Studer has introduced a software upgrade for its range of Vista digital mixing consoles, specifically, VistaMix automatic microphone mixing that removes the need for an operator to manually adjust all of the faders all of the time, leaving the microphones of talking participants open while closing the microphones of silent participants in order to reduce spill and background noise.
Without this facility, the reaction time of a human operator will often result in audible fade-ins of people who start talking rather unexpectedly. Also, changes in fader positions can quickly lead to disturbing changes of the total ambience/noise level in the mix.
VistaMix offers the solution by mimicking the action of a human operator: increasing gain for ‘talking’ mics and reducing gain for all others, but doing it very quickly and keeping the amount of total gain constant, so a clean live mix can be created.
VistaMix also offers the ideal solution for news operations when multiple mics are installed in the studio but the desk operator is not sure which ones will be used. VistaMix switches on only those mics that are in use. VistaMix source channels may also be mix minus (N–X) owners.
Each source channel has a weight control, which provides two possibilities:
First, it allows the desk operator to add weight, or priority, to the main presenter such that if required he can ‘talk over’ the guests or contestants.
Second, it allows the desk operator to give more gain in the mix to any contributors who have weak voices or are too far from their microphones. The weight control may also be used during a show to adjust the relative balance dynamically. This function is set with the “Knob Assign” control.
This new feature is available to all existing Vista systems with SCore Live DSP engines. By simply upgrading to software version 4.8 and adding the special VistaMix channels to the DSP configuration, VistaMix is ready to go.
No additional hardware is required to the Vista surface, the new controls are fully implemented within the standard Vistonics screens and controls.
