Controlling your digital mixer from anywhere may almost sound too good to be true.
After all, it’s not something that’s been done before in a widespread and repeatable manner without compromising full mixer control or audio quality. RemoteMix has changed all of that, though, and now audio mixing from anywhere isn’t just possible, it’s actually quite easy.
In this blog, I’ll outline a few of the many benefits that remote audio mixing can bring to your workflow.
If managing your digital mixer falls entirely on you, give yourself some credit. That’s no small task. Delivering a consistently great audio mix for both in-person and online audiences is tough to do solo. But having the flexibility to control your board from wherever you are makes this job a whole lot easier. Here are just a few of the many benefits of remote mixing when you're running the show on your own.
Whether you prefer to sit or stand, if you’re required to be physically present at your booth for every event, then in a way you’re mostly constrained to a 5’ by 5’ area at all times. Sure, you can run to the bathroom when you need to (or at least, I hope you can) but being an audio engineer can sometimes feel like you’re an airline pilot: you’re locked into a specific seat with hundreds of knobs in front of you to oversee something of high importance for hours.
What if you’d be more comfortable on a couch, in your home office, or even from a vacation spot a few timezones away? The first obvious benefit of remote audio mixing is that you can oversee your digital board from anywhere. So kick back, get comfortable, and get to work in the space that you feel best mixing from.
If your mix solely depends on you, being tied to a physical board day in and day out can get really tricky. Life has a way of routinely throwing us curveballs that completely upend our plans.
What if your kid cuts his knee badly in science class and you need to rush him to the ER for stitches? Or you're on your way to an important in-person meeting and one of your brand new tires unexpectedly goes flat? Maybe your daughter suddenly needs surgery due to a health discovery, or your wife goes into labor weeks before her due date. These kinds of unpredictable moments make being consistently tethered to a physical location simply unsustainable.
I've actually been through all these exact situations myself recently, and it's easy to see how life can unexpectedly pull you away from your physical board. That's why, when things don't go as planned, it's genuinely amazing to just hop onto your device and control your digital mixer from home, or wherever you happen to be.
If you live in a region with unpredictable weather, like icy roads and snow days up north, or occasional severe storms down south (personally, I'd take a few blizzards over a hurricane any day, but that's just me!), commuting to your physical mixer can be risky. For those fortunate enough to live where such things rarely occur: lucky you!
But for the rest of us, it's reassuring to have a backup plan when you don't feel safe venturing out. Instead, you can stay safe at home while still hopping online to mix your audio like normal. Trust me, your online viewers won't know the difference.
Regardless of the type of job that I’m doing, I find that I do my best work when I’m in a flow state. If you’re not familiar with this terminology, “flow state” refers to a mindset of deep focus that goes uninterrupted and allows a person to “get in the zone” with their work for a long time.
Though some audio engineers are energized in a small, dark, and crowded sound booth, it’s not the perfect space for many others. Often, there’s a lot going on in a cramped area: lighting, projection, video production, audio mixing, and from time to time a friendly visitor named Chad who just wants to hang out and watch everything that’s going on. In many cases, all of this gear is housed behind a half wall of some sort that’s connected to the main venue, so all communication has to be done in the form of a “shushed” voice, which isn’t ideal.
Instead, there’s probably a more optimal room at your venue to set up a laptop and manage your mix in peace, even if it’s just a room or two away. Ask yourself, “Could I focus better and achieve a better final result if I was able to do the same work in a different space?” After all, you wouldn’t have the house mix bleeding into your headphones, muddying your distinction between your house mix and your live stream mix. So, a room, a city, or a state away might help you focus and achieve a better result for your listeners.
If you’re like me, you’ve been using one brand for both your personal and professional devices for a long time. When you login, you instinctively know what to do to accomplish what you want. For me it’s Apple, and from time to time I’ll have to log onto a Microsoft product and it’s such a different experience. My instincts are gone and I have found myself unable to do basic tasks that I would be able to do in seconds on my Macbook Pro.
Bringing it back to remote mixing, logging onto your preferred device to configure and control your digital mixer takes something that can be complicated and brings it into a more intuitive experience native to what you’re used to. Sometimes when you upgrade to a digital mixer for the first time, it can be a bit intimidating, especially if you had a big budget and purchased a larger board than you’re used to. Remote software can make mixing more approachable and intuitive.
Having a team to help manage your live mix isn’t just a nice-to-have. It’s often a must. If you’re juggling multiple roles like performing in a band, running lighting, managing the livestream, switching video, and operating cameras, then you definitely need a reliable crew to help run both your house and livestream mixes (as well as most of the other stuff, too). Being able to mix from anywhere makes it easier to recruit and keep a skilled team on board, and here’s why.
Sometimes it’s tough to find interested and available volunteers in your area to help run your board. Thankfully, as much of our work world has transitioned to hybrid and work-from-home, there are audio experts located throughout the country (and world) that are both qualified and passionate about helping organizations out with pro audio mixing on an as-needed basis.
Though they may be a 10 hour drive away from your physical building, a remote audio mixing tool lets them log on and help from their home office or coworking space of choice. Even if you want to oversee your mix most weeks, for special events or occasions when you’re out of commission, it’s nice to be able to hand over the keys to an expert and let them take care of your responsibilities remotely from time to time.
Not everyone who wants to volunteer with your organization can do so in person. Whether they’re dealing with a short-term injury, long-term mobility challenges, or social anxiety, it’s easy for them to feel discouraged. Physical or mental constraints shouldn’t keep someone from contributing to a place that means so much to them.
Take it from someone who spent half of high school on crutches and has been to over 100 doctor appointments in recent years trying to manage severe pain from standing, walking, or driving. Empowering someone to make a real impact on your team, even if getting there in person isn’t easy, can mean more than you realize. In doing so, you might discover some of your most committed and passionate volunteers.
Your house mix and your live stream mix shouldn’t be the same. The space where your live event happens determines how sound bounces off walls or gets muted by carpet, panels, or audience members in sweaters. Your live mix doesn’t have the same environment, and this mix should be configured based on how your event sounds coming through speakers on the types of devices where people will be watching from.
If your live stream mix is being configured in the space where your in-house speakers are blaring, it’s really hard to drown out all of the ambient noise when you’re trying to focus on how the live stream sounds. Both mixes are important, and having a remote mixing tool allows one of your team members to work on your house mix in the room of your event and your teammate running the live stream mix from a quiet area where they can focus on a different sound experience. Mixing live stream audio without ambient noise polluting it is truly a difference maker.
An additional benefit here is that it’s tough for 2 people to share one board. They both need full control of their mix at all times to respond instantaneously when changes need to be made, and it’s tough for them to do that when they’re trying to share the same board at once. Thinking back to my sisters and I taking turns using Instant Messenger back in the 90s should make this point clear enough.
Volunteers often have busy lives filled with work, family, and their hobbies of choice. Sure, they want to join your audio team, but they need a lot of training and they don’t have a lot of time. Requiring them to come into your location multiple times to sit behind a giant soundboard that intimidates them can often be a logistical nightmare, and some volunteers wind up quitting just as they’re getting started.
The good news is that they’re likely already used to Zoom and Google Meet, so it would be much easier for them to log on to a few hour-long training sessions from the comfort of their own home. Additionally, instead of being trained to learn a small section of a giant soundboard, a tool like RemoteMix is designed to be beautiful, intuitive, and simplified to make audio mixing much more approachable.
As a bonus, with a tool like RemoteMix, you can easily create a private mix for your volunteers to practice during an actual live event, which is really the best way to learn. This type of training gives them actual experience with a real time event while also giving them the privacy to take risks and make mistakes if they’re new to audio engineering.
I live 45 minutes from Cedar Point, America’s Roller Coast, and I love roller coasters. About a year ago, I realized I hadn’t been to the park in over a decade. Getting married, buying a house, and having three kids probably had something to do with that. In the time I was away, they added seven new coasters — including what many enthusiasts consider the world’s best ride: Steel Vengeance.
I share this because something awesome was right nearby, and I didn’t realize what I was missing until I made time for it. Now I’m a season pass holder, I visit regularly, and it’s one of my favorite things to do.
I think RemoteMix is kind of like that. You’ve got a lot on your plate, both personally and professionally. But something game-changing is right within reach. RemoteMix is raising the bar for live mixing, just like Steel Vengeance did for coasters. The only difference is that my season pass cost $99 while you can start using RemoteMix today for free.
Don’t miss out on something that could transform your audio workflow and improve your listeners’ experience. Give it a try. I’m sure you’ll love the ride.