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Mix technician Blake Bunzel prefers Nugen Audio

From dialog-driven comedies to effects-heavy fantasy series, mix technician Blake Bunzel uses Nugen Audio plug-ins - including VisLM, DialogCheck, and LM-Correct - to anchor his workflow.

Bunzel came into post-production through music. After years of playing in bands and mixing music, he transitioned into post as a music editor, where he learned the fundamentals of editorial workflows. His career took a turn when his mentor, re-recording mixer John Cook, encouraged him to join a major studio’s post-production team.

Since then, Bunzel has supported Cook and other mixers on a wide range of projects across broadcast and streaming, for which Nugen Audio plug-ins have become essential. One of Bunzel’s recurring challenges is maintaining clarity and consistency on a dialog-heavy series, which he addresses with Nugen’s loudness metering tool VisLM.

While some projects demand precision, others require scale. Bunzel frequently works on effects- and music-heavy episodic content that presents a very different mixing challenge. “There’s so much happening in those types of shows”, he notes. “It’s my job to make sure we are hitting spec.”

For this, Bunzel relies heavily on Nugen Audio DialogCheck, which helps verify intelligibility even in dense, high-energy scenes. “DialogCheck is something you can constantly refer to, not necessarily using it as a ‘Bible’, but as a second set of ears”, he adds. “When there’s an explosion happening and somebody’s yelling, you can use that to know what the algorithms are telling you.”

Bunzel also uses the brand’s LM-Correct to normalize guide tracks before mixing begins. Picture editors often deliver temp mixes at inconsistent levels, and LM-Correct helps establish a clean starting point. “It gets you in the ballpark, so you can A/B against something that’s already in spec”, he says.

Many of the episodic projects Bunzel supports require him to hit two separate loudness targets - a dialogue-weighted -27 LKFS and a program-weighted -24 LKFS. “It’s a challenge to work that out over many days of mixing”, he notes. “Nugen has been huge in making sure those are met. It’s just as crucial as using Pro Tools.”

Bunzel also works on extended-cut versions of legacy comedy content, which blends archival stems with newly added material. This requires careful loudness management to maintain consistency with the original mixes. “It’s always so much fun to open those back up”, he says. “Nugen makes sure we’re still flying the plane straight.”

Bunzel credits Cook for introducing him to Nugen years ago. Today, the tools are central to his workflow both in real-time mixing and offline verification.

(Photos: Nugen Audio)

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