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 shares how he uses Nugen Audio tools and why.

Mike 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.

After five years at BBC tv, Mike Aiton spent four years at TWI as dubbing mixer, another four years at Molinare as senior dubbing mixer. After 9 months of successful freelancing Mike was cunningly lured back as head of sound at Clearcut Pictures, where he spent one year before deciding to go freelance.

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.

“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.”

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 Nugen Audio‘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.”