Exploding the digital mixer
Published: ASIA
Giving musicians ultimate control over the way they hear their music while performing is a challenge for audio companies of any size. But one new start-up believes it has the tool to achieve this
‘The aim of myMix is to let musicians have more fun with their music by giving them an audio tool that helps them evolve their creativity without having to go down (and get stuck in) the technical path,’ explains Christian Glück, head of product management and manufacturing at Movek. ‘Our vision is that one day musicians will have their myMix as a drummer has sticks, or a guitarist a pick.’
Founded by former Telex president, Mathias von Heydekampf, Movek takes its name from the initials of his family. With a mission statement about ‘driving sonic excellence’ and ‘pushing the limits of innovation’, Movek has set itself some lofty goals, but with the strong and experienced team it has assembled it stands a very good chance of achieving its aims. The company has a core team of three people – Mr von Heydekampf, Mr Glück and head of marketing Josh Bartunek – and was established in 2009 with the sole aim of bringing myMix to the market.
Launched at Namm 2010 (and awarded a “Best in Show” Award), myMix is a personal monitor mixing and multi-track recording system, that allows each musician in a band to mix their monitor the way they want to hear it, whether that’s on headphones, in-ears or speakers. It has built-in multitrack recording functionality using SDHC cards, which enables a range of applications from cutting tracks from performances to using myMix as a rehearsing and training or educational tool.
The unit has two mic/line inputs, either for two mono or one stereo signal, which are sent to the network. Other signals from other units are auto-discovered from the network. All units and channels can be named, making it easy to see what’s there for the user to mix.
The unit can mix up to 16 channels of audio to a stereo mix and each channel can be modified in volume, tone control and panorama. There is also a built-in effects unit, which enables the user to add some reverb or delay to every signal in the mix. Channels can also be soloed or muted. All these settings are automatically stored to a profile, allowing a musician who plays in different bands to instantly recall the settings for each situation.
By using an SD or SDHC card, musicians can multitrack record with the press of a button. The unit records all the channels on the network unaltered as raw multi-track plus the user’s unique stereo mix. The files are stored as time-stamped 24-bit, 48kHz .wav files, so they can be imported into DAWs. The multitrack audio can also be played back and re-mixed through the mixer. ‘That means that after the recording, one can listen to the entire session and remix it on a single unit, and it doesn’t have to be on the network,’ explains Mr Glück. ‘We have a little software tool, myMix Wave, that allows the playback of multi-track sessions that were not recorded on myMix. So you can create a multi-track playback on your DAW, dump it onto an SD card, and remix it through myMix.’ This part of the product is in its beta testing phase. Currently it can only be used to listen to the playback, but there are plans to release a play along version, that will allow local inputs and the playback mix.
The origin of the product was as an idea for an individual monitoring system based on network technology. ‘Based on our vision to make the world a better place, where musicians have more fun with their music because they hear themselves better, we started to create a product that was easy to use, yet very powerful,’ says Mr Glück. He believes it was a radically new concept that lay behind the product. ‘In technical terms, myMix is a decentralised mixing system. You can think of it as an exploded digital mixing console where each member in the band has a small piece of the system. There is no need for a master or central unit. A myMix can work alone, and as you add units you get a system,’ he explains.
All myMix units connect with a conventional Fast Ethernet switch (Cat5 cabling). ‘The network protocol is the current state of Ethernet AVB, so myMix is ready for what will become the industry standard,’ says Mr Glück. Having no master unit means that a musician can use their myMix with or without their band mates. ‘A musician could record a rehearsal with the band in multi-track, then go home and remix the recording on his myMix. If a friend drops by, just add another myMix (two units connect directly without a switch) jam along, everybody with his own monitor mixer, and cut the ideas as multi-track for further use. We think that myMix will change the way musicians play.’
The technical challenge behind the product was to allow each and every musician in the band to be in control of their own sound. ‘That requires two things: the individual signals for mixing and an intuitive interface that allows the musicians to create that mix, without having to think like an engineer,’ says Mr Glück. ‘myMix is designed for all musicians, not only for the few that are also sound engineers. We want musicians to focus on their music and stay in their creative mind, not to bother with trying to understand aux sends, channels, and signal routing.’
It has been a 15-month process getting myMix from concept to finished product. The whole project started in early 2009, by the summer of that year the very first prototypes had been made, following this was the process of field testing before going into production in March 2010. The design work was done in the US, but there was collaboration with hundreds of musicians located around the world – a process that is still ongoing.
It may sound like it has been a straight-forward process to get the product to market, but there have been plenty of challenges along the way. Mr Glück believes these have been ‘all the things that are typical when you create a brand new product from scratch: from getting all players including the manufacturer together, to sorting all the technical issues, making it functional, easy to use, good looking and last but not least reliable, without exceeding budgets.’
The biggest single challenge for the company was arranging financing. The manufacturer was looking for funding in early 2009 right in the middle of the global financial crisis, so no bank wanted to lend it any money. ‘We tried many banks but they all refused a start-up company,’ laments Mr Glück. ‘On top of that they all said; ‘once you are up and running come back’. Nevertheless we managed as you can see.’
A further challenge was the geographical spread of the company. Design and engineering are handled in the US but the contract manufacturing takes place in China. Further to this Mr Glück is based in Germany. All of this meant that communication had to be of a very high standard.
It is safe to say that the main target for myMix is musicians, whether they are amateur, pro or students. But Mr Glück reveals there have been enquiries from several other applications such as hotels, bars and schools. And the reception the product has received since its launch has been ‘overwhelming’. ‘However, not everybody gets the concept right away, myMix is so new that it takes some time,’ he continues. ‘One can also see the difference in age as far as understanding audio networking. Let’s face it, myMix is bringing audio networking to the level of normal musicians, a subject that before maybe touched 5 or 10 per cent of the entire music/pro audio industry. We fully believe that networking is the future and we are proud to be pioneers with that in the music market.’
It is this area where Mr Glück places a great deal of importance. ‘Networking in general, and for musicians especially audio networking, is the future and it’s happening right now. With evolving technology that overcomes the issue and restricting parameters of dynamic range, audio quality in general including latency, combined with the appropriate ease of use, this will be the way going forward,’ he says. ‘If you work on your own or constantly with others, there is always the need to share material. The interesting aspect of myMix is that we bring audio networking to musicians, but they don’t have to bother about it at all. Not more than when they connect their computer to the internet via a modem, it’s plug and play.’
Although the product has only recently been released, the company is always looking for improvements that it can make. ‘The nice thing about myMix is the fact that it’s based to a large part on software. Software updates are easily doable via SD card and we will have software updates with additional features on our website. After the launch we have received even more ideas and comments and are now checking for what’s useful and possible.’
Some of the future developments could involve different functions being made available as options, and boosting the unit’s functionality with additional input and output devices. ‘The current firmware is limited to eight units with two inputs each, as the mixer is a 16/2. That will change when we launch the first additions,’ says Mr Glück. ‘For example a 16-channel line input expander that will allow a universal interface to mixing consoles, a mix/line input expander that will allow more inputs and also have inputs outside the unit itself, we are also considering interfaces to several digital consoles.’
It is certainly a product that is drawing a great deal of attention from all quarters. The collaborative nature of its design ensures that it meets real-world needs that musicians are facing. A fringe benefit was that this also helped to create a ready market for the product. Banks may not have seen the potential in the product when they turned down financing, but scores of musicians certainly do.