IBC 2016: Sound Devices 688 adds Dugan automixing

Sound Devices will use IBC 2016 to showcase its 688 mixer/recorder with MixAssist and Dugan automixing capabilities to an international audience.

The company believes that the inclusion of the Dugan Speech System, along with Sound Devices’ MixAssist, makes the 688 the “go-to” automixing tool for field production applications.

“We added Dugan to the 688 because it’s a great option. Both the Dugan Speech System and our MixAssist algorithms have the same goal, turning off unused mics,” explained Jon Tatooles, Chief Business Development Officer, Sound Devices. “The inclusion of Dugan automixing gives the sound mixer a choice, situation dependent, on which automixing tool best suits their application.”

Getting a great production mix can be challenging in many field applications. Unscripted dialogue, multiple characters, and wide-and-tight multi-camera coverage often require the use of wireless lavalier mics and multi-track recording. In these situations, automixers improve intelligibility, reduce noise and reverberation, and maintain consistent overall gain as microphones are turned on and off.

“I’m very pleased that Sound Devices was interested in incorporating my automixing into the 688. I think it’s a perfect match because it adds another feature to what is already a really fabulous line of products,” said Dan Dugan, CEO, Dan Dugan Sound Design.

“We’re proud to be the first and only field production mixer that offers Dugan automixing,” Tatooles added. “The Dugan automixer defines state-of-the-art, as it improves speech intelligibility and increased gain before feedback. The way the Dugan system works results in a very natural mix just right for on-air applications.”

MixAssist from Sound Devices can be used for mixing many speech-specific applications, while the 688 also features six high-bandwidth mic/line XLR inputs, each complete with phantom power, high-pass filter, analogue input limiter and variable pan, plus six additional line-level TA3 inputs for added flexibility in complex productions.

All inputs are assignable, pre- or post-fade, to eight-output buses: left/right plus Aux 1-6. The main left/right mix is available to three outputs simultaneously via transformer-balanced XLR and Hirose outputs. For recording, the 688 offers 16-track, polyphonic, or monophonic broadcast WAV and MP3 file recording to SD and CompactFlash cards. All common sampling rates are supported, including 192 kHz on up to six tracks.

Sound Devices can be found on stand 8.B59 at this year’s IBC Show in Amsterdam.

http://www.sounddevices.com/

http://www.ibc.org/