to use them properly". Sound & Video Contractor. Retrieved 2011-03-12.
  3. ^ "UPCUT". 2006-03-08. Retrieved 2011-03-12.
  4. ^ Tom Stuckman, Steve Marks. "Automatic Mixers" (PDF). Retrieved 2011-03-12.

History of Automixers?

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This article reads like a history of auto mixers rather than a treatment of the what the device is, how it's designed and how to use it! How would you feel about moving a lot of that information to the page on Dan Dugan?--Atlantictire (talk) 06:28, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I feel it goes best here. Binksternet (talk) 08:09, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Kinda like the light bulb article, with a gigantic history. Binksternet (talk) 10:46, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I was just thinking that... if it were a technology as ubiquitous and world-changing as the light bulb maybe the reader would be interested in a lengthy history... I imagine people are going to be coming to this page foremost because they want to know what an automixer is, and then maybe if already they know what it is they want to know some about how they're designed and how to use them. What we have now is an article that is a history of an arcane (unless you're a sound engineer!) piece of A/V equipment. Nothing terrible about that, only I don't know how helpful people are going to find it!--Atlantictire (talk) 13:25, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The History section looks like the result of someone's patent search. When I get a chance, I will try to separate out purely patent stuff into a separate Patents section. This should make History more manageable. ~Kvng (talk) 22:57, 14 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Automixer manufacturers and products

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This list is incomplete and difficult to maintain and probably should be deleted. -—Kvng 13:45, 9 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough point. Binksternet (talk) 14:46, 9 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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