Here’s a slice of audio insight from our featured Cornerstone article of the week: Automixer Basics. Let’s go over the benefits of using automatic mixers (automixers), some of the issues that can arise when you don’t, and then a peek at an automixer control block diagram for Audia and Nexia products.
3 Key Benefits of Systems with Automixers
- Improved Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) by limiting the Number of Open Microphones (NOM)
- Improved gain before feedback by providing gain attenuation with respect to the NOM (i.e. NOM attenuation)
- Reduced microphone comb filtering by limiting voice pickup to a single microphone
Typically, automixers should only be used for installations with multiple microphones.
3 Potential Issues in Systems without Automixers
- Poor SNR with all microphones picking up ambient noise
- Poor gain before feedback with multiple potential feedback loops
- The voice signal is picked up by multiple microphones and suffers from multi-path interferences, also called comb-filtering
Automixer Control Block Diagram
This is a basic diagram of an automixer control block in Audia and Nexia. For a detailed description of the audio path, read it step-by-step here.
If you’re thinking of using mix-minus with an automixer system, read my 5 Ways to Correct Bad Mix-Minus post first to avoid some common mistakes.