11. Sound

The Mixer

The Mixer is where a song is balanced: a channel strip for each track, then a strip for each bus, then the master. Every change is one undo step, a whole fader drag included, and it’s saved with the song.

The Mixer pane

Available on every platform.

Make any pane a Mixer from its kind in the pane bar (see Panes), or use the built-in Mix workspace (Workspaces). A Mixer shows the tracks its pane shows: its context chip picks them, as in an Editor (The pane bar). When there are more strips than room, scroll sideways: the master stays at the right edge while the rest go under it. A song with no tracks says so, with Add Track to make one.

A track’s strip

From the top:

• Its name, under a stripe in the track’s colour. The stripe dims while the track is silent, muted or left out by another track’s solo.
• Its sound. The button says what the track plays through. Click it for the track’s sound chooser: Stab Strings, SoundFont or Stab Synth › and its presets, the sampled instruments here that fit the track, a few to get with their demos, your own files apart, and Sound Library…. On a drum track it lists the kits. See Drums and kits and Sampled instruments.
• A send to each bus: the bus’s dot in its colour, the level, and how much in dB (off when the track doesn’t send to it).
• Pan, a knob with its value under it: C at the centre, L20 or R20 either side.
• The fader, from silent to +4.2 dB, with a scale beside it (0, 6, 12, 24 and 48 dB down), its level under it and the meters at its right. It catches at 0 dB as it passes.
• M (mute) and S (solo).

Drag a fader to change it. Turn a pan knob by dragging right or up (left or down for the other way); it turns from where it was and rests at the centre as it passes. Double-click a fader to put it back at 0 dB, or a pan to put it back at the centre.

The meters

Each strip’s meters are green, then orange from −12 dB and red from −3 dB. A line holds each side’s peak for a moment, then follows the level down. When a strip goes over 0 dB a red dot lights over its meters and Clip says by how much under its fader (Clip +0.4). It stays until you click the meters or those words, or play again.

A track’s M and S are also in its tag in the Editor, and its volume and pan in the card its name opens there; both places change the same thing.

A drum kit’s pieces

A drum track’s strip has an arrow after its name. Click the name and the kit opens onto a narrow strip for each of its pieces (kick, snare, hi-hat…), grouped in the kit’s colour: each with its own pan, fader, meter, mute and solo, mixed inside the kit. A soloed piece’s name turns brass. Click the name again to close them; each pane remembers which kits it has open.

The master

The last strip is the master: the whole mix’s fader and meters, and its processing in a word (No processing when there’s none). It stays at the right edge while the other strips scroll. Its fader sets the whole song’s level after its processing, saved with the song; double-click it to put it back at 0 dB. When the mix goes over 0 dB, the master’s Clip says by how much. Click that button to show the master’s chain in the Sound pane.

What it shows

The pane’s ⚙ has the Mixer’s own settings, kept with the pane:

• Show Sends: the send rows on every track’s strip.
• Show Buses: the buses’ strips.
• Kits › Open All or Close All: every drum kit’s pieces at once.
• Strip Width › Narrow: thinner strips with a short name and no sound button or sends, for a Mixer beside an Editor. Normal brings them back.

On a phone

When a Mixer pane on a phone is short (a phone on its side, say), its strips show one face at a time, with a switch at the top: Faders (faders, meters, mute and solo) or Sound & Sends (each track’s sound, its sends as sliders for a finger, and its pan). Make the pane taller to see everything at once.

Learning MIDI for a fader

Right-click a track’s fader or pan, a bus’s fader or the master’s, and choose Learn MIDI for… its name; then move a knob or a slider on your controller. Forget MIDI unbinds it. See MIDI control and mapping.

Buses and sends

Available on every platform.

A bus is a shared effect: a reverb or a delay that several tracks send to, each as much as it wants, instead of one on each track. A song has up to 8.

Adding a bus

Right-click anywhere in the Mixer and choose one:

• Add Room Bus, Add Delay Bus, Add Chorus Bus or Add Hall Bus: a bus with that effect on it, named after it (a second room is Room 2).
• Add Empty Bus: a bus with nothing on it, for a chain of your own.

Right-click a bus’s strip for Rename Bus… and Remove Bus.

Sending to it

Every track strip gets a send row for each bus. Drag along the row to set how much of the track goes to that bus; it catches at 0 dB. Double-click it to turn the send on at 0 dB, or off.

A bus’s strip

A bus’s strip has its name with a dot in its colour (a room blue, a delay rose…), its chain in a word (Straight when it has no effect), a balance, a fader with its meters, and M to mute it. Click its chain to edit it in the Sound pane, where you can add, change or remove its effects like a track’s.