Microphone mixer

A microphone system comprising:

• a plurality of microphones, each of said microphones generating an electrical microphone signal carrying speech information;
• gating means receiving each said microphone signal and gating each said microphone signal to gate ON its associated microphone in response to gating signals, said gating means including:
• rectifier means for monitoring said microphone signals and producing microphone signal level representations of each of said microphone signals;
• scaling means for monitoring said microphone signal level representations and producing scaled microphone signal level representations at one scaled level for microphone signals associated with gated ON microphones and at a different scaled level for microphone signals associated with gated OFF microphones;
• comparison means for directly comparing said scaled microphone signal level representations and producing trigger signals associated with said microphones;
• gating signal generation means responsive to said trigger signals for generating gating signals of a predetermined, non-zero time duration;
• gate means, responsive to said gating signals, for gating ON said microphones associated with said trigger signals.