Mike Aiton Brings Stories to Life with NUGEN Audio

With a career that spans four decades across television, film and post-production, Freelance Sound Designer and Post-production Sound Mixer Mike Aiton has built a reputation as a safe pair of creative hands for complex audio projects. From his early days in broadcast and news, to his current work on documentaries, dramas and reality TV, Aiton's workflow has consistently been shaped by tools that deliver precision, adaptability and reliability.

Aiton began his career at the BBC, where he learned from some of the best in the audio industry, eventually finding his true passion in post-production, where he can collaborate directly with directors to shape the emotional impact of a story. In a TV studio, sound is often the last priority. If you get it wrong you lose, and if you get it right no one notices, he explains. But, in post-production, you have a voice. You can suggest ideas, try things and really contribute to the storytelling.

Known for his adaptability, Aiton works across a wide variety of genres and often pre-mixes projects for other mixers, ensuring they receive clean, intelligible audio that aligns with their creative vision. His early adoption of a home studio in 2002 also made him a go-to choice for directors who valued a safe, comfortable and collaborative environment without the associated Soho costs.

To enhance his creativity, Aiton has integrated multiple NUGEN Audio plug-ins into his workflow over time, each serving a critical role in achieving broadcast-ready results. Among these is the VisLM loudness metering plug-in, which he says is a constant presence in every session. VisLM has advanced automation features that adapt loudness calculations to changes in the timeline without requiring a full re-analysis, he explains. With other meters, if you make a small change you have to re-measure the whole program, but with VisLM, if I add something say a big explosion, it knows exactly where I made the change and recalculates only that part, while keeping the entire program's loudness accurate. That kind of intelligence saves me hours.

Another essential tool for Aiton is the brand's latest DialogCheck speech intelligibility plug-in, which he recently tested while working on the dialogue pre-mix for the BAFTA-winning BBC children's drama, Jamie Johnson FC. With young actors whose diction is not always precise, clarity was crucial. Dialogue is the story in that kind of show; if it's not clear, you might as well go home, he says. DialogCheck is another traffic light in the system to help ensure the audience can follow every word.

For delivery, Aiton often relies on LM-Correct as a final safeguard before sending mixes to clients. It's belt and braces, he says. I'll always do a safety check before anything leaves the factory. Even though I've watched my mixes through and metered them all the way, LM-Correct is the final reassurance that my stems are ready for broadcast. In post-production, you can't afford nasty surprises they cost time and money, but LM-Correct ensures that doesn't happen.

As far as stereo-to-surround upmixing, NUGEN's Halo Upmix is Aiton's top choice, particularly for music and atmospheric elements. It's always good to have a variety of tools when it comes to anything creative, but Halo Upmix is my preferred upmixer, he declares. I want control over how much I spread the reverbs, the strings or the pads, and Halo Upmix gives me that power while keeping my work completely downmix-safe. Compared to other similar plug-ins, it creates a better diffuse field. The fact that I can also monitor the downmix to 100% compatibility is invaluable. I also like that I can A/B between the original stereo and the downmix of the upmixed track. It's undoing what I've done, just to check I haven't damaged anything.

In addition to his professional mixing work, Aiton is an associate lecturer in sound design for the post graduate students at Buckinghamshire New University (BNU). Here, NUGEN's support extends beyond the studio. The NUGEN team has always been incredibly supportive of education, he says. If I call and say I have students who need software for a project, they'll provide licenses or discounts. It's a two-way relationship they help me teach best practices and, in turn, my students become familiar with the best tools in the industry.

For Aiton, NUGEN's appeal lies not just in its sonic accuracy but in the brand's engineering excellence. I've known the team at NUGEN since they first started, he says. I was probably one of their first customers, and I've used their metering plug-ins on every session ever since.

Paul Tapper, the CEO of NUGEN, has a PhD in maths, so there's not much he doesn't know about manipulating digital audio. When you get the opportunity to test a NUGEN beta, it usually just works. Other companies? Not always. Ultimately, our job is the artistic application of science, he adds. With NUGEN, I know the science is rock-solid, which frees me to focus on the art.

LINK:	https://kitplus.com/news/mike-aiton-brings-stories-to-life-with-nugen-...
	See more stories from tvbay

More from TV-Bay