Mixer

Mixer

If you are familiar with hardware mixer consoles, the Mixer in Renoise will look familiar to you. It provides a quick overview of all available tracks, DSP effects and output levels. This is especially useful in the last production stage, when you are finished with the main song structure and need to concentrate on polishing the final mix.

The Mixer also allows you to display a subset of track effect parameters which you can customise. Using this, you can prepare your songs for live performance by showing only the parameters you would like to concentrate on adjusting.

Pre/Post Volume and Panning Concept

Volume and panning controls in the Mixer can be set up to show two different levels:

• Pre: Volume and panning levels which are applied after instrument playback, but before track DSP effects are applied.
• Post: Volume and panning levels which are applied after all track DSP effects are applied. This is the final sound leaving track and being fed into the Master Track.

The idea behind the Pre/Post mix separation is that you should use the Pre levels while composing the song. Automation, like the fade-in of tracks, should be applied here or with a Gainer Device. Post volume and panning levels cannot be automated and should only be used in the final mixing stage to balance the mix.

Customizing the Mixer Layout

On the right of the mixer, you will notice a set of buttons which do enable or disable some of the mixers components.

• File:Vvoois renoise mixer labels.png - Show/hide parameter labels above the DSPs in the mixer (“Cutoff”, “Q” etc. in the example above).
• File:Vvoois renoise mixer mute.png - Show/hide mute / solo track controls in the track strips.
• File:Vvoois renoise mixer pan.png - Show/hide Panning sliders.
• File:Vvoois renoise mixer meter.png - Show/hide level VU meters and the main volume faders.
• File:Vvoois renoise mixer vol.png - Show/hide volume edit box on the bottom of the large meters.
• File:Vvoois renoise mixer del.png - Show/hide custom track delays: Track delays let you “shift” tracks against each other in time. Entering a negative value will make it play before other tracks, a positive value will lay it back. This is only available for sampler tracks, that's a track you play instruments on and thus not available for the send or master tracks. This is especially useful to compensate small latency problems with for example MIDI and plugin based tracks, or to simply lay dow track to give them them a better “groove”.
• File:Vvoois renoise mixer out.png - Show/Hide audio routing control. Audio routing in the mixer defines where the tracks final output will be send to: Selecting “Master Track” will send the output through the master tracks DSP chain. Selecting a dedicated output of your sound-card will bypass master FX and also allow you to separate and mix Renoise tracks with an external mixer console. This is only possible when your sound cards allows the use of multiple channels. On Windows you have to use ASIO to use this feature. On Linux Jack Audio.

Track colors can be shown or hidden in the mixer as well. Right click anywhere in the mixer DSP chain section, then select “Show Track Colors”.

Send Devices/Tracks and the Post Mixer

To rout a sound from any track into a another track (a Send Track), you do insert a “#Send Device” into the track DSPs you want to send the signal from. A“#Send Device” will then appear in the mixer as shown in the image below. The shown slider controls the amount of audio that is send to the send track.

Send tracks are used to group tracks, to apply the same set of DSPs on multiple tracks at once.

By stacking them, and being able to add multiple “#Send Devices” into a track, you can create complex routing and track FX layouts.

When using a “Send Device” you do have the choice between:

• Sending the tracks signal to a send track, but also keeping the signal in the original track (Keep Source)
• Sending the tracks signal to a send track, and muting the signal from the original track (Mute Source)

When using Send Devices with a “Mute Source” option, the post volume and panning levels will have no effect. That's because the signal is sent “away” from the track to the send tracks before the signal reaches the tracks output. To change the tracks levels, you then either have to use the send tracks volume and pan levels or have to adjust the “Send Device” amount.

To visualize this in the mixer, track levels which do not reach then POST volume and paning are shown in a different color. That's white by default instead of green, but may vary depending on which color theme you are using in Renoise:

(Track with a Send Device with Mute Source)

File:Vvoois renoise mute keep source.png

(Send Device Routing in The Mixer)

Adjusting Level Meters

Volume level meters display volume on one in four available scales: −24dB to 0dB, −48dB to 0dB −96dB to 0dB dB and a linear scaling. To change the scaling for all meters you can right click on any level meter in the mixer. The meters can this way also be disabled.

A small tip: The master level meter on top of the interface can be adjusted and disabled as well this way.

Controlling the Mixer with a MIDI controller

You can attach MIDI controllers to the pre- AND post-mixer, Mute/Solo controls to be able to comfortably do mix the a MIDI controller. To do so select View → Midi Mapping… in the main menu, or click on the MIDI Mapping button on top of the interface next to the main VU meter.

Please have a look for a more detailed description of the MIDI Mapping feature.

Working with DSP Effects and Chains

Track DSP devices are shown in the mixer-rack above the track levels and the other channel strip controls. Right clicking an effect gives you a set of options for the selected FX and for the whole chain. For example to initialize, cut, copy paste a device or to set up which parameters you would like to see in the mixer for every DSP.

Drag and Drop, Copy and Paste

To copy a DSP from one track to the another, simply click on it with the mouse and move it to its new place while still holding down the mouse button. Pressing CONTROL while dropping the DSP will create a copy of the device. This and more can also be done with the standard copy/paste key commands (CONTROL-c, CONTROL-x and CONTROL-v).

Please note: Copying or moving an effect from one track to another, will not move also the automation for the device. When moving a device the original automation will be removed.