MixAhead

[glenn]

Mix Ahead

Zaxcom has invented a new tool to aid in the recording of production sound tracks or any audio that requires a personal mixing touch that can only be improved with the advantage of knowing the future.

Why does post discard your mix track only to remix it from isolated tracks?

The answer is that a production sound mixer does not have the same advantage that post has. Post can look at the ISO tracks and make a mix that will perfectly anticipate every transition of the faders.  . The location sound mixers main job is to make a mix track. If that job has to be redone the majority of the time then the job comes down to track gathering not mixing.  MixAhead is the tool that puts Location Sound mixing and Post mixing on a more even playing field allowing the production sound mixer to do the Job they are intended to do.

 

With Zaxcom MixAhead TM Pat pend. You can know the future. If talent begins to speak unexpectedly or changes the level of speech from a whisper to a scream you will now have the time to properly control the fader levels in order to make a more ideal mix.  Most location sound mix tracks are not used because transitions are late, words are cut off and levels are changing at the wrong time because in the real world a mixer can only react to real time audio. With MixAhead the production sound mixer can pre-act to make a mix that will save post production countless hours and the production huge amounts of post-production budget. The production sound mixer can get back to providing a more usable mix track that will be utilized  more often than current tracks that suffer from mistimed transitions.

 

How does it work?

Mix Ahead allows for a variable amount of time to be inserted between the audio you hear in your headphones and the effect the fader motion will have on the mix track. If 100ms of MixAhead is entered into the system, this will give the sound mixer an extra 100ms in order to make fader adjustments. This 100ms eliminates the problem of fader latency common to all digital mixing systems and human reaction time ruining the mix track. MixAhead can be adjusted to a length of up to .5 second.  From the time you realize that a fader has to move you will have the MixAhead time in order make the transition without missing anything. In comparison with common fader lag problems by the time you decide that the fader needs to move it is already too late to make a perfect mix.

How safe is Mix Ahead?

Mix ahead makes its own mix track that can be utilized by post or not. The traditional Mix track is always recorded just as it always is. The MixAhead track is a separate track that is recorded alongside all other tracks. The Zaxcom Deva recorder time aligns all Mix, ISO and Mix ahead track so that post production can seamlessly cross fader between any combination of tracks.

MIxAhead is especially valuable for reality or unscripted recording where there is no way for the sound mixer to know when audio might be needed or excluded in a mix. Coughs, sneezes or any random sounds can be excluded from the mix in real time.

With MixAhead, the typical super fast fader moves made in desperation will be a thing of the past. Any production sound mixer that uses Mixahead will be able to make smooth fader transitions knowing that even though the fader move was too late to make it for the real time mix track it is going to be perfect on the MixAhead track.

Glenn

[KGraham045]

Wow! Sounds interesting! I'm working on a highly improvised feature next week. This would definitely be interesting and helpful.

[Bertolomi]

I would like to record the fader movement as metadata too.

Post can import the movement and does not have to remix everything, but correct wrong fader movements...

 

Greetz - Bertl

[glenn]

This would require the remix of ISO tracks and would not be as fast or easy as EQ and other effects would need to be recreated to match the existing mix track. MixAhead track is a perfect match to the mix track allowing missed cues to be almost instantly corrected.

[Wandering Ear]

This is really cool.  I can't wait to try it in person.

[KGraham045]

Any details on the release? Or if it's a planned to work with Nomad12 /Maxx? Is it a software update?

[RadoStefanov]

5 hours ago, KGraham045 said:

Any details on the release? Or if it's a planned to work with Nomad12 /Maxx? Is it a software update?

I doubt it.

[Nick Jabour]

So an odd questions about MixAhead, the basis is that it delays fader movements on the second recording to help with missed first words.  Does that mean is also delays the fader downs in the same manner? Or is the release (for lack of a better term) still in real time?

Just curious.

[Wandering Ear]

That is a good question about the operation of MixAhead, and weather the fade outs on this track will happen earlier than intended.  To be clear, it doesn't delay fader movements, which would make them even later than needed, it delays the audio by a specific amount while keeping the fader movements in real time, then at the end of the take shifts the whole track back by the same amount in order to be in sync with the origianl mix track.  In essence it prepends the fadaer movement, not delays.

[Nick Jabour]

Sorry, you are totally correct, I understood it, just totally didn't explain it how I meant to.  Basically a phase inverse of phrasing between my brain and fingers. Thanks for the correction in what I was saying.

[John Blankenship]

Keep in mind that how quickly we grab the front of words is a much more critical mixing maneuver than how we fade afterwards -- while remembering that we're only talking a fraction of a second shift.

I get the sense that a lot of people are over imagining how much adjustment MixAhead makes.

[Nick Jabour]

Hi John,

That's why I phrased my questions more out of curiosity than anything else. The reason is having the MixAhead for up fades, but having it be in real time for down fades, would help correct for grabbing front of words, but still give you the attenuation response you need to bring these down in the mix without there being a delay. It's more just a tidbit that would be good to know for use of the tool. Yeah we are talking parts of second either way so it could really handle downs in either fashion and be of little consequence, but still neat trivia to know.  I think no mater what the case, this feature and technique should be interesting and I'm curious to see how it evolves once it gets out in the wild.

[James Arnold]

I'd be curious to see if this came to Nomad. Not holding my breath though.

[Siddho]

i must be missing something but some immediate question are:

what happens to those takes in which some of my fader moves are good and other slightly late? this happens to me often in improvised scenes: i can preempt some moves perfectly but will miss others. does this mean that neither my mix track nor the mixahead track will be good?

is there some intelligent algorithm comparing good level (ie. dialogue) against background level in real time and hence making decisions as to when my fader moves were good and when not?

what happens if my fade ups are late and the corresponding fade down is perfectly timed?

what happens to miss timed cross-fades (when one half of the cross-fade is good and the other is miss timed)?

[Jack Norflus]

Both the mix ahead and origional non MixAhead track are both available so either one can be used and they are both in sync with each other.

[Philip Perkins]

So then you'd need to make very clear to the assistant editor that they need to pass on both of the mix tracks all the time, right?  Would it be a good idea to "marry" the two mix tracks as an interleaved file in the recorder so they stayed together, in sync?

[Siddho]

17 hours ago, Jack Norflus said:

Both the mix ahead and origional non MixAhead track are both available so either one can be used and they are both in sync with each other.

Jack, i do get it that both mix tracks will be available and in sync but, unless something extremely clever is going on, then a badly mixed track and the Mixahead track will be as good or bad or as useful or useless as eachother unless the recorded take has identical miss-timed fader moves on all those moves within the take, i.e. when all the fade ups and downs within a take are identically late.

again, maybe i have misunderstood something but the marketing blurb:"the advantage of knowing the future" does imply something more than just a set delay to compensate for late fader moves!

[John Blankenship]

There is no piece of gear, or even ground-breaking technology, that takes the place of a skilled professional on their game.

All the bells and whistles and nifty nuances don't replace that experience and skill, but they can offer ways to make implementing those skills a little easier -- and sometimes even a bit more fun.

It's important to remember that these are only tools, and the value of a tool depends upon the hands it's in.

[Wyatt Tuzo]

There are a few points to "MixAhead" that I still don't quite understand.

If the algorithm allows missed cues through to the mix track, would it, by the same course, cut fade-outs early? Additionally, at least in the narrative world, so much of what we do relies on fader balance and timing. I need to be able to crossfade from, say, a wire to the boom (or any ratio thereof) while listening for phase and balance. I see MixAhead as a potential detriment to this process.

Personally, I don't really see much of a problem of missed cues in my world. Maybe in doc/reality? Maybe the occasional ad-lib...but I still feel the potential detriments that I mention above would outweigh the occasional benefit, as post still has an Iso they can salvage a line from.