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MTRAX QUICK START GUIDE 2

Downloading and Installing mTrax 2

Downloading the installation program 2

Saving the installation file to your computer 2

Running the installation Program 3

Starting mTrax for the First Time 5

Default Music Folder 6

No Default Music Folder Was Found 7

Creating a Library manually using the Folder Browser 8

Default Smart Practice Lists 9

Using mTrax for the First Time 10

mTrax Main Window 10

Playing a Song 11

Adding Sections to Songs 12

Default Sections: 14

Using Sections 14

What are Sections? 14

Anatomy of a Section 15

The List and Practice Modes 16

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mTrax Quick Start Guide Welcome to the mTrax Quick Start Guide. This guide will help get started with mTrax.

Downloading and Installing mTrax

Downloading the installation program To download mTrax, simply go to www.terrasofta.com and click on ‘Download mTrax’:

Saving the installation file to your computer Once the ‘File Download’ Popup Window’ appears, it is best to choose ‘Save’ so that you can choose where on your computer the file will be downloaded. If you use Microsoft Vista and choose the ‘Run’ option, you may not have the required administrative right to run installation programs.

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Once the download is complete, the easiest way to get to the download location is to click Open Folder:

Running the installation Program For Vista users, if you get an error trying to run the installation program, simply right-click the file and click on Run As Administrator:

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The installation program is a wizard consisting of a few screens: Read the License Agreement and click ‘I agree’ in order to continue:

Unless you have specific needs, there is no reason to change the location where mTrax will be installed; just click ‘Next’ here:

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Starting mTrax for the First Time Once the wizard has installed mTrax, you can start mTrax by double-clicking the mTrax icon on your desktop or click on Start>TerraSofta>mTrax:

When mTrax opens for the first time, the ‘Welcome To mTrax’ box will popup. If you are unfamiliar with mTrax, watching the Quick Start Video and \ reading the Quick Start Guide is strongly recommended:

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Default Music Folder When you open mTrax for the first time, you may find that a library has already been created for you. If mTrax was able to find a default music folder on your computer (called ‘My Music’ on Windows XP), it creates a library for it and calls it ‘My Music’:

If the ‘My Music’Library was created but mTrax found no audio file in it, you can open the Library folder and add audio files to it:

This implies that you have audio files in another folder on your computer, that you know where to look for them and that you will copy or move these files to your ‘My Music’ folder. If you do add files to you ‘My Music’ folder, please synchronize your ‘My Music’ to let mTrax know that new audio files are available:

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Note: Synchronization between an mTrax Library and its folder is done automatically each time you start mTrax or when you switch to another library that was not synchronized in the last 30 minutes.

No Default Music Folder Was Found If mTrax cannot find a default music folder on your computer, the ‘Music Library Finder’ wizard will open:

When the wizard is done running, you will see a list of folder paths:

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Note: the ‘Music Library Finder’ wizard is a convenient tool to find music folders on your computer. You can access it anytime by clicking the blue magnifying glass icon as shown below:

Creating a Library manually using the Folder Browser You can also create a library simply by pointing to a folder containing audio files using the ‘Browse For Folder’ tool:

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Default Smart Practice Lists When you create a new Library, mTrax creates four default Smart Practice Lists. Contrary to “regular” Practice Lists, to which you need to manually add specific songs, a Smart List is based on filters that can be applied to columns (Title, Artist, etc.) in the Trax Explorer. It is therefore more dynamic than a “Regular” List: in others words, the number of songs in it depends on how you set the attributes of each song in you Library. For example, if you have not rated any songs in your Library (using the yellow stars in the ‘Rating’column), then your ‘Rating: 3.5 stars and above’ Smart List will not contain any songs.

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An Example:

Using mTrax for the First Time

mTrax Main Window The following picture is a brief overview of the main window; take some time to familiarize yourself with mTrax, explore the main menu and other controls, try things out!

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Note: Although it is easy to change the look of the main window, the functionality of its different parts is always the same. These parts will be discussed in detail in other articles and videos.

Playing a Song To play a track, you can either double-click on a track row or press the ‘Play’ button:

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Adding Sections to Songs To create a Section, you must first click on the row selector to choose the track for which you wish to add a Section:

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There are 3 ways to add a section to a track:

1. From the Main Menu:

2. Right-clicking a Song:

3. In the Trainer Control:

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Default Sections: As you may have noticed, you have the choice of adding just one section, or choose ‘Add Default Sections’. When you choose to add Default Sections, three sections are created for you:

Using ‘Add Default Sections’ is a convenient way to add three sections for the parts of songs that are generally more difficult to learn, namely, the ‘Intro’, the ‘Solo’ and the ‘Outro’ (i.e. Ending of a song). Note that you still have to define each section’s specific Start and End Points. Note also that you can change any section’s name to your taste.

Using Sections

What are Sections? As you may have already noticed, the Trax Explorer (i.e. the central component in mTrax where your songs are listed) can not only display songs in their entirety, but also parts of songs, or sections, if you have created any. A section is just a part of a song or track; it has a Start Point, the spot in the song where it starts, and an End Point, the spot in the song where it ends. mTrax allows you to create sections to focus on and learn. Important facts about sections:

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• Creating sections does NOT modify you audio file in any way. Your audio file is never sliced and mTrax does NOT create mini audio files for your sections. Your section settings are simply saved in the mTrax database.

• Changing the tempo or pitch of a track or section does NOT modify your audio file in any way. Your settings are simply saved independently in the mTrax database.

• You can create as many sections as you wish for any of your songs for you to focus on and learn.

• A song’s sections are always listed directly below it, slightly indented, ordered by their Start Point.

• When a song has at least one section, there is a plus sign (+) in front of the song’s row when the sections are collapsed (i.e. hidden) or a minus sign (-) when the sections are expanded (i.e. visible).

• You can delete a section at any time by right clicking and choosing ‘Delete Selected’.

• Once you create and define a section, it is saved and will be there for you the next time you use mTrax.

• A section will play repeatedly even if the section’s ‘Loops’ setting is 1, provided the ‘List Mode’ in the Navigator control is set to ‘Track’.

• You can create a section of a section: for example section 1 starts at second 10 and ends a second 30; you can create a section that start at second 15 and ends at second 25. Section 2 will just be listed below section 1.

• Similarly, you can create overlapping sections. • Although you can modify a section by editing the values in its row cells, it is often

much easier to edit the Start Point, End Point, Tempo and Pitch using the Trainer Control.

Anatomy of a Section The following picture shows the different parts of a section. If your are new to mTrax, you should spend a few minutes creating, defining and playing sections for fun. You will gain a better understanding of the attributes of a section (Start Point, Start Tempo etc) and the way a section relates to the Navigator and Trainer controls:

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The List and Practice Modes List Mode: The List mode is common to many music players and regulates how a list of songs is played.

• Off: Once a song has ended, no other song is played.

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• Track: Once a song has ended, it gets played again, over and over, until you press the Stop button.

• List: The tracks in the Trax Explorer will be played sequentially. As soon as a song stops playing, the next one in the list starts playing.

• Random: When a song stops playing, another one, chosen at random, starts playing.

Practice Mode: This feature is unique to mTrax. Since mTrax allows you to create and play Sections, your list of songs in the Trax Explorer can contain your songs and the sections you may have created for them, we need a way to tell mTrax what items you want to play; that is the role of the Practice Mode.

The Pracice Mode is dependent on the setting of the List Mode; if the List Mode is set to ‘Off’ or ‘Track’, the Practice Mode is disabled. The following table shows the valid combinations:

Practice Mode Tracks

& Sections

Tracks Sections

OFF No No No Track No No No List Yes Yes Yes

List Mode

Random Yes Yes No - If you play a song or a section when the List Mode is set to ‘Off’, nothing will happen once the song or section is done playing. - If you play a song or a section when the List Mode is set to ‘Track’, the song or section will play over and over. Note that all Loops will play before starting over:

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