Multi-channel audio review: Now live in Iconik

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Iconik now supports multi-channel audio playback and control directly in the web player, giving you up to 16 discrete audio channels with independent muting, soloing, panning, and volume control.

No downloads. No waiting. No workarounds.

Available for all Iconik Pro and Enterprise users today.

The problem multi-channel audio solves

Modern cameras and recording devices capture audio across multiple channels. A camera operator might record internal mics on channels 1-2, a boom mic on 3-4, and wireless lavalier mics on 5-6. Broadcast and live production setups typically use 8, 12, or 16 channels, each representing a different microphone, mix feed, or source.

But if your review tool only plays back stereo (channels 1-2), you're blind to everything else. That means:

• Editors waste time downloading files just to audition the right audio
• Reviewers can't provide accurate feedback because they're hearing the wrong mix
• Quality Control (QC) workflows grow difficult because isolating a problem channel requires a trip to the non-linear editor (NLE)
• Proxy-to-original workflows break down when the proxy doesn't preserve what the editor needs to hear

Costs can come in both time and confidence. When teams can't trust what they hear during review, they second-guess approvals, re-download originals, and add handoffs that shouldn't exist.

What Iconik's multi-channel audio does

Iconik now preserves and plays back multi-channel audio in the Iconik web player, with full control over every channel (Iconik Player support coming soon for desktop app users).

When you upload a file with multiple audio channels, Iconik creates a proxy that retains that channel structure. Open the asset in the player, and you get:

• Individual channel muting: Turn off the channels you don't need to hear
• Solo functionality: Isolate a single channel (or pair) to focus on exactly what matters
• Panning control: Route channels to left, right, or center for clearer monitoring
• Independent volume control: Adjust levels per channel without affecting others
• Real-time audio metering: Visual confirmation of what's playing and at what level

This works across common production scenarios:

• Field recording: Camera ops capture internal mics (1-2) and external boom/lav feeds (3-4+). Now reviewers can mute the noisy internal mics and hear the clean external audio without opening an NLE.
• Broadcast and live production: Feeds with 8-16 channels representing different microphones, mix buses, or commentary tracks. Editors and QC teams can isolate specific sources instantly.
• Post-production handoffs: When originals have multi-channel audio, proxies now preserve that structure, meaning faster review cycles and fewer questions about "which channels have the good audio."

Browser support note: Chrome and Edge (on Windows) deliver full multi-channel playback. Safari and Firefox automatically fall back to stereo. Iconik serves the right proxy for each browser; no manual configuration required.

Building towards a more comprehensive media review system

Over the past year, we've steadily transformed Iconik's review capabilities on the way to creating an entirely modern media review system. So far we’ve launched:

• The new Iconik Review with synchronized review for faster review cyles
• Iconik iOS app for mobile review
• Iconik Player for master-quality desktop playback
• Magic Links authentication for tighter security on external shares

Multi-channel audio is the latest innovation we are delivering on that promise. It ensures that the same review environment that handles collaboration, security, and quality on top of a modern media asset management (MAM) interface now also handles audio complexity, without forcing you into secondary tools or manual workarounds.

For teams using proxy-to-original workflows in Premiere or Resolve, this also changes the economics: web proxies now preserve multi-channel audio, eliminating the need for separate edit proxies in many cases. That's one less format to generate, store, and manage, giving you a faster turnaround time from ingest to usable media.

Iconik has always been the control panel for media at scale; indexing, governing, and coordinating content across distributed storage and tools so teams can move fast without losing control. Multi-channel audio reinforces that: you don't need to download, duplicate, or fragment your workflow just to hear the right audio channel. It's already there, and you can control it.

Setup and implementation

Multi-channel audio playback is available for Pro and Enterprise Iconik users today in the web player, with Iconik Player support coming soon.

To enable multi-channel audio, just go to your transcoder settings, and turn on multi-channel audio. 

When an uploaded asset contains more than two channels, Iconik automatically creates a multi-channel proxy for supported browsers, and standard stereo proxy as a fallback.

Setup takes one toggle. The rest is automatic.

Manage all aspects of media production, from one place

Iconik works best when coordination, governance, and creative velocity scale together — when teams can search, review, and reuse assets without the system fracturing into silos, workarounds, and manual policing.

Multi-channel audio is another example of that principle in action. The audio was always in your files. Now you can actually use it without leaving the system, without waiting for downloads, and without sacrificing the collaboration and governance that keep distributed teams aligned.

That's what modern media management looks like. Not just storing media. Not just playing it back. Making it usable, governable, and accessible wherever your team needs to work.

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Ready to see it in action? Multi-channel audio is now available to all Pro and Enterprise Iconik users. Log in to Iconik or contact us to learn more about how Iconik scales review, collaboration, and media operations without compromise.