"Magic music mixing machines":a future design workshop with amateur music producers

The Audio Mixing Interface (AMI) is primary tool for music production. Despite evolving from analogue to digital and software-based systems its core visual paradigm used to convey meaning remains unchanged. Alternative designs based on a metaphorical stage have been proposed but lacked user involvement in the design process. This study addresses this omission by employing a future design workshop approach to explore amateur music producers perspectives on AMI technologies. Seventy amateur target users provided pictorial responses, which, when analysed thematically, revealed four core themes: the prominence of the stage as the mental model to visualise the mix space, a desire for a higher level interaction style and assistive/automated features and challenges with traditional computer-based interactions. These insights will inform the development of more intuitive, user-centred AMIs tailored to the needs of amateur producers.