2018 will be the 50th anniversary of Dan Dugan Sound Design. As a young sound engineer in 1968 (the term Sound Designer was coined by the theater industry for him), company founder Dan Dugan knew there had to be a better way to handle multiple live microphones than trying to ride herd on banks of faders. His invention, the automixer, radically changed things in not only the theater industry, but television as well. Discussion programs, sportscasts, news programs, game shows, civic meetings, and community television have all benefitted from Dugan automixing technology, as have other industries: courtrooms, conference rooms, lecture halls, and live theater.
An automatic microphone mixer controls a group of live microphones, turning up mics where someone is talking, and turning down mics that aren’t being used. This is a real-time voice-activated process that maintains overall system gain and ensures that everyone is being heard at the right time.
The technologies invented by Dan Dugan nearly five decades ago are widely recognized for their “transparent” gain-sharing operation. Overall system gain is held at the level of one microphone, regardless of who is talking, how loudly (or softly) they are talking or how many people are trying to talk at once. Operation is incredibly simple: microphones are connected, system gain is set, and the automixer takes care of the rest. The result is clear, understandable audio without upcutting of microphones or shifts in noise.
In addition to manufacturing his own products, which connect via insert points to audio consoles, Dan Dugan licenses his algorithms to other manufacturers. Yamaha has now adopted Dugan technology in most of their mixing consoles, and Dugan automixing is available in products from Waves, Sound Devices, and Protech Audio. Dugan also manufactures a plug-in automixer card for selected Avid products.
At AES, Dan will show the new Model E-3A, an updated automixer with AES and ADAT I/O, along with automixers with Dante, MADI and analog I/O.
http://www.dandugan.com