Mixer Screen

Overview

At the top of the Mixer Screen is a display area with 3 "sections", and beneath that the Top Toolbar. The menu button is the left most section, and the right most section displays either the mix name, or, briefly, a tooltip for the highlighted cell. The central section displays the mix time, and selecting it pops up the global volume slider.

The Top Toolbar gives button shortcuts to a number of key actions, such as track volume/pan display toggle, solo/mute, play/stop, mix recording, mix tempo/root/rules, mic recording, EQ and global FX.

The central "content area" displays 8 columns and 12 tracks, each containing 4 content cells which display the content name for any content they have loaded. When the mix is playing, the "active" content cell in any track will display a "gold" dot at the top. This dot has one of 4 horizontal positions which indicate which bar of the content is playing (e.g. bar 4 of a 4 bar loop). If the playing cell has content loaded, then the cell adopts a faint orange colour so that you can more easily see that this is a cell that is creating sound! A blue dot at the top left of a cell indicates that it is using non-default generative bars/range settings, and a black dot at the top right indicates it is using non-default cell repeat/range settings. A solid blue bar at the top means that the cell will loop forever (more accurately, it plays for as long as the underlying generative part is set to play) and only applies to generative content where the default gen bars/range values have not been changed). A solid orange bar at the top indicates that the cell is "Looping", i.e. has been forced to loop. Go into the Content Cell to edit the content.

The Bottom Toolbar gives button shortcuts to a number of key actions, such as online video tutorials (any that are available on the Mixtikl Youtube channel), mute/solo store/restore, column locks (when locked, only sequenced cells in that column will play), tools, and the actions menu.

The bottom right "?" for online help is available in most Mixtikl screens. Simply tap on it to go to the relevant page in this online Mixtikl User Guide. Mixtikl is a deep tool, and this makes it easy to find out about the operation of a particular screen or control.

Top Display Area

• Menu Button: Select the Menu button (left) to access the Menu, or on desktop (once Mixtikl Standalone, VST or Browser Plugin has the focus) press the escape key.
• Global Volume: Select the Global Volume slider (area) in the middle to display a pop up slider which lets you adjust the mix volume to your taste.
• Mix Name / Tips: The right area displays the mix name and (briefly) any tooltips there might be for the currently highlighted cell.

• Cell Highlight: Indicates the cell in any screen that has current focus. This is only important for the Desktop versions, where the cell position can be selected by keyboard arrows (see Navigation).

Top Toolbar

Contains the main button shortcuts, as follows:

• Track Vol/Pan Display Toggle Button

  

  Toggles between the Vol and Pan icon to indicate whether column 1 is displaying either track volume or pan settings (orange bars for volume, grey bars for pan).

  
  

• Mute/Solo Button

  

  Toggles between the Mute and Solo icon which then determines what is applied to the relevant track cell in column 2, when selected.

  
  

• Play/Stop Button

  

  Press to play or stop the mix (PC/Mac: Also use spacebar or App Window Action Play/Stop).

  
  

• Mix Record Button

  

  Press to launch the Mix Recording screen so you can save the mix to an audio file.

  
  

• Mix Tempo, Pitch & Rules Button

  

  Press to launch the Mix Tempo, Pitch & Rules screen, where you can change the tempo of the mix, change the mix root (and pitch shift all the loops in it) and set the mix generative rules.

  
  

• Microphone Recording Button

  

  Press ot launch the Microphone Recording screen, where you can make a microphone recording for the mix.

  
  

• EQ Button

  

  Press to launch the EQ List, where you can apply EQ to the mix and customise it.

  
  

• Global FX Button

  

  Press to call up the Global FX menu, where you can select a FX to be applied to the whole mix (a global FX).

Tracks

There are 12 tracks (numbered for desktop keypad shortcuts [top to bottom]: 1-9, *(10), 0(11) and #(12)).

There are 8 cells in each track; the four central ones (in between the two dark vertical lines) are the "content cells" via which content is added to the mix.

• Track Volume and Pan (1st cell)

  
  
  

  Depending on the track vol / pan toggle setting in the Top Toolbar, tap and then drag the cell or drag the bottom pop up slider, or select this cell and (on desktop) use the navkey left/right to decrease or increase the track volume (central indicator is black) or pan (central indicator is grey).

  Release the slider or select another cell to lose the focus.

• Track Solo/Mute (2nd cell)

  
  
  

  Depending on what the Solo/Mute column toggle is set to in the Top Toolbar, select this cell to apply / remove solo or mute to that track.

• Content Area (3rd-6th cells)

  
  
  

  This area contains the "Content Cells", which is where you add in your content of a supported content type.

  To add content to a cell, select it and select the Content List Button from the pop up Content Cell Menu, which is also where you find the controls to be able to customise your content (e.g. if generative content then its sounds, FX used, scale and harmony rules, and Noatikl parameters).

  When a cell has content in it, you see the name of the content in the cell (skip and silent cells have their own identifiers).

  Cells that show red mean that the content in that cell cannot be found. When you see this it is most likely because you have got a tweeted mixtikl and you do not have that content pak (Tiklpak) installed, whether an add-on loop pak or a user saved loop.

  The golden dot at the top of the active content cell in the track is the "play indicator" (there is only ever one play indicator shown for each track as there can only be one active content cell in a track); for a cell with multibar content this moves within the cell every bar that is played, up to 4 bars, before starting over again. The play indicator in an empty cell which is always 1 bar in length, so it does not move within the cell.

  For a "sequenced" track, the play indicator will move to the next content cell when the content has played through once.

  Each content cell also has indicators at the top. An orange bar at the top indicates a cell that has been forced to loop and the content in that cell will continue to play until the looping is turned off (generally by tapping/holding the cell or via the Loop On/Off button). A blue bar at the top indicates a cell that contains generative content that has (effectively) infinite length and so will play for ever. A blue dot top left indicates a non-default Gen Bars setting. A black dot top right indicates and non-default Cell Repeat setting.

  Black text in a cell indicates Audio and MIDI loop content and blue text in the cell indicates generative content.

  
  

• Track Rules (7th cell)

  
  
  

  Selecting the Track Rules cell will toggle the Track Rules between the 4 available states.

  • Sequenced Cells: An Orange arrow signifies that the cells in the track are sequenced cells. This means that when the content in any cell has finished playing, the mix will play the next content cell in the track. This is the default cell state.
  • Loop Cells: An orange loop symbol signifies that all the cells in the track are looping cells, meaning they have to be set to loop in order to play. This is achieved by simply tapping/holding the cell (the orange background cell loop indicator will toggle on/off) or by tapping on it to load the Content Cell Menu and then selecting the loop button. When the cell displays the orange background cell loop indicator the content in it will loop continuously until another track cell is set to loop, or the track rule is changed. They will also play ONCE when the section lock is first applied to a section (if a cell is not already looping).
  • One Shot Cells: An exclamation mark in an orange circle signifies that the cells in the track are one shot cells and any content cell in that track will ONLY play through once (like a sting) if the cell is triggered (i.e. with key 3 i.e. if in desktop version) or by tapping the cell on it to load the Content Cell Menu and then selecting the Trigger button.
  • Tap Cells: An double orange circle signifies that the cells in the track are tap cells, and the active content cell in that track will play ONLY when tapping the screen in visualizer mode. You can set any number of tracks to be of Tap Cell type and so you can layer up sounds in different tracks, and they all get played when the screen is tapped. Tap cells otherwise behave like sequence cells and so will sequence unless locked: this lets you have some very interesting results in mix visualisation!
    • Note: When you select Tap Play > Auto in the Message / Visualizer Display Settings screen, ONLY track 12 will revert to a standard sequenced voice type so that it can play (and if you uncheck the setting the track reverts to a Tap Cell type).
  
  

• Track FX (8th cell)

  
  
  

  Selecting this cell will launch the Track FX Menu from which you can select an FX Preset via the Preset button or create/edit (Mixtikl Full only) a FX Network (via Edit Network button) that you wish to apply to this track (FX is processor intensive, so use Track FX sparingly in your mix, unless on a PC!).

  
  

Bottom Toolbar

Contains the main button shortcuts, as follows:

• Online Videos Button

  

  Takes you to the online Mixtikl YouTube page.

  
  

• Store / Recall Button

  

  Press this button to store the solo/mute settings for all the tracks, and then clear them from the mix. Press again to apply the stored values.

  
  

• Mix Sections 1-4

  
  
  

  Press a section button to "lock" any sequenced cells in the mix to that section (i.e. only such content cells in that column will play). Cells that are looping (blue) are not affected. Press any locked section again to release the lock. If no section is locked, then when a cell has played its content (once), the next cell in the track with play until it reaches the end of the track, when play moves to the first cell in the track, and so on.

  
  

• Clear Button

  

  Press to see the Clear Mix Content options.

  
  

• Tools Button

  

  Press to launch the Tools List, where you will see a list of macros and other tools to help with your mix making.