In Summary

With engineers constantly trading simplicity for control, throwing more mics at things can have its downsides. Sound Radix’s solution to multi-mic woes now has some new reasons for engineers to be cheerful. We check them out.

Going Deeper

Simplicity Versus Control

Drum kits are a great example of how more mics might not be the magic bullet that some engineers hope for. Most know that using the fewest mics possible will usually get the best results, but equally many will have been faced with drummers who could do with a little help balancing themselves; the quick fix can end up being a race to the top that sees every kit piece with its own mic.

This quest for control can bring a problem that is less likely to happen with simpler approaches: multiple mics all hearing the same things at slightly different times. Looking at something like a snare drum’s waveform, different mic positions can reveal the potential problems for mixed audio. This can see cancellations at certain frequencies that can eat away at sounds to make them sound slightly smeared, thin, or hollowed out.

Sound Radix Auto Align 2.1

Auto Align Post is Sound Radix’s answer to the problem of aligning moving targets like lavalier and boom mics from TV and film set production sound. From Auto Align Post’s DNA comes Auto Align 2. Now on version 2.1, Sound Radix’s music-leaning time and phase rehab has new features to make it more useful than ever.

In the video, we check out some of v2.1’s features for ourselves. Having played our drums into Auto Align 2, we first show what a positive difference it can make to a multi-mic drum recording. He we go from a compromised recording to something that gets back its weight and punch that that had been lost to unaligned mics. We also explain its new track-based Spectral Phase Optimization, and how both it and Group Time Alignment can be switched in or out independently of each other. We also show how easy it is to use its four snapshots to compare settings.

There’s no doubt that ever bigger track counts exist for a reason. More options might be championed by some, but those managing huge track counts might agree that there are no free rides when it comes to using more mics on the same source. The jury might be out on whether extra control is better than clean-cut simplicity, but engineers using lots of mics on the same source now have a new tool in their armoury. Less can sometimes be more, but Auto Align 2.1 gets engineers closer still to multi-mic perfection.

New Features In Auto Align 2.1:

• Improved Core Algorithm.

• Group Time Alignment On/Off: Enables phase optimization with zero delay.

• Track-based Spectral Phase Optimization: Enables track-based spectral phase optimization independently of time alignment.

• Compare different settings easily with four preset locations.

• Export/Import alignment settings to streamline workflow across projects.