Do you Even Need a Sound Mixer Anymore?
We are all living in some interesting times. The advent of AI, the proliferation of consumer grade camera and recording technology that can compete with professional level technology. It’s all moving so fast and it’s impossible to see where it’s all heading.
No one knows what the future holds for us in this industry. Production companies and clients alike are all rethinking their approach to production. They’re asking themselves, understandably, do we need that AC or can the camera’s autofocus handle it?. Do we need a boom operator or can the sound mixer just do it themself. Do we need the $300,000 camera or can we get by with the $1,000 camera? They say to themselves what do we need a sound mixer for? It’s just an interview. Tell me if you’ve thought this before: Can’t AI just edit that sound out? Can’t we just record it on our phone and have the AI make it sound professional?
I would ask myself the same thing in your position. So do you even need a sound mixer anymore?
The answer is a little bit more complicated than yes or no and depends entirely on what you are trying to achieve.
Are you an independent filmmaker making videos just by yourself? Then no, you probably don’t need a sound mixer. You may have needed one 30 years ago, but today? No way. It’s cheaper to buy a consumer, even pro-sumer grade wireless lav kit and do it yourself than it is to hire a sound mixer for a day. It makes no financial sense.
Some sound mixers might argue otherwise saying that depending on the scope of your audio needs regardless of whether you’re an independent filmmaker or a Hollywood production, your production is better served with a dedicated audio person. Maybe, but if that were true, we sound mixers would be a whole lot busier. Put it simply, if the math made sense, we’d be doing it. But we’re not, so the math doesn’t make sense.
Wait, maybe you’re a medium to large sized production company that makes professional videos with large budgets, and large crews. Surely your needs are different than that of a smaller outfit? Absolutely. A company like yours serves clients that want professional content and those clients pay a lot of money for that.
But what is professional level content? Is it just content that looks good and sounds good? No, if that were the only metric then why would anyone use anything other than a consumer grade camera? They are pretty good after all. No, professional level content not only sounds good and looks good, but it’s made efficiently, on budget, and on time. Professional level content is an investment. Professional-level content is about delivering a return on that investment.
Here’s the thing: Your client is making an investment by hiring your production company to produce something for them. They are asking you to create something that will bring them more money than they put in. That is NOT achieved when things go wrong either in production or post production. Set backs of any kind mean that they are losing money on that investment. When clients lose money on their investment, they don’t hire you again.
Suppose you say, “I don’t need the sound mixer. I’ll just use the consumer-grade sound kit instead.” Sure, it probably sounds close to what I can create. But what happens when the signal drops out because they operate on an inferior RF band and you lose that once in a lifetime sound bite? What happens when that file gets accidentally deleted? Does it have a backup? What happens if the consumer-grade lav kit just dies (they do do that) and there is no one to trouble shoot it? Time is money, remember? What happens if the client says, I don’t want to see the mics can you hide them instead? Can you hide them well enough and still make them sound good? You say, maybe the AI can fix it. Well I say, maybe the AI can’t fix it. What then? AI is frequently wrong and can make things sounds worse.
Your client is making an investment by hiring you to create content for them. You tell me, do you even need a sound mixer anymore?
This essay was written without the use of AI