Multitouch Interface for Audio Mixing

Audio mixing is the adjustment of relative volumes, panning and other parameters corresponding to different sound sources, in order to create a technically and aesthetically adequate sound sum. To do this, audio engineers employ “panpots” and faders, the standard controls in audio mixers. The design of such devices has remained practically unchanged for decades since their introduction. At the time, no usability studies seem to have been conducted on such devices, so one could question if they are really optimized for the task they are meant for. This paper proposes a new set of controls that might be used to simplify and/or improve the performance of audio mixing tasks, taking into account the spatial characteristics of modern mixing technologies such as surround and 3D audio and making use of multitouch interface technologies. A preliminary usability test has shown promising results.