How to implement Chairman Mic Priority and Override Feature
Automixer Setting for Priority Mic
First step to achieving priority for a microphone is to ensure that it is always active and passing audio. This can be acheived in the Automixer settings.
Gain Sharing Automixer
No explicit settings are required for this feature since all microphone are always active in a gain sharing automixer.
Gating Automixer
Double click Gating Automixer block and select Mic Options in the dialog. Set "Designated Mic On/Last Mic Hold" to the designated priority or chairman mic.
Programming
Mic Priority can be implemented in more than one way. Here we will use a ducker to achieve this feature since it provides a more controlled behavior of other microphones to a priority/chairman mic. For example, audio can either be partially or fully attenuated, and ramped up or down so it doesn't sound unnatural.
The examples below also show show an optional manual control of the chairman mic such that override feature is only active when an accompanying button is pressed. The button can be a soft button on a touchscreen or a pushbutton wired to a logic i/o.
Ducker Settings
Configure the Ducker as you would for any microphone. For example, a in typical conference room the microphones are tuned to 0 dBu in which case the Ducker threshold can be set to -10dBu.
The Attack and Release time can be set as desired (based on trial and error to achieve the best sounding result).
Mix Sense needs to be kept enabled in this case. Logic In and Out is not required and can be left at default settings. f
Priority with Microphone Mix Out
The priority/chairman mic is also routed to the Sense input of the Ducker.
The optional mute control circuit can be used to disable or enable override feature. When disabled in this case with Logic State set to ON, all microphones including the priority/chairman mic will behave in the same manner. Since the chairman mic is designated ON, it will always remain active and pass audio.
Priority with Microphone Direct Outputs
For individual microphone feeds, use this combination:
Priority in Mix Minus Systems
In Mix Minus systems, since each microphone from the Automixer may be taking a different audio path, ducking needs to be applied to each microphone or microphone group.
The priority microphone is fed into the sense input of each Ducker (signal highlighted in green in the below image)
Mix Sense will need to be Off on all Duckers, and the priority mic audio will be sent straight to the matrix mixer via a seperate connection as shown.
