mixing basic

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HOUR 3Basic Mixing

• Exploring Track Headers

• Task: Place Track 9 Between Tracks 2 and 3

• Task: Color-Coding Your Tracks

• Resizing Your Tracks

• Zooming Horizontally

• Task: Adjusting Track Time and Height

• Controlling Volume

• Panning in the Stereo Field

As you learned in Hour 2, “Getting Started,” it’s easy to add files to yourproject and build a composition. Now you have to create a good mix of the

elements in your tracks. In this hour, we take a closer look at Track Headersand the controls found there. We ’ll also talk about some techniques to useduring the mix process. When you ’re done with this hour, you ’ll be ready tomove on to Hour 4, where you ’ll learn to save your project.



In this hour, you will:• Arrange the tracks in a logical order

• Color-code the tracks for visual grouping

• Adjust track height and width

• Adjust the track volume and the master volume

• Pan tracks to create a stereo mix

• Use the Solo and Mute buttons when mixing

Exploring Track HeadersOpen the Mixereze.acd project in the Samples folder for Hour 3 on the companion CD-ROM for this book. Notice that the project contains nine tracks. Each track has its ownTrack Header, and all the Track Headers appear in the Track List area on the left side of the ACID window. Click the Play From Start button and listen to it all the way through toget familiar with the project. At first glance, you see a number of buttons and controls ineach Track Header. The following few sections go “under the hood ” to discuss the func-tionality of Track Headers. There ’s a lot here, so let ’s get to it!

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MixTo mix simply means to blend all the parts and pieces of your projecttogether to make a song. Audio mixing is sort of the same as mixing a cake.When you make a cake, you have eggs, sugar, flour, chocolate chips, and soforth. If you take all the right ingredients and toss them into a bowl withoutany thought, what you end up with will be something, but it might not be avery good cake. In the same way, in your ACID project, you have drums, gui-tars, basses, and so on. Throw them together without much thought, andyou’ll have something , but it might not be very pleasant music. Mix theingredients properly, and you ’ll enjoy a cake worth eating while listening tomusic worth hearing!

NEW TERM

All the loops in the Mixereze.acd project can be found in the ACID DJ loopcollection available from Sonic Foundry. This collection is full of jazz, house,techno dance, and techno industrial loops, all optimized for use in ACID.



Changing Track OrderAs mentioned in the previous hour, when you add a new loop to your project, a new

Track Header appears under the last existing Track Header in the Track List area.Sometimes, you might want your tracks to be in a different order. For instance, youmight want to keep all your drum tracks together. In the current Mixereze.acd project,that ’s not the case.

To change the order of your tracks, click the track icon of the track you want to move,and drag it up or down. Notice the dark line that appears between the Track Headers, fol-lowing the movement of your mouse. This line represents the top of the track you aremoving. When you release the mouse button, you drop the track at the location of thisline and move the other tracks down. The following task steps you through the process.

Task: Place Track 9 Between Tracks 2 and 3The steps in this task teach you how to reorder tracks.

1. Tracks 1 and 2 are both drum/percussion tracks. Click the track icon for track 9(this track is also a drum track), and drag it up until you see a dark line appearbetween tracks 2 and 3.

2. Release the mouse button and notice that the track that was track 9 ( BD Crash 1 )is now track 3. All the other tracks below it have moved down and have beenrenumbered so that track 9 is now the Quintessential Belz 2 track.

3. Repeat this process to move Housebass22-02 directly underneath the other basstrack, Housebass 22-08 . Your project should now look like the one shown inFigure 3.1. Keep this project open; you ’ll work with it more in the next task.

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FIGURE 3.1 Drag and drop a Track Header to quicklyreorder the tracks in

your ACID project.



Color-Coding TracksIn the previous task, you learned how to change the order of tracks in your project.

Another way to organize your projects involves changing the color of a track or multipletracks. This gives you a quick visual reference of how your tracks are grouped. Forinstance, in the case of our example, it might be very helpful if both of our bass trackswere the same color but were a different color from the drum tracks.

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We strongly suggest that you get into the habit of reordering and color-coding your tracks. Further, we suggest that you pick a color scheme andstick with it from project to project. For instance, always make all your drumtracks red, and rearrange your project so that all the drum tracks sit oneafter another in the Track List. This way, you will quickly get oriented when

you open old projects.

To change the color of a track, right-click the track icon in the Track Header. From theshortcut menu, choose Color; from the cascading menu that opens, choose the colorsquare that matches the desired color you want to assign to the track.

Windows Selection TechniquesBefore you continue with your ACID lessons, take a moment to step awayfrom ACID. Let ’s talk about some Windows selection tricks. Some of youknow this already, but for those who don ’t, Windows allows you to makeselections in a number of different ways. For instance, you can select morethan one thing at a time by combining the Ctrl key with a couple of clicks.Click something to select it. Then press and hold the Ctrl key and clickanother thing to select it in addition to the first object. Continue holdingthe Ctrl key and clicking additional items to add those items to the selec-tion. Ctrl+click an already-selected item, and you remove it from the selec-tion group. Here ’s another trick: Click an item. Press and hold the Shift keyand click another item. Notice that the first item, the last item, and everyitem in between become part of the selection. Keep those Windows selec-tion techniques in mind …they ’re about to come in very handy.

Because you want both bass tracks to be the same color, use one of the selection tech-niques discussed in the Coffee Break to select both tracks at the same time. Now changethe color of one of them; note that the color of both selected tracks change.

In fact, as you ’ll see throughout this book, many of the manipulations you make to oneTrack Header affect all other selected Track Headers as well. These selection tricks work



in the ACID Explorer window too, so you can easily add more than one loop to your project at the same time, or put a group of loops into a newly created folder.

Task: Color-Coding Your TracksIn this task, you ’ll change the color of your track icons so that you can easily identifyuseful groupings of related tracks.

1. In the Mixereze.acd project that you began working on in the previous task, recallthat you rearranged your tracks so that tracks 1 through 3 are all drum/percussiontracks. Click the track icon for track 1 to select that track. Press and hold the Shiftkey and click the track icon for track 3. Notice that tracks 1 through 3 are selected.

2. Right-click any of the selected Track Headers and choose Color from the shortcut

menu (as shown in Figure 3.2). From the popup list of color choices, select red tomake all the selected track icons red.

3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 to change the color of the two bass tracks to green.

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FIGURE 3.2Color-coding thetracks creates a handyvisual grouping of sim-ilar track types.

Maximizing/Minimizing TracksSometimes when you ’re working with a track, you ’ll want to see more or less detailabout the track. You can resize a track in several ways, two of which we ’ll talk about inthis section. These two buttons are located (one above the other) just to the left of thetrack icon for each track. Click the Maximize Track Height button (the lower of the twobuttons) to make the track fill the entire height of the Track List and Track View areas.This action pushes all other tracks out of the visible area. When you maximize a track,



the Restore Track Height button replaces the Maximize Track Height button. Click theRestore Track Height button to set the track back to the height it had before you maxi-mized it.

The Minimize Track Height button (the upper button of the pair) minimizes the track toits smallest possible height. Minimize the tracks you consider to be complete in yourproject so that they don ’t eat up valuable screen real estate while you work on othertracks. After you minimize a track, click the Restore Track Height button (now the onlybutton available) to set the track back to the height it had before you minimized it.

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ACID contains a number of useful shortcuts. From the menu bar, chooseHelp, Keyboard Shortcuts for a listing of many of them. Here ’s one of ourfavorite tricks: To minimize all the tracks in your project at once, press the

tilde key (usually that ’s the key to the left of the number 1 key at the top ofyour keyboard; it looks like this: ~). Press the tilde key a second time torestore all tracks to their previous height.

Cutting, Copying, Pasting, and Deleting a TrackACID follows the basic Windows conventions for cut, copy, paste, and delete. Click thetrack icon of a track to select the track. To cut the track from your project and place it onthe Clipboard, press Ctrl+X. To copy the track to the Clipboard, press Ctrl+C. To paste atrack you have previously cut or copied, press Ctrl+V. Finally, to delete a track (without

placing it on the Clipboard), press the Delete key on your keyboard. You can also findcommands to perform these functions in the Edit menu and in the right-click shortcutmenu for each track. The toolbar also contains buttons for the cut, copy, and paste opera-tions.

Naming Your TracksACID automatically names your tracks for you when you add files to your project. Thenewly created track assumes the name of the file that it contains. But you can change thename of the track. To do so, double-click the track ’s name. Just as in Windows, thisaction selects the name and puts a box around it; you can now type whatever new name

you want for the track. When you ’re finished typing, press the Tab or Enter key, or sim-ply click away from the name (the track icon is a good target) to apply the new name tothe track. Alternatively, right-click the track icon and choose Rename from the shortcutmenu.



Resizing Your TracksWe ’ve already talked about how you can resize your tracks in the Track List area byusing the Minimize and Maximize Track Height buttons. You can use several other tech-niques to adjust your Track List configuration. The following sections show you how toadjust the height and the width of your Track Headers.

Resizing Tracks by DraggingMaximizing and minimizing Track Headers has limitations. The track ends up big, small,or the default size. Using other techniques, ACID lets you adjust the size of the Track Headers to whatever you desire.

To change the height of the Track Header, position the cursor directly over the Track Header ’s bottom edge, as shown in Figure 3.3. The cursor changes to a double line/ double arrow. Click and drag the edge up or down to resize the Track Header. Tallertracks show complete controls and information in the Track Header and the events onthe track grow to match the track height.

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ACID calls the field that holds the track ’s name the “Scribble strip. ” As you ’lllearn in later hours, many other objects in the ACID window also have aScribble strip.

FIGURE 3.3 Drag the bottom edgeof a Track Header upor down to change thetrack’s height.

Mouse Icon

This click-and-drag-the-edge method of resizing an area of the screen isavailable in many places in the ACID interface. If you feel the urge to resizean item on the ACID screen, point to its edges. If you see the doubleline/double arrow cursor, drag to resize the item.



If you ’ve read the tip regarding resizing items in ACID, you might have already figuredout that changing the width of the Track List works much the same way as changing theheight of a Track Header. Point to the right edge, click, and drag to your heart ’s content.

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When you change the height of a Track Header, you affect only that track.But when you change the width of the Track List, you change the width ofall the Track Headers.

Resizing Track Height with Zoom ControlThe Vertical Zoom control enables you to change the height of all Track Headers simul-taneously. At the bottom of the vertical scrollbar at the right side of the timeline, noticethe two buttons and a spin control that make up the Vertical Zoom control.

Click the Zoom In Track Height button to increase track height. When the Track Heightis large enough that one Track Header occupies the entire visible Track List, this buttonceases to have any effect. Likewise, click the Zoom Out Track Height button to decreasetrack height. When the tracks reach their minimum size, the button ceases to have anyeffect. Notice that both buttons affect all tracks, and that all tracks assume the same size.Click and hold either button to steadily increase or decrease the size of all tracks.

A Zoom spin control is located between the two buttons. Click and drag this spin controlfor fine adjustments either up or down to your track height.

Using Keyboard Shortcuts to Change Track HeightNormally we don ’t devote an entire section to keyboard shortcuts, but you ’ll use these sooften that we want to make sure that you know them early on in your work with ACID.

To increase the height of all Track Headers, press Shift+up arrow. To increase the heightin finer increments, press Shift+Alt+up arrow.

To decrease the height of all Track Headers, press Shift+down arrow. To decrease theheight in finer increments, press Shift+Alt+down arrow.

When you master these keyboard shortcuts, you ’ll use them frequently to change theheight of your tracks.

Setting the Default Track HeightNow that you know how to adjust your track heights, you might have settled on afavorite. Sooner or later, you ’ll find a height that you find to be adequate for most of thework you do. When you find this magical height, you can make it the default for alltracks you add to this project and to any future projects.



To make a track ’s height the default for all new tracks, right-click the track icon andchoose Set As Default Track Height from the shortcut menu.

Zooming HorizontallyAs you ’re editing an event, it helps if you zoom in for a closer look before you makeyour changes. The Zoom In/Out Time feature allows you to view more or less time in theTrack View area. In fact, you can zoom out to see several hours at a glance if your pro-

ject is that long. On the other hand, you can zoom in almost to the sample level. Nowthat ’s microscopic!

ACID provides several methods you can use to zoom in time. Notice the set of controlsat the end of the horizontal scrollbar, just down and to the left of the Vertical Zoom con-

trol. This control, called the Time Zoom control, is similar to the Vertical Zoom control.Click the Zoom In Time button to show less time and more waveform details in the time-line. Click the Zoom Out Time button to show more time and less detail.

You can also use the keyboard equivalent for these buttons. To zoom in, press the uparrow on your keyboard. To zoom out, press the down arrow on your keyboard. Press andhold the Ctrl key and tap the up-arrow key to zoom in very close in one jump. Press andhold the Ctrl key and tap the down-arrow key to instantly zoom all the way out.

Click and drag the Spin control (located between the two buttons) to the left to zoom in;drag it to the right to zoom out. You can also click and drag either edge of the horizontalscrollbar. Position the mouse pointer over one of the edges of the scrollbar. Notice thatthe pointer changes to a double arrow. Click and drag to make the scrollbar shorter;notice that you ’re zooming in to the timeline and can see more detail. Naturally, as youmake the scrollbar longer, you zoom out. Double-click the scrollbar to zoom all the wayout (see Figure 3.4).

The Zoom tool, shown in Figure 3.4, is a flexible tool that lets you zoom in a number of ways:

• Select the Zoom tool and click and drag in the timeline to select an area of theTrack View that you want to zoom in to. ACID zooms in on the area you selectuntil that area fills the entire Track View. After completing the zoom, the mousepointer reverts to the previously active tool.

• Double-click the Zoom tool to switch to Zoom Overview mode .

• Triple-click the Zoom tool to switch to Zoom Overview mode and change the cur-sor to the Zoom tool. This handy shortcut enables you to zoom all the way out andthen quickly select an area into which to zoom.

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Task: Adjusting Track Time and HeightIn this task, you ’ll have a chance to zoom around a large project.

1. Open the file called BigProject.acd which can be found in the Hour 3 Samplesfolder on the CD-ROM that accompanies this book.

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FIGURE 3.4Click the Zoom tool for more zooming options.

The Zoom in Time buttonThe Zoom out Time button

The Zoom ToolDouble-click to Zoom all the way out

Zoom Overview ModeZoom Overview mode minimizes all tracks and zooms out to show the entireproject timeline in the Track View area.

NEW TERM

When you zoom using the Zoom In Time or Zoom Out Time button, ACIDuses your project cursor as the zoom anchor. In other words, the project cur-sor determines the point into which you are zooming. When you ’ve zoomedin so far that you can no longer see the entire timeline, ACID centers theproject cursor in the visible timeline. Keep this in mind because if you haveyour project cursor in a spot other than where you ’re trying to work, youmight find yourself scratching your head and mumbling, “Where am I? ”after you zoom in.



2. Use the vertical scrollbar to scroll down through all 36 tracks. Use the horizontalscrollbar to scroll to the right. Click at the end of the very last event in the projectto move the project cursor there. In the Time Display, you can see that the projectis 919 measures long and takes 30 minutes, 34 seconds, and 4 ticks to play. Nowtry this shortcut: Hold down the Ctrl key and press the Home key. Presto! The pro-

ject cursor jumps back to the beginning of the timeline.

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You don ’t have to bother playing this project (although you can if youinsist). It is 30 minutes long, contains 36 tracks, and gets old fast. Use this

project as a tool to explore the zooming functions.

Press the Home key to move the project cursor to the left edge of the TrackView. Press the End key to move the project cursor to the right edge of theTrack View. Press Ctrl+Home to send the project cursor to the beginning ofthe project (even if that location is not currently visible); press Ctrl+End to

jump to the end of the project.

3. If you can ’t see track 1, use the vertical scrollbar to adjust the timeline view so thatyou can see it. Triple-click the Zoom tool. You are now zoomed out as far you ’llever get. You can see the entire length of the project, all the way to measure 919.

But you still can ’t see all the tracks. How many you see depends on the size of your monitor, your Windows Properties settings, and the depth of the Track Viewarea. Still, you can see quite a bit of the project to get an overall picture of what ’sgoing on.

4. To fill the screen with the timeline so that you can see more of your project, pressAlt+tilde (~) to hide the Window Docking area and expand the Track View to showmore tracks. Press Ctrl+Alt+tilde to hide both the Window Docking area and theTrack List, filling both vacancies with more of the timeline. Press the key combi-nations again to restore ACID to its normal configuration.

5. Move the mouse over the Track View area and notice that it is shaped like a magni-

fying glass. Starting at bar 1, click and drag down to track 5 and over to around bar120. (You don ’t have to be exact here; just get as close as you can.) As you drag,notice that a dotted rectangle starts to draw. Release the mouse button and noticethat you are now zoomed in to the portion of the project outlined by the rectangle.Also notice that the mouse cursor changed back to the Draw tool.



6. Place the cursor somewhere around bar 30 and click the Zoom In Time buttonthree times. Notice that each time you click the button, you zoom in at the cursorposition.

7. Press the up arrow on your keyboard three times. Notice that this does the samething as step 6 —it zooms in, using the cursor position as the zoom anchor point.

8. Click the Zoom Out Time button a few times and then press the down arrow onyour keyboard a few times. Notice that both these actions have the same effect —you zoom out of the cursor position.

9. Click the Zoom In Track Height button a few times. Notice that you now see fewertracks. Press Ctrl+Shift+up arrow to get the same results.

10. Click the Zoom Out Track Height button a few times and then pressCtrl+Shift+down arrow. Both actions reduce the track height so that you can fit

more tracks into the view.11. Double-click the horizontal scrollbar. You ’re back out to the big picture again. Now

point to the right edge of the horizontal scrollbar and drag to the left. Notice that,as you drag, you zoom in to the project with the left edge of the timeline as theanchor point.

12. Double-click the horizontal scrollbar and press the tilde key to get back to the bigpicture.

Controlling VolumeThe task you ’ll perform most often when mixing the tracks in your project is adjustingthe volume of each track relative to the overall mix (the volumes of all tracks combined).You can control the overall volume of the project using the Master, described later in thishour. The following sections explore these two types of volume control.

Adjusting Track VolumeUse the volume fader located in the Track Header to control the volume of a track. Youcan also control a track ’s volume with a track volume envelope. Because this hourfocuses on basic mixing techniques, we ’ll talk about the volume fader techniques hereand save the more advanced topic of track envelopes for Hour 5, “Additional EditingTechniques. ”

Start by adjusting the height and width of the Track Header you want to work with (useany track in the Mixereze.acd project). Adjust the size of the track until you can see themultipurpose fader label, which contains information about the track ’s volume.

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The multipurpose fader label is a very important little object. As it turns out, the track fader not only controls track volume, but when you click it, you ’ll see that it also con-trols panning (see Figure 3.5). In later hours, you ’ll see that the track fader can alsocontrol bus routing and effects. It ’s called the multipurpose fader because it has —youguessed it —multiple purposes. The label also contains further information concerningthe current state of the fader. For instance, as you move the fader to adjust the volume,the label displays the current setting in dB (decibels).

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FIGURE 3.5Click the multipurpose

fader label to switchthe function of the

fader control.

dBThe unit dB, or decibel, is a way of describing volume —or more precisely,the relative intensity of sound. Think of 0dB as 100% of the original signal(volume). In digital audio, you can ’t have more than 100% (0dB) withoutcreating distortion in your audio. As a simple analogy, think about a glass ofwater. The brim of the glass is 0dB. Up to that point, the water stays in theglass. You can add more water (volume) to the glass, but the excess spills allover the table and creates a mess. When you add too much volume to your

tracks, the excess “ spills over ” and creates a mess of your project (distor-tion). This explains why most often you see negative values for volume set-tings on meters and faders in ACID. In digital audio, no sound (zero volume)is referred to as “– Inf” (–infinity).

NEW TERM

One Man’s Fader is Another Man’s Slider…Or Is It?As you work on your ACID projects, you ’ll see other controls that look andwork just like the volume fader. Some of these controls are called faders,and others are called sliders. What ’s the difference between a slider and afader? Simple. If it changes volume, it ’s a fader. This term comes from theearly days of analog audio consoles, when you pulled down the volume con-trol to gradually “ fade out ” the audio. If the control changes anything else,it ’s called a slider.



Click the Loop Playback button and then click the Play button so that you can listen tothe changes you are about to make. To adjust the volume of the desired track, click anddrag the volume fader to the left to decrease the volume or to the right to increase thevolume. If you click either side of the fader, the volume decreases or increases by onewhole number for each click. Use the left and right arrow keys on your keyboard toadjust the volume of the selected track or tracks in 0.10dB increments. And here ’s atrick: Double-click the fader to quickly set it to 0.0dB. Continue adjusting the volumeuntil you like how this track fits into your mix.

Using the Master ControlTo mix your tracks properly, you need to see the Master control (frequently called, sim-ply, the Master). To view the Master, the Mixer window must be open (by default, theMixer is open in the right section of the Window Docking area). If another window iscovering the Mixer in the Window Docking area, click the tab labeled Mixer at the bot-tom of the Window Docking area to bring it to the front. If you don ’t see the Mixer tab,choose View, Mixer from the menu bar. Adjust the size of the Mixer window by draggingthe top and side edges until you can see all the controls on the Master (see Figure 3.6).In addition to the Output Fader and the Output Meters that we ’ll talk about here, theMaster contains the following buttons:

• Mute

• Solo

• Master FX

• Device Selection (in some cases)

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Mute Solo

Master FX

Output Fader

Output Meter

FIGURE 3.6The ACID Master enables you to controlthe overall volume of

your project.



The Master meters represent the mix of all the tracks in your project. Let ’s go back toour water-glass analogy. Think of the Master as an infinitely expandable waiter ’s tray.You can add as many glasses (tracks) to the tray as you want, and it always expands tohold more so that all the water can be delivered together. Only when one of the glassesoverflows (that is, when one of the tracks exceeds 0dB) do you have a mess (distortion).

While you ’re adjusting your track volumes, keep an eye on the Master and be careful tokeep the meters mostly in the yellow (between –6dB and –3dB). If you get the signal too“hot ” (that means too loud), the Master meters peak above 0dB and display red. The topof each meter shows numbers representing the peak (loudest volume). When your vol-ume is too high, a red rectangle encloses the peak value, and you ’re probably distortingthe signal (water is overflowing from one of the glasses).

You need to find which one of your tracks is causing the Master to peak above 0dB. Todo this, click the Solo button (discussed in the section “Solo and Mute ” later in this hour)on track 1, and play the project. If the Master peaks above 0dB, track 1 is too loud. If track 1 is not the culprit, unsolo track 1, and solo track 2. Repeat the process until youfind the track that is causing the problem. When you find it, lower the track volume forthat track. If you feel that lowering the volume of the offending track will adverselyaffect your overall mix, click in the middle of the Master fader and drag it to a lower set-ting. Watch the numbers at the bottom of the meters to see the current fader settings.

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The Mixer window contains powerful advanced mixing tools. By default, itcontains two controls: the Preview control and the Master control (Master).

We talk a little about the Master in this section, but save a detailed discus-sion of the Mixer window and additional controls for Hour 13, “Using theMixer. ”

Make sure that you understand the function of the meter labels. The num-bers at the top of the meters are the highest peak values. If the labels at thetop of the Master meters are –Inf, it means that you have not yet sent anysignal to the meters. The numbers at the bottom of the meters representthe current setting of the Master fader. If the labels are 0.0, it means thatyou are neither boosting nor attenuating (cutting) the signal level beingdelivered to the Master from the timeline.



Panning in the Stereo FieldAnother aspect of mixing is panning . You can use the multipurpose fader to pan the

audio of a track so that it comes out the left speaker only, the right speaker only, or any-where in between. Making use of the pan feature adds interest to the mix; in some cases,panning adds realism to the project.

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PanningRecording engineers call the process of placing the audio across the stereofield panning. In ACID (as with most traditional mixing boards), when youadjust the panning, the total amount of signal always stays constant. Inother words, if you pan all the way to the left ( “hard left ” ), the left channelcontains all the audio signal. This is important because it explains why pan-ning a track sometimes causes the Master to peak above 0dB even thoughthe evenly panned track caused no problems.

NEW TERM

Click the multipurpose fader label on the last track and choose Pan from the drop-downmenu. Notice that all the tracks now show the pan setting. Click and drag the pan faderall the way to the left to direct the audio to the left speaker. Drag it all the way to theright to place it in the right speaker. As you drag the fader, notice that the information onthe multipurpose fader label updates as well. For instance, drag the slider to the left untilyou see the readout display 80% . This means that 80% of the signal will come out the left

speaker and 20% will be directed to the right speaker. Double-click the slider to reset thefader to the center position.

A Handy IndicatorSee the rectangular slot that guides each fader? Let ’s call it the fader slot.You might have noticed earlier that when you adjust the volume fader, thearea in the fader slot to the left (or bottom in a fader that moves up anddown) of the fader is darker than the area to the right (or top.) This shadingsimply indicates the current distance between –Inf and the current faderposition. Although some of us find that to be a neat, but not particularly

useful feature, the pan fader is a different story.In Figure 3.7, notice that, when you adjust the panning of a track, the darkarea of the fader slot grows from the center instead of the left edge as itdoes with volume faders. This serves as a good visual reminder of just howfar off center you have panned that particular track, and allows you toquickly scan your Track List to see where all the tracks fall within the stereofield.



Solo and MuteWhen mixing, there will be times you need to concentrate on a single track, for examplewhen you are adding an effect. It might be difficult to hear the results with all the othertracks playing as well. This is a perfect opportunity to use the Solo button. When youclick the Solo button on a Track Header, you simultaneously mute all other tracks. Click the Solo button again to hear the full mix again. The Solo button is a great way to con-centrate on just one track, and then quickly compare how it sounds mixed in with the rest

of the tracks.You can solo more than one track at a time. For instance, if you have three tracks of horns, you might want to first hear how they are blending with each other before youhear how they sound in the full mix. Select all three of the horn tracks and click the Solobutton for any of the tracks in the group; all the tracks in the group are soloed. Click anyof the Solo buttons again, and you ’re back to the full mix. Pretty slick.

The Mute button simply takes the selected track temporarily out of the mix. Just as youcan with the Solo button, you can mute more than one track at a time. If you want tohear what the mix would sound like without a particular track, click the Mute button.Click it again to un-mute the track.

Another function the Mute button provides relates to the Render As process. If you ren-der an ACID project to a mixed file (as discussed during Hour 17, “Creating MixedAudio and Video Files ”), any tracks that are muted will not be included in the finalmixed file. This is a good way to create an alternate mix without having to delete theunwanted tracks.

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FIGURE 3.7The gray shadingbeneath the pan faders

give you a quick visualof the panning for eachtrack.

For the pan feature to work, you must be sure that your hardware is set upcorrectly. For instance, if you pan the audio right and you hear it in the leftspeaker, you might want to check that your speakers are properly connectedand placed. If you are using an outboard mixer, check whether the pan con-trol on the mixer is set correctly.



There is a lot more to mixing than simply adjusting track volume and panning. Effects,track envelopes, and event envelopes all play a part in the final mix. All these topics arecovered in detail later in the book.

SummaryIn this hour, you ’ve learned about the basic mixing tools in ACID. You learned how togroup the tracks visually using position and color in the Track List. You also learned howto use Windows multiple selection techniques to affect more than one track at a time. Youlearned how to use the multipurpose fader label to switch between volume and pan. Youknow how to rearrange, resize, move, and delete tracks to better organize your project formore efficient mixing.

Mixing style is a very personal thing. No two people approach it exactly the same way.We hope the ideas we have presented here will be of some help to you and that the tricksyou learned in this hour will be incorporated into your mixing style.

Q&AQ. Why is the hottest point on the volume meters labeled 0?

A. The label 0dB on the Master bus represents the concept that the Master bus controlis not increasing (a positive number) or decreasing (a negative number) the signalat this point. Because in digital audio 0dB also represents the loudest possible sig-

nal (translated as the highest possible number in digital terms) you can attainbefore risking distortion, there are no numbers above 0 on the ACID Mastermeters.

Q. I keep moving the pan fader to hard left or hard right but the audio stillcomes out both speakers. What could be the problem?

A. If you are sending the signal to an external mixer before it goes to your amp andspeakers, you must set the pan correctly on the mixer as well. For instance, if youare sending the left output of your sound card to channel 1 and the right output tochannel 2 on your mixer, pan channel 1 hard left and channel 2 hard right. Now thepan function in ACID should work correctly.

Q. Sometimes when I try to use the keyboard shortcut for Play (the spacebar),it doesn’t work. Why not?

A. For this shortcut to work, the Track List or Track View area must have the focus.For instance, if you click the Master to give it focus, the spacebar will not startplayback. Click anywhere in the Track List or Track View area and then press the

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spacebar. Now playback begins. If you want to learn one more keyboard shortcut,you press Ctrl+spacebar to start and stop playback no matter which window hasfocus. In fact, if you get in the habit of always using this new shortcut, you ’ll neverhave to worry about focus. You can play your project no matter which area of ACID currently has focus.

WorkshopUse the quiz questions and activities to put the information from this hour to good use.This will help these techniques and concepts become a part of your long-term memory.

Quiz1. What is the difference between a fader and a slider?

2. What do we call the process of placing audio in the stereo field?

3. Which key do you use to quickly minimize all track heights at once?

Quiz Answers1. The control is called a fader if it affects volume. If it adjusts any other parameter,

the control is called a slider.

2. The process of placing audio at a specific point in the stereo field is calledpanning.

3. Press the tilde key (~) to minimize all tracks. Press it again to restore all the track heights.

Activities1. Reopen the mixereze.acd project. Set a loop region the length of the project and

click the Play Looped button. Use the Solo buttons to get familiar with each track in the project. Next, rearrange and color-code the tracks in a logical order and colorscheme to facilitate submixing. While keeping an eye on the Master bus, create amix using the techniques you learned in this hour.

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