OK, now I understand why people have control surfaces

I'm cutting the multimedia extravaganza that was the British Interactive Group's annual Best Demo Competition. This year we filmed it, with two cameras, and I've just done a vision-mixing pass so the pictures work more-or-less as well as they're going to.

Next, then, I have to sort the audio. Which is a bit tricky, because I had only one working shotgun mic (mostly too far from the performers), with the other camera deliberately using its built-in mic in an attempt to capture some audience atmosphere.

If I double-track both sources, the result isn't too bad. Thank you Final Cut for making it easy to run multiple audio tracks, and to slip tracks into sync. But of course, the levels of the performers vary greatly (not helped by auto gain control, ugh ugh ugh). So... prior to dropping down to bog-standard stereo, I need to mix what's now a four-track project.

With a mouse.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is why people have these things.

Harrumph.