How To Make An Audio Fie On Mixpad

Transcription

1 NCH Software MixPad Mutitrack Recording Software This user guide has been created for use with MixPad Mutitrack Recording Software Version 3.xx NCH Software

2 Technica Support If you have difficuties using MixPad Mutitrack Recording Software pease read the appicabe topic before requesting support. If your probem is not covered in this user guide pease view the up-to-date MixPad Mutitrack Recording Software Onine Technica Support at If that does not sove your probem, you can contact us using the technica support contacts isted on that page. Software Suggestions If you have any suggestions for improvements to MixPad Mutitrack Recording Software, or suggestions for other reated software that you might need, pease post it on our Suggestions page at Many of our software projects have been undertaken after suggestions from users ike you. You get a free upgrade if we foow your suggestion.

3 MixPad Mutitrack Recording Software Contents Overview... 3 Getting Started with MixPad... 4 Choosing Your Audio Settings... 5 Loading an Audio Cip into the MixPad Work Area... 7 Positioning, Seecting and Copying Cips... 8 Using the Navigator... 9 Enveope Fade Points (Automation) Editing Cips Trimming or Expanding Cips Working with Tracks Working with Your Project Timeine Edit Recording a Cip MIDI Payback MIDI Recording MIDI Editing Beat Designer Exporting Coud Support History Manager Cip Manager Effects Equaizer Surround Sound VSTs Working with Video Shortcut Keys Reference Support Reated Software Recommended hardware Software License Terms NCH Sound Library NCH Sound Library Screen References Advanced Recording Options Detecting MIDI Event

4 Jog Whee Setup Rename Cip Seect Speed Stretch or Shrink Cips Customize Too Tab Appy Auto Duck Options ~ Genera Options ~ Messages Options ~ Metronome Options ~ Project Options ~ MIDI Controer

5 Overview MixPad is a muti-track mixing software package designed for professiona audio production. Simpy oad existing audio fies, or record new fies into MixPad, adjust the voumes, pans, fades, add effects and mix your audio cips down to create a singe high-quaity audio fie. It is the digita equivaent of using a muti-track recorder and mixing desk. Features: Driver support for ASIO, DirectSound, MME. Unimited tracks. Support for MIDI payback. Pan and voume enveope automation. Intuitive, simpe graphica interface. Independent voume, pan and effects for each track. Independent audio input and output routing for each track. Supports a arge number of fie formats incuding wav (mutipe codecs), mp3, ogg, fac, vox, gsm and many more. High accuracy for precise mixing. Drag and drop existing fies straight into the work area. Incudes a CD ripper to oad audio directy from an audio CD. Incudes a high quaity sound recorder which supports autotrim and voice activated recording. Integrated with Wavepad sound editor so you can conduct advanced editing on your fies without having to save your fies in between. Soo and mute feature on each track. Add mutipe chained effects to each track. System Requirements Windows 2000/XP/2003/2008/Vista/7/8/10 MixPad is just one component of the NCH Software suite of audio software. If you have not done so aready, why not visit to downoad and tria our other professiona audio software packages. 3

6 Getting Started with MixPad A MixPad project consists of one or more tracks. Each track has its own set of contros on the eft side of the screen for controing the overa voume, pan and other payback features of the track. Each track can contain an unimited number of audio cips. Audio cips are the pieces of audio that you wish to mix together into one fie. Whenever you add an mp3 fie, import from a CD, or make your own recording, an audio cip wi be added to the currenty seected track. When you have adjusted a the voumes and fades exacty how you want them, you can output your project to a.wav,.mp3,.gsm or one of many other formats by simpy seecting Export Project as Audio Fie from the Fie menu and then choosing the format you wish to save in. Aternativey, if you are not finished mixing and want to come back to it ater, you can save your project to be reopened for ater. 4

7 Choosing Your Audio Settings Supported Devices MixPad currenty features support for payback to ASIO, DirectSound and MME devices and recording from ASIO and MME devices. NCH recommends ASIO for both payback and recording. ASIO wi provide the best performance and the owest possibe atency and offer the greatest accuracy when synchronizing recordings. ASIO wi aso aow you to pay and record from mutipe channes of the same device. If you don't have an ASIO capabe sound card then you shoud choose DirectSound as your payback option and MME as your recording option. Another option is to insta the driver from ASIO4ALL which provides a ayer over the reguar soundcard, aowing it to be used as an ASIO device by software such as MixPad. You can downoad it for free from Setting up the Project Audio Options Open the Options diaog (Fie --> Options...) and cick on the Genera tab. Here you are abe to set the payback device you woud ike MixPad to use. If you seect an ASIO device then you wi aso be abe to seect which channe to aocate as your primary eft and right outputs. This option is not avaiabe for DirectSound or MME drivers. Setting up the Track Audio Options To set audio options that are specific to an individua track, seect the track and cick either the 'Audio Options' button under the 'Recording' tab or cick the 'wrench icon' button to the right in the track's contro pane. Track The Seect track's settings dispays the track you are editing by it's Track Index number. You can switch to any other of the tracks isted from the drop down ist. If you make a change to the any of the options beow, choose Appy Settings by cicking Appy or cick OK to appy those settings to the track. If you make a change then cick Appy, Choose Appy Settings to a tracks it wi appy the change to a tracks. Recording options Here, you wi be abe to set the recording device you wish to use for this track. If you choose an ASIO device you wi aso be abe to seect which channes to use for mutichanne devices. To set up recording using an audio device, seect the Record using an audio device option and seect the device you want to record. You can specify whether to record as mono or stereo and if the device can record muti-channe you can specify which two channes wi be recorded. To set up recording using a MIDI device, seect the Record using a Midi device option and seect the device you want to record. For more information about MIDI recording, see the MIDI Recording topic in this manua. If you are using ASIO hardware then you can check the Enabe monitoring for ASIO devices 5

8 box which wi aow you to hear what you are recording through your headphones. However, a better approach to monitoring your recording is to use your hardware directy. Most externa soundcards wi aow you to directy monitor your input via a headphone output. This option wi provide you with the best performance and zero atency." Audio Payback Device Here you are abe to seect the output channe for this particuar track. Pease note, this is ony avaiabe if you have seected an ASIO device as your main payback device (see Setting up the Project Audio Options, above). If you want to use the defaut project eft and right channes, you can set these options to Main Output (Left) and Main Output (Right). If you wish to use different outputs from the defaut project settings, you can change them here and override the project settings. Midi Payback options This section aows you to choose between a Midi device or a Virtua Instrument for payback. 6

9 Loading an Audio Cip into the MixPad Work Area Use one of the foowing methods to oad a cip into a track. Note that MixPad may reocate the cip to the next track if the cip being oaded wi overap other cips. Record a track using MixPad For detais on recording a track in MixPad see the Recording a Cip topic in this manua. Load an existing cip from a ocation on your hard drive To open an existing audio fie and add it as a MixPad cip, cick the Load Cip button in the toobar. Browse to the ocation of the audio fie and cick Open. Aternativey, you can just drag and drop the fie into the MixPad work area. Load a cip from a CD You can oad an audio track from a CD by seecting the menu option Cip-->Load Cip From CD. Aternativey, you can cick the drop down of toobar icon Load Cip and seect Rip Cip. MixPad wi first attempt to ook up the track information for your CD onine and then dispay a ist of avaiabe CD tracks for you to choose from. Seect one or more track(s) that you wish to oad and then cick the Load button. Load a cip from the Stock Library MixPad comes with a free sound effect ibrary, which incudes royaty free sound effects and music fies. During the free tria period, users wi be aowed to downoad three cips from the ibrary for free, and wi gain unimited access upon purchase of the program. To access the stock ibrary, cick the Cip menu item and seect Load cip from Stock Library. You can preview any cip in the ibrary. To downoad, seect the cip and cick the Downoad button. Load a cip from a video fie MixPad can extract the audio from a video fie for use in your mixes. Simpy oad an existing video fie into MixPad as a cip, as described in the section "Load an existing cip from a ocation on your hard drive" above. 7

10 Positioning, Seecting and Copying Cips When you need to seect ony one cip, just cick on the tite of the cip you want to seect. If you want to seect mutipe cips, push the eft mouse button down and drag a seection box around the cips you want to seect. The easiest way to change the position of a cip is by simpy cicking on the caption of the cip window and dragging it to a new ocation. You can drag a cip to a new ocation within its current track or to a new track atogether. If the cip is very sma then you may find it usefu to zoom in coser. This wi give you a arger caption bar to work with. If you need to move a cip by very sma amounts, you can zoom in very cose so you can see the precise start point of your cip. Or you can use Shift + LEFT/RIGHT key to nudge seected cips to eft or right. The distance of nudge can be set up under Options diaog's Misc page. For accurate and consistent positioning of cips, you may find it usefu to use the grid ines. When the grid ines are turned on, cips wi snap to the nearest grid ine as you drag them. To override snapping, simpy hod down the Shift key as you drag the cip. Aternativey, you can turn the grid ines off atogether by cicking the togge button in the too pane on the bottom eft of the MixPad screen. You can copy and paste cips to different positions and tracks. Simpy seect the cip you wish to copy, press Ctr+C, seect the new ocation of the cip and press Ctr+V to paste it. Aternativey, you can use the copy and paste commands from the Cip menu, or from the right cick menu. Another way to copy a cip is to hod down the Ctr key and drag a cip. This wi produce a copy of the cip and aow you to drag it to the new ocation. You can aso copy and paste mutipe cips simutaneousy. Seect mutipe cips by hoding down the Shift key as you seect each cip. If you make a copy at this point, a cips wi be copied. You can ock cips to prevent accidenta re-positioning of cips whie you are editing. Once ocked, a cip can not be moved unti you unock it. To ock the seected cip, cick the Lock/Unock Cip icon on the Cip tab toobar. Cick this button again to unock the seected ocked cip. When a cip is ocked, the padock icon in the right side of the cip's tite bar wi appear ocked. If the cip is very sma, you may not be abe to see the ock icon uness you zoom in. To deete a cip from the work area, just cick on the "X" icon at the top right corner of the cip window. You can aso seect the cip and press Ctr+Deete. Deeting a cip does not deete the underying audio fie so you wi be abe to reoad the cip if you change your mind. As with the ock icon, the cose icon may not be visibe if your cip is very sma. Copy to System / Paste from system This feature can et you share audio data between different appications. You can copy one cip or part of one cip to system's cipboard, and then other appications, Wavepad for instance, can paste that cip or part of that cip from the system cipboard. Vice versa, if you use Wavepad to copy some audio to the system cipboard, and then in MixPad, you can use paste from system to get that audio from the system cipboard. 8

11 Using the Navigator If you are working on a arge or compex project, you may find using the navigation contro (bottom eft of your project window) hepfu for moving around your project. This sma contro shows an overview map of your entire project. You can cick and drag on the contro to quicky ocate the area of your project to which you woud ike to move without needing to change zoom settings or scro around ooking for it. Cips are represented by sma rectanges and the boundaries of the currenty viewabe area (ie what you can see on your main window) is represented by the outined ighter coored area. 9

12 Enveope Fade Points (Automation) Working with fade points Automation aows you to vary the voume and pan of each cip or track over time. By defaut, MixPad dispays the automation for the voume of a cip. You can swap between Pan, Voume and No automation by using the drop down menu on each track's contro pane (eft of the track). You can add fade points to this enveope by using the eft cick mouse button. To edit a fade point cick on the point you wish to edit and drag it to a new ocation. As you drag the item you shoud see a bubbe tip providing precise information about the new position of the fade point. To remove a fade point, move your mouse cursor on the fadepoint and it wi be seected automaticay, right cick and the fade point wi be deeted. Cross fading A common usage of fade points is to crossfade two audio tracks to create a smoother transition between them. MixPad features a short cut option for doing this. Just seect the two cips you wish to cross fade and seect Cip --> Cross Fade Seected Cips from the menu. The cips need to overap in order for this to work, either on separate tracks or the same track. At this point you can then edit the fade points as described above to fine tune the fade. Track Automation Another usage of fade points is to set up an automation track based on voume, pan and VST pugins. Suppose you want to vary one parameter of a vst pugin over time. Cick the Add Automation command from the Track tab and choose VST Pugin from the drop menu, choose a vst pugin fie(*.d), tick parameters from the pugin, and when you are done a new automation track(s) wi be added to that track. Now you can cick the ine to add and edit the fade points, which wi appy the parameters of the vst at the eves you specify whie paying. 10

13 Editing Cips Basic Editing in MixPad MixPad comes with basic editing toos for arranging your projects. The incuded editing functions are isted beow. For more advanced editing toos, use the integrated WavePad audio editor, described at the bottom of this hep topic. Seected Region Many of the edit functions beow appy to a seected region. To seect ony one cip, just cick on the tite of the cip you want to seect. If you want to seect mutipe cips, hod CTRL and cick eft mouse button down the cips you want to seect. To seect a region, hod the eft mouse button and drag a seection box around the region. Seect A (Ctr+A). To seect a cips on a tracks, press Ctr+A. Scrub (B) A usefu too for ocating specific sections whie editing is the Scrub too. To payback your mix in scrub mode, cick the Scrub button ocated in the contros at the bottom of the project window. You can aso press B to togge scrub on or off. Once payback is in scrub mode, use the eft and right arrows to navigate through the mix. Payback with scrub begins sow and increases in speed as you hod the arrow buttons down. Undo (Ctr+Z) To Undo is to restore the fie to its state before the previous edit function. This is usefu if you want to try an edit or just make a mistake. To undo your ast action press Ctr+Z. Cut (Ctr+X) To 'cut' is to deete the seected region but to keep a copy on the cipboard so it can be 'pasted' somewhere ese. This is usefu when moving parts of the audio around in the fie. To cut, seect a region and then press Ctr+X. Copy (Ctr+C) To 'copy' is to make a copy of a seected region to the cipboard so you can paste it in another ocation. This is usefu if you want to dupicate a part of the audio and insert (or mix it) in another fie. Seect the region and then press Ctr+R. To copy the entire fie press Ctr+C. Paste ( Ctr+V) Paste can ony be used after you have used the Cut or Copy functions (above) to take a seected region to the cipboard. 11

14 The paste function repaces the currenty seected region (or inserts at the cursor on the seected track if there is no seection). To repace a seection press Ctr+V. To insert cick on the position within a track and press Ctr+V. Deete (Ctr+Deete) To deete the cip or seected region press the button 'Deete' on Editing Tab toobar. This is simiar to the cut function but a copy is not taken to the cipboard. Trim To 'trim' is to cut off the beginning or the end of the fie. This is usefu when you have just recorded a fie but there is sience or noise before the start or after the end. To trim using MixPad, simpy move your mouse cursor over the beginning or ending edge of a cip. You wi see the cursor change from a norma pointer to a doube ended arrow. Cick and drag to resize the cip to the ength you want. Another way to trim is to seect the cips you want to trim, press and hod CTRL to seect a region which you want to keep, and then cick Trim Region, it wi trim a the other parts of seected cips and keep the seected region part. Sience Region Sience Region can make the seected region sient. Seect the cips you want to edit and hod CTRL to seect a region. Then cick the Sience Region button to make the seected region part of cips sience. Spit Cip Use this option if you want to quicky spit the current cip into two sma cips. To do this, cick on the position where you want to spit the cip and cick the Spit Cip button in the Editing tab toobar. Join Use the Join feature to combine two cips you have just spit. After using the Spit function described above, cick the Join button in the Editing tab toobar to combine the cips into one. Editing integration with WavePad Audio Editor The most powerfu way to use this feature is to insta WavePad Audio Editor, a free version of which is avaiabe from our website at To Edit a cip, right cick the cip and seect Edit Cip from the context menu. The cip wi open in WavePad for you to edit. Once you finish editing the cip, cick on the Save button in WavePad and the cips wi be refreshed in MixPad automaticay Lock/Unock cips can be ocked to prevent them from accidentay being moved, edited, or deeted. "Lock/Unock Cip" can be found in the Cip toobar tab and wi ock or unock the seected cips. 12

15 Trimming or Expanding Cips Trimming or expanding cips is an amazing feature in MixPad. You can trim and expand a cip from either its beginning or end. Trimming and expanding When trimming or expanding the cip, put your mouse to the beginning or end of a cip and the mouse wi change to a doube-arrow resize cursor, then as you push down the eft mouse button and drag, the cip wi expand or be trimmed accordingy. Vertica dotted ines in the cip indicate the start point and end point of the origina cip, if the cip has been expanded beyond its origina ength. As a cip is expanded beyond its origina ength, the cip contents wi be ooped. Set as Trim/Expand base You may trim or expand a cip many times, but if you want to expand or trim the cip based on the current cip, not the origina one from fie, you can use the context menu "Set as Trim/Expand base", then the current cip wi be treated as base for the ater trimming and expanding. After Set as Trim/Expand base has been seected, any vertica dotted ines in the cip wi disappear for that cip, meaning the visibe portion of the cip is now the base for ater trimming or expanding. 13

16 Working with Tracks MixPad aows you to work on an unimited number of tracks. By defaut, there are five tracks in the project window, but you can add or deete as many tracks as you need. Adding and removing tracks To add a new track, press Ctr+T. Aternativey you can use the "Add track" icon on the Track tab, or use Track --> Add Track from the menu. To insert a new track, press Ctr+Insert. Aternativey you can use the "Insert track" icon on the Track tab. To deete a track, seect it and then press Ctr+Shift+Deete. Aternativey you can use the "Deete track" icon on the right hand side of the project window, or use Track --> Deete Track from the menu. Seect and move tracks You can use Up and Down to seect a track or use mouse to cick the track you want to seect. Page Up/Page Down can be used to the seect first or ast track. Ctr+Up/Down wi move the current seected track up or down. Recording on mutipe tracks To record to many tracks at the same time, cick the Rec button in the contro pane of the tracks you want to record to. Cicking the Rec button puts that track into record standby mode. To begin recording a tracks in record mode, cick the main record button in the contros at the bottom of the project window. Setting Audio Options Each track in MixPad has its own audio options, covering both input and output devices and channes. You can set these options by cicking the Audio Options icon in the track window or you can cick the track and seect "Audio Options" from the Track menu. Any cips recorded on this track wi then use those settings. To quicky view the audio options for any track, hover your mouse over the Audio Options icon in the track window to make the settings appear. Muting and sooing tracks When you are istening to a MixPad project you may wish to ony isten to a few tracks at any one time. For instance, you may wish to isten to a quiet piano piece without hearing a oud drum track. The mute button M, which is found in the track contro pane, aows you to sience a track. Any track on mute wi not pay when you pay the project. Conversey you can set a track to soo by cicking the S button, aso found in the track contro pane. When one or more tracks are set to soo, ony tracks set to soo wi be payed. Coapsing 14

17 If you have a compicated mix, you may end up with too many tracks. To avoid unnecessary amounts of scroing you have the option to coapse the tracks you are not currenty editing. To coapse a track, cick the sma "-" button next to the track tite fied in the track contro pane. Pan You can use the pan sider, ocated in each track contro pane, to pan the audio of a track so that it comes out the eft channe ony, the right channe ony, or anywhere in between. The effect of the pan sider on the track wi combine with any pan specific fade points you have added to individua cips. Adding an effect chain MixPad aows you to buid a ive effect chain on each track. A ive effect chain means that any effect you appy wi be appied during payback, which eiminates the need to wait for your audio to render with the effect. To create or edit an effect, simpy cick the Fx button in the track contro pane. MixPad wi present you with a window showing the ist of effects currenty appied to the seected track. Cick Add to add a new effect, or seect an existing effect and cick Edit to edit its properties. Seect an effect and cick Remove to remove the effect from the chain. Track Coors You can assign a coor to each track, which may hep in visuay differentiating tracks from each other. To assign a coor, right cick on a track and seect Track Coor from the menu that appears. A coor diaog wi appear; cick a coor to seect it and cick OK to appy it to the track. Note that darker shades have a better contrast against the track background, increasing waveform visibiity. DB Dispay DB dispay is the coorfu meter show the DB eve when you paying or recording cips. Every track has a DB dispay, and you can notice there is a peak red ine on db dispay when you paying or recording. This heps you to know the exact db eve, and you can cear the peak db red ine just simpe cick on db dispay. Mixer Window The mixer window is a foating window that contains a the track contros in vertica stye. It has the same functions as the track contros in the main window but provides easy access to a track contros. Cick the Mixer button on the Home tab to open. Here, you can contro the master voume as we as each track's voume, and you can aso set up every track, incuding pan, coor, mute, soo, etc. Exporer Bar The Exporer Bar contains inks to the most-used features in MixPad. You can minimize sections you don't use often by cicking the heading. To contro the Exporer Bar's appearance, cick the View menu and then Exporer Bar. 15

18 Working with Your Project A MixPad project is your entire mix. It is a your tracks and a your cips. Paying To pay a MixPad project move the pay cursor to the position you woud ike to start from and cick the pay button at the bottom eft side of the screen. Aternativey, you can press the space bar as a quick way of togging between pay and stop. Cick the fast-forward and rewind buttons to search through your audio, or cick the Go to Start or Go to End buttons to quicky jump to the start or end of the seected track. Paying the mix using the Scrub too can be usefu for ocating specific sections whie working on your mix. To payback your mix in scrub mode, cick the Scrub button ocated in the contros at the bottom of the project window. You can aso press B to togge scrub on or off. Once payback is in scrub mode, use the Left and Right arrows to navigate through the mix. Payback with scrub begins sow and increases in speed as you hod the arrow buttons down. Seecting a Project Region You can seect a specific region of your project if you want to focus your work on that area. Drag the mouse in the MixPad timeine area and this wi create a highighted region. Now when you cick pay, MixPad wi start paying from the cursor position, and if currenty, the project is in oop mode, MixPad wi oop paying the highighted area once it reaches the end of region. If you start paying after the region end, then MixPad wi just pay to the end of project instead of ooping. To deseect the seection on the timeine, either cick the Cear button on the timeine, or press Ctr+D. Saving and Loading You can save your project as a.mpdp fie with a data foder(same name as project fie with a.projectdata postfix) and then oad it for use again ater. When you save a MixPad project, a audio fies are saved into the project's data foder. This means that if you want to move your project to a different computer or ocation, the things you need to save are the project fie and associated data foder. Timeine Modes The timeine can be viewed in either minutes and seconds or in bars and beats. To togge between the two, cick the timeine mode button ocated above the pay contros and just right of the oop button. Loop Pay Mode To oop a section of your MixPad project over and over, turn oop pay mode on by cicking the oop mode button, ocated on the Recording tab toobar (aso found just above the Pay button in the ower eft corner of the MixPad window). Next, seect the portion of your project you want to oop by cicking and dragging in the timeine area beneath the tracks. When you cick pay and the cursor position is before the end of region, MixPad wi pay from current cursor position and once reaches the end of seected region, the seected region wi oop as ong as the oop pay mode button is activated. Adjusting BPM and Time Signature 16

19 In the same area as the timeine mode button (under the tracks), you can assign a new beats per minute (BPM) to the project and change the time signature. If the timeine mode is set to bars/beats, adjusting the BPM or time signature wi update the markings on the project timeine. View Grid Lines Using grid ines wi hep ine up oops and pieces across severa tracks. To turn on grid ines, cick the grid ines button to the right of the timeine mode button, just above the pay contros. Note that if you change the BPM, you wi have to reset the grid ines by turning them off and back on again. Metronome Paying a metronome during payback wi hep you aign tracks with the master tempo of the mix. To togge the metronome on and off cick the metronome button, ocated beow the tracks in the ower eft corner of the project window. Note that you may need to enabe the metronome in the Options diaog on the Metronome tab before the metronome is avaiabe for use from the project window. See the Options ~ Metronome section of this manua for more information on metronome options. 17

20 Timeine Edit Bookmarks Bookmarks are positions within projects that you might frequenty want to return to. For exampe, you can use a bookmark to mark where a new instrument starts. To add a bookmark, right-cick the timeine and from the popup menu choose Set Bookmark, and then enter a name for the bookmark and seect its coor by cicking on the coored box. You can add more than one bookmark in a project. When you want to return to a bookmark you have created, cick the Bookmarks button on the Toos tab, and a ist of bookmarks wi be shown. Cick the bookmark you want to return to. If you want to remove or edit a bookmark, simpy right-cick on the bookmark on the timeine or, from the bookmark ist, seect Remove Bookmark or Edit Bookmark. Tempo Changes MixPad supports changing tempo at a specified position. By defaut the tempo is 120 beats per minute, and you can change the tempo to any vaue between 30 and 280 at a beat position. For exampe, if you want to change the tempo to 240 beats per minute at the beginning of bar 12, switch the timeine mode to Beats and measures either from the ower Loop & Grid tab or by right-cicking the timeine and seecting Time Dispay Modes -> Beats and Measures. Next, right-cick the timeine, choose Insert Tempo Change, then from the Edit Tempo diaog change the tempo vaue to 240 and change the Bar vaue to 12 and Beat to 1. Now when you turn on the metronome and oad cips to pay, you wi hear that the metronome wi change speed at the paces you specified. To edit or remove a tempo change, just right-cick on the tempo change mark on the timeine and choose Edit Tempo Change or Remove Tempo Change. 18

21 Recording a Cip The first step to recording a cip is to seect your audio input options. Cick the Audio Options icon on the track contro pane, which wi open the audio options for that track. Seect the device and channes you wish to use. If you have an ASIO capabe device, seecting it as the Device wi give you the best possibe performance with MixPad. If you have an ASIO capabe sound card with mutipe inputs, you can record severa different sources into different tracks at the same time. Simpy choose which input you woud ike to use for each track from the audio settings diaog. In the same recording options window, you can aso choose which Sampe Rate you woud ike to use for recording, and whether you woud ike to record in stereo or mono. Cick OK to save the audio settings. Now cick the Rec button on the track's contro pane to pace the track into record-standby mode - MixPad wi not start recording yet. Check that the audio eve meter, ocated at the bottom of the track contro pane, is registering an input. If there is no meter reading here, your audio input devices have not been set up propery. Finay, press the main record button (found at the bottom with the other project contro buttons), and MixPad wi start recording. You can easiy record to mutipe tracks by putting more than one track into record-standby mode. When you press the main record button, any track in record-standby mode wi commence recording. If in the recording process you are not satisfied with what has been recorded and want to restart, simpy cick Rerecord, MixPad wi discard everything recorded and restart recording from beginning. Mutipe Take Feature Mutipe take is an advanced feature which aows you to record the same segment severa times. After recording, you wi have a mutipe-take cip, which is one cip that contains mutipe takes. You can choose the best one and deete a other takes. To use this feature, seect a region on the timeine and enabe oop mode, set one or more track(s) to record mode using sound recorder, then start recording before the region. You wi notice that your recording wi oop from the region start to the region end. Each oop wi create a take. When finished, you can use the popup menu to choose the take you want, or you can press Ctr + Shift + P (Previous), Ctr + Shift + N (Next) to choose the previous or next take in the mutipe-take cip. Currenty this feature does not support MIDI recording. 19

22 MIDI Payback MixPad supports the payback of MIDI fies. Unike most digita audio workstations, MixPad aows you to add a MIDI cip to any track - it does not distinguish between a MIDI track and an audio track. This aows you greater fexibiity in your mixes. You add a MIDI cip to your project the same way you add a norma audio cip - either by dragging and dropping or from one of the Load options under the 'Cip' menu. It is important to note that a MIDI cip is not an audio fie. It is just a sequence of instructions which can be sent to a synthesizer which can then convert the instructions into audibe notes. As such, if you wish to payback your MIDI cips you wi need to seect an output device to pay back to. If you have an externa MIDI synthesizer then this wi be your best option because the atency is ikey to be very ow and you wi keep good synchronization between your MIDI cips and audio cips. If you do not have an externa MIDI device then you can use the buit in Microsoft synthesizer. Pease note that the buit in synthesizer has a significant ag which can make synchronization difficut. MIDI fies can contain more than one MIDI track. If you oad a track into MixPad that contains mutipe tracks, MixPad wi give you the option to merge a the tracks into one cip, or separate them out in individua cips. MIDI voume contro is a itte bit different from audio. Currenty, if you want to contro one midi cip voume, you have to use VST Instrument. Or you can use the master voume contro on the right bottom of MixPad, which contros a the midi device voume and audio voume. You can't adjust one singe midi cip voume directy whie paying through midi device. 20

23 MIDI Recording MixPad supports ive recording of MIDI input from MIDI capabe devices. You can record a MIDI cip into any of your tracks - even tracks that aready contain audio fies. In order to record a MIDI cip you wi need to first configure your MIDI input settings: 1. Cick the Audio Options icon on the track you woud ike to record into. You shoud see the Audio Options diaog for that track appear. 2. Under Recording Options, seect the 'Record using a MIDI device' option. 3. Seect the MIDI device you wish to use for recording from the pudown ist. The rest of the recording process is basicay the same as it is for recording audio. 1. Put the track into record-standby mode by cicking the Rec button. 2. Start recording by cicking the MixPad record button at the bottom of the screen. 3. Start paying your MIDI device. You shoud see the MIDI in ight, ocated in the track contro pane, iuminate every time MixPad receives a MIDI event. 21

24 MIDI Editing MixPad aows you to edit MIDI fies using a specia MIDI editor window. To edit a MIDI cip, simpy seect that cip and press 'CTRL+E' or right cick on the cip and seect 'Edit Cip' from popup menu. This wi open the cip in the MIDI editor. From this editor you can do the foowing: Move MIDI notes around - grab the note with the mouse and drag. Resize the ength of MIDI notes - pace the mouse cursor over the edge of the MIDI note unti you see the doube-arrow resizing cursor. Deete notes - simpy seect a note by cicking on it and press Deete. Property Pane - Property Pane contains 'Seected notes', 'Create notes' and 'Fiter' three parts. You can show or hide 'Property Pane' by cicking the 'Property Pane' on the Setting Tab. Add new notes - Hod down the Ctr key and cick and drag the mouse in the editor where you woud ike the new note created. The new note's veocity and channe is determined by the settings in the Context Pane's 'Create Notes'. Change the properties of notes - simpy seect the note you woud ike to change, or seect the note and press Ctr+P. You wi see the context pane where you can change the seected notes' property. Fiter -- you can show/hide notes by channes. If you do not want to see a note on channe 0, then just untick check box of channe 0. Copy & Paste -- After seecting a note by cicking on it, press Copy to save the seection to the cipboard. By pressing and hoding the Ctr key as you cick, you can seect mutipe notes at ones. Then cick on Paste to add those copied notes on to the roout. They wi be added where the cursor on the timeine is ocated. Quantize and Humanize -- Quantize can et you aign notes' start, ength etc to divisions. And Humanize is the reverse of Quantize which introduces random errors for notes' start position, ength etc. VSTi -- Appy an effect to the MIDI by using Virtua Studio Technoogy DLL pugins you have downoaded. For more info pease refer to topic "VSTs". Events List -- Events ist window ists a events incuding program change, controer change events etc. You can eave the MIDI editor window open whie you work on your MixPad project. Changes you make to the MIDI cip are immediatey refected in the main MixPad window. Shortcuts for MIDI Editing Zoom [Mouse Whee] Scro verticay [ALT + Mouse Whee] Scro horizontay [Midde Cick + drag] Add note [Ctr+Drag] 22

25 Beat Designer Beat Designer The Beat Designer is a utiity which ets you buid a beat track for your project. To open the beat designer, cick the Beat Designer button on the Toos tab. To hep get you started, there is a kit of sounds and patterns avaiabe for free downoad - just cick on Fie->Downoad Kits and Patterns. Too Pane The too pane is ocated in the bottom-eft corner beside the timeine and contains contros for adjusting the tempo (BPM), time signature and ength (in bars) of the beat cip you are creating. Changing their vaue wi change the scae of the timeine. Beat Divisions You can subdivide each beat in a track to create smaer beat durations. So, for your kick drum you may have a kick every 1/4 quarter note, but for your hi-hat you may have a hit every 1/8 note. To change the beat divisions cick on the spanner icon of the track and change the number of divisions. Adding a Beat The sound a track makes is determined by the sound that is assigned to it. You can create and manage sounds using the Sound tab from the main toobar. You can assign a sound to a track by cicking on the button with the trumpet icon. You add sounds to your track by simpy cicking on the division you woud ike to pace a sound. Adjusting the Voume You can change the voume of each individua sound by dragging the sma fader contro in the centre of each beat up or down. If the sound you are using consists of ony one fie then the voume wi be attenuated by processing the audio. You can however configure your sound to use mutipe fies assigned to different voume ranges. In this case MixPad wi choose the fie which most cosey fits the fader voume and then appy further processing to adjust the voume as required. Tapping a Rhythm If you'd ike to tap a rhythm into the Beat Designer whie paying back, you can bind a key to each track so that when you hit the key, a sound wi be paced in the division at the current cursor position. You can assign a key binding by cicking on the spanner icon of the track. Loading your Beat Cip Back Into MixPad Once you are finished buiding your beat cip, cick the Create Cip button on the toobar and MixPad wi create a new audio cip in the seected track of MixPad's main window. Pattern Library A pattern is just a sequence of events payed across the tracks of your beat cip. You can save and oad your favorite patterns from the pattern ibrary by using the Save Pattern and Load Pattern buttons. Patterns can be re-used with different sounds and kits. So you may have a standard 4/4 rock pattern that you ike to begin with, but you can change it up quicky by assigning different sounds to the tracks. Kit Library A kit contains a ist of sounds configured for each track. Saved kits can be oaded into the Beat Designer by seecting the kit from the ibrary ist at the eft side of the Beat Designer. At any time, you can save your current configuration as a new kit using the Save Kit button. 23

26 Managing Sounds You can create and modify your ibrary of sounds using the Sound tab. The simpest form of a sound consists of a singe audio fie. This fie wi then be used for a voume ranges. You can create a more sophisticated sound by assigning different fies to different voume ranges. For exampe you may have a recording of a cymba being hit at different strengths. You can oad a these fies and then assign each fie to its own voume range. Now when this sound is used, MixPad wi use the fie beonging to the correct voume range. Doing this can give a more natura sound to your audio. Humanize The Humanize too introduces minor randomised timing errors to the onset of each beat to make it sound more ike a human is paying rather than a machine. Cick the Humanize button on the Toos tab and adjust the degree of error you want to introduce, then cick the Humanize button to appy. Setting the degree of error to 0 wi cear a errors. 24

27 Exporting When you are happy with your mix, you wi probaby want to export it to an audio fie, such as.wav or.mp3, so that it can be payed by norma payers or burnt to a CD. To do this in MixPad go to Fie --> Export project as Audio fie. You wi see a diaog box caed Export Options. Here, you can use the Browse button to seect where, and in which format, you woud ike your mixed project to be saved. Once you have seected the ocation and fie type, you can cick the Settings button which wi aow you to define the settings MixPad wi use when exporting. You can upoad your fina mix to SoundCoud as we. MixPad wi first export the project as a oca fie, then upoad that fie into your SoundCoud account. Exporting MIDI The best way to export a project containing MIDI is to render your MIDI cips and then add them back into your project as norma audio cips. However, MixPad offers the option of rendering your MIDI cips during export using the buit in Microsoft synthesizer. If you woud ike to use that option then you can check the Render MIDI box in the Export Options diaog. 25

28 Coud Support Dropbox MixPad aows you to directy upoad and downoad your project from your Dropbox account. To upoad your project seect Fie->Coud Upoad/Downoad->Save Project to Dropbox. This wi save a fies necessary for your MixPad project to be opened on another computer. SoundCoud You can upoad your fina mix directy to your SoundCoud account by seecting Fie->Coud Upoad/Downoad->Upoad Mix to SoundCoud. 26

29 History Manager Each time you compete an action with MixPad, MixPad stores that action in a history ist. To revert back to the previous state prior to your ast action, you can simpy undo the ast action by pressing Ctr+Z on your keyboard or by cicking the Undo button on the Editing tab. To manage severa steps back, you may want to use the History Manager, found by cicking the History Manager item in the Edit menu. The History Manager dispays a ist of a your actions in the project during the current session. Seect an action to preview your project with the corresponding action, and cose the window with an action seected to revert your project back to that action. 27

30 Cip Manager The Cip Manager is a foating window that shows a cips inside your project. You can open the Cip Manager by cicking on Cip Manager in the Toos tab. Sometimes cips are very short and not easy to seect, you can open the Cip Manager and seect Short Cips. Aso you can right cick on Cip Manager and choose the commands from the context menu. 28

31 Effects MixPad aows you to buid a ive effect chain on each track. A ive effect chain means that any effect you appy wi be appied during payback, which eiminates the need to wait for your audio to render with the effect. To create or edit an effect, simpy cick the Fx button in the track contro pane. MixPad wi present you with a window showing the ist of effects currenty appied to the seected track. Cick Add Effect to add a new effect, the new added effect wi be highighted which means it is seected and the checkbox before the effect indicates that it is enabed. If you seect an existing effect, you can see and edit a the effect s properties. Seect an effect and cick Remove Effect to remove the effect from the chain. If you untick the checkbox next to an effect you can disabe the effect but sti keep it in your chain. Once you setup the effect chain, you can save that effect chain to a fie by cicking on Save Effect Chain. You can aso oad effect chains into a track by cicking Load Effect Chain. Effects Ampify To 'ampify' is to increase the oudness or voume. The voume is entered as a percentage: 100 being no change, 50 being -6dB softer or 200 being +6dB ouder. Chorus The chorus sound effect is used to make one voice or instrument sound ike 3 voices or instruments by paying the origina with variaby-deayed and sighty pitch-changed copies of the origina. Note: Chorus is a very usefu way to make a mono source sound stereo. You shoud convert your fie to stereo before appying the chorus effect. Dynamic Range Compressor A Dynamic Range Compressor imits the voume eves of a sound recording so that it stays within a certain oudness range. An exampe of where it is used is in TV broadcasting, where it ensures that the voume eves of ads are perceived as being ouder than the teevision program itsef, without any change in the actua broadcast voume. It aso has a use for recording audio from one medium to another, where the two mediums are not capabe of handing the same range of voume eves (e.g., A CD can hande a much greater range than a cassette tape). The "Threshod" setting works by detecting when the sound recording voume exceeds a defined decibe eve. It then graduay attenuates the sound to bring it down beow the db eve, and does it in such a way that the istener wi not be aware the attenuation is occurring. The "Ratio" setting imits the amount the voume eve of the recording increases at any one time. If, for exampe, you wanted the voume eves of a recording to ony increase by at most 1/4 of the amount they woud normay increase, then this woud correspond to a Ratio of 4:1. So if the recording voume eve increased by 8dB, then you woud ony hear a 2dB voume increase. 29

32 The "Limit" setting defines at what maximum decibe eve the sound recording wi be aowed to rise up to. So if, for exampe, the Limit was set to 0dB, then you wi never hear the voume eve of the recording get ouder than 0dB. The Limit setting has simiarities to the Threshod setting, but the main difference is that the Threshod does aow sounds to go above the defined decibe eve (for a short time), whereas the Limit does not. You wi find that the minimum Limit voume you can set is the same as the maximum Threshod vaue. This basicay means that, in any situation, the sound wi start to attenuate at the threshod eve, but wi never be heard ouder than the imit. Distortion Whie normay we do everything to reduce distortion, sometimes you want to add it. It is popuar for use with guitars. The distortion is measured between 0.0 (off) and 1.0 (cipping). The eve where it kicks in can aso be specified in db. For a more consistent sound, you shoud appy Dynamic Range Compression first before you add distortion. Echo An echo is a repeat of the sound after a short time. It can sound ike the person or instrument is in a arge stadium or is shouting between two mountains. Specify the duration and ampitude of the echo. The duration is the ength of time after which the sound repeats - usuay this is between 400 and 1000ms. The ampitude can be between 1-99% (99 being a very oud echo). Fanger A Fanger sound effect is created by mixing a sighty deayed signa that is sowy moduated over time with the origina. You specify the starting deay time (defaut 5ms), the frequency of moduation in times per second (defaut 0.5Hz which is 2 seconds) the depth of moduation (defaut 50%) and the wet dry gain (100% for wet, 0% for dry). Tremoo The tremoo sound effect is simiar to the vibrato effect, except that the ampitude pusates rather than the pitch. The higher the Frequency (Hz) set, the more often the pusation wi be heard, and the higher the Depth (%), the deeper the fuctuation in voume. WahWah As the name suggests, the effect moduates a specified frequency band within the sampe, which resuts in the characteristic "Wah wah" sound. The effect is a bandpass fiter with its center frequency (not to be confused with the center frequency parameter, beow) aternating between a min frequency and max frequency (specified by the center frequency and depth parameters) and from max frequency to min frequency. The frequency of aternating direction is represented as a trianguar wave with a frequency specified by the wah frequency parameter. Resonance: aso known as Q or emphasis, this parameter contros the resonant peak of the bandpass fiter. This vaue determines the sharpness of the wah-wah effect. Higher vaues produce more resonant/peaky tones. Depth: this parameter determines the frequency range swept by the bandpass fiter. Its range is specified as a percentage of the range (0 to center frequency). If the vaue of the percentage of the range (0, center frequency) is specified as X, the min and max frequencies are (center frequency - X) and (center frequency + X). 30