So you’re in a hurry, eh? Let’s follow our favorite musician "Sound Warrior" (SW) through the paces of using Mixcraft ™.
Load in sounds
SW starts Mixcraft and clicks "Add Sound" from the "Mix" menu. He finds a groovy beat called ‘funky-groove-120-bpm.wav’ and clicks "OK".
Position sounds
SW clicks on the new sound and moves it to track 1 so that it starts at the beginning of the track.
Create loop
To add looping, SW moves his mouse to the right side of the sound until the cursor looks like a <-> . SW clicks and drags right to loop the sound. Each loop is represented by a tick so that he can visibly measure out 10 loops.
Change filter over time
SW wants the loop to grow in intensity over time and instead of just changing the volume over time, he decides he wants to change the frequency over time! SW clicks on the "Show Env" control on the toolbar and switches it to "Low Pass Cutoff" He moves the mouse to the first envelope point and drags it down to the bottom of the sound. Then he switches the "Show Env" control to "Low Pass Resonance" and adjusts the first envelope point to the top. He proudly listens to the piece of art by clicking the Play button on the toolbar. "Not bad!" he thinks.
Add more sounds
He adds a bass part and a synth pad on tracks 2 & 3. He then records some vocals on track 4 that go like this "yo baby, you know I luv ya…" you get the idea. ;-) Something is missing though…
Add Effects
He decides to add some echo or delay to his vocals so that "yo baby" sounds more like "yo yo baby baby". He clicks on the "FX" button on track 4 and selects "Delay" from the list. In a sudden inspiration, he decides that the whole thing needs reverb and clicks "Main FX" on the master control panel to add global reverb. Now it sounds just right!
Mix it down to MP3
Soundwarrior needs to mix it down to a single sound. He chooses "Mix Down To" followed by clicking "MP3". He selects a filename and clicks save. Without hesitating he launches his email browser and starts composing a new message to his current #1 fan. "Dear Mom, you’ve gotta check out this new piece I made!!!"
Burn it to CD
Soundwarrior is so happy with himself he decides to burn a spinning wheel (also known as a CD) so that he can play it at the next ‘rock’ concert. He adds a few track markers, and clicks burn. Minutes later, he prints a CD label with the optional Acoustica CD/DVD Label Maker !
How Tos …