R•A•M•P

Mixing in Digital Performer

Assignment: Mix a bluegrass tune

•Find the folder Bluegrass in the Shared folder. Drag it to your local desktop and disconnect from the Shared folder.

•Open the file bluegraz.dp and monitor the tracks.

•Pan the two guitar tracks hard left and right

Open the Mixer window (shift M). Make sure you have the track select column visible, and select the two guitar tracks to show their channel strips. Drag the pan control for Guitar 1 all the way to the left (-64) and for Guitar 2 all the way to the right (63)

•Add a Master Fader to the track.

•Adjust the level on the Guitar 2 track to compensate for the low record level.

In the Mixer window select the two guitar tracks and the Master Fader. Insert a Trim plug-in into the top plug-in slot on the Guitar 2 channel strip.

In the Trim window, add several dB to the signal until the level is similar to that of Guitar 1. Check levels in the Master Fader meters.

•Use volume automation to correct drop out on the Fiddle track.

Open the Sequence Edit window (shift S). Make sure you have the track select column visible, and select the Fiddle track to show its wave form. If necessary, zoom vertically to show all available parameter controls.

Locate to the beginning of the sequence. From the Insert menu, select Volume.

The cursor turns into a pencil. Click in the track before the start of the waveform to insert a volume breakpoint and level line.

If the Auto light is not green, click it to engage automation.

Click on the breakpoint to show its data in the data line at the top of the window. Set the level to 0.

Locate to measure 11. Insert breakpoints at the beginning and end of low-volume waveform. Insert more breakpoints inside the two endpoints and drag them upwards to increase level.

•Add reverb to the Guitar and Fiddle tracks.

Add an Aux track to the sequence. Set its input to Bus 1-2. Open the Mixer and select the Guitar, Fiddle, and Aux tracks.

Double click the Send knobs to set them at 2:00. Select bus 1 and bus 2 from the Send menus.

On the Aux channel strip, insert eVerb. In the resulting window, set mix and 100%, and from the mini-menu select “Hall with Tiles.”

•Adjust levels

Open the Mixer window and show all the tracks. Use Trim plug-ins and faders to adjust levels to an appropriate mix. Note that tracks with automation (Fiddle) inserts will revert to pre-set levels during playback.

•Make a mix

Select all tracks. Set an appropriate region in the Region Selection portion of the Tracks window. Select Bounce to Disk from the Audio menu. In the resulting window, rename your mix and hit OK. After processing, your mix will appear in a new stereo track.

•Create an AIFF file of your mix.

The mix you made actually consists of two mono Sound Designer files. To create an AIFF file from these files, open the Soundbite window (shift-B). Locate the name of your mix, and select it.

Go to the Soundbite window mini-menu, and select Export Soundbites. In the resulting window, select a location for your save, and also select AIFF as your desired format. You may put a .aif suffix on your file name if you want. Hit OK.

Your mix is now saved in a format that you can burn to CD. You can find it in your Audio Files folder, or wherever you specified when you did the export.