3D Mixer

3D Mixer is a sound mixer that's lets you edit and mix sounds in real time. The app provides two separate views of your sounds:

• In Time View, the individual sound tracks are laid out on a time grid. In this view, you can move tracks around in time, lengthen and shorten their durations, create loop points, and so on.

• In Space View, individual tracks appear as a rectangular columns on a planar grid; to move a sound in space or change its amplitude, you grab the column and drag it around the grid.

When the 3D Mixer is launched, it appears in Time View. To toggle between the two views, type Alt+t. If your monitor is large and is set to a high resolution, you may get a split screen that shows both views at the same time.

Time View and Space View are described in the next sections. The parts of the app that are common to the two views—the menu bar and the volume control—are described after that.

For a tutorial that steps you through some common sound mixing activities, see 3D Mixer Tutorial.

Currently, 3D Mixer supports AIFF and WAV sound files.

Time View

The Time View display looks like this:

The main portion of the window is where your project's individual sound tracks are displayed. You add a track by dropping a soundfile into the window, or by importing a project through File > Open Project.... When you add a track, a named "track display" is added to the Track Editor:

You can edit a track's name by clicking on it. To the right of the name are the M (mute) and S (solo) buttons, which you click to mute/unmute a single track or to solo a track (i.e. to mute all the others).

In Time View, time runs right to left. You position a sound with respect to time by grabbing the sound samples and dragging them right (later) or left (earlier).

Time and Zoom

Along the top of the Time View are the time controls:

The controls consist of a Ticks: box, a "beats" popup (where a beat is a group of ticks), and the time line itself. The time line shows real time along the top of the display, and ticks/beats along the bottom. As you play with the value of the Ticks: box and the beats popup, you'll see the tick/beat hash marks change with respect to real time. 

You can scroll the time line (the individual tracks scroll accordingly), and you can use it to set the portion of sound to play. To loop over a section of your sound, simply select a portion of the time line (shift+click to extend a selection).

At the bottom of the Time View window, and to the left of the horizontal scroller, is a zoom control:

The zoom control is a slider that lets you zoom in and out on the sound data. To zoom out (to show more time and less detail), drag the hairline toward the fat part of the slider (to the right); to zoom in, drag it to the thin end (the left end). 

To the left is a sound zoomed in; on the right is the same sound zoomed out. The two displays represent the same amount of real time; only the time scope (and the level of detail) is changed.

The Edit Window

Double-click on a sound track to bring up an Edit window for that track:

The Edit window lets you cut, copy, and paste sound data. These commands are associated with the expected Edit menu items. (Currently, the Clear command is the same as Cut.)

The Filter menu contains commands that affect the content or quality of the sound. The Filter commands only affect the currently selected portion of the sound:

• Zero "erases" (sets to 0) the samples in the current selection, but doesn't cut the samples out of the sound.

• Change Volume pops up a window with a volume slider that affects the volume of the selection.

• Max Volume scales the samples in the selection so they're at maximum amplitude.

• The other Filter commands, Echo, Chorus, Metal, Fade, and Compress, do funny things to the sound (as described by their names). Most of these commands (all but Metal) pop up a window that lets you set the filter "strength".

Space View

The Space View lets you spatially arrange your edited sound files by placing them on a planar grid. The Space View display looks like this:

Each sound track is represented by a rectangular column. The right/left location of a column sets the sound's stereo image; the front/back location affects the sound's amplitude (the closer to the front of the grid, the louder the sound).

The Grid

You can grab the grid anywhere with the mouse and turn, spin, or flip it. "Throw" the grid and it will continue to rotate. To help you maintain your orientation, the left/right arrow always sticks to the front of the grid. (Note that by moving the grid you don't affect the placement or amplitude of the sounds that are playing.)

The Columns

As mentioned above, the rectangular columns represent sound tracks. You can drag them around the grid and hear the results in real time. If you want to mute or solo a track, click on the column (and release!) and then press M (mute) or S (solo).

Menu Bar

The 3D Mixer menu bar contains these commands:

• File contains the usual Open, Save, and Quit commands. A 3D Mixer file is known as a "project"; the Open Project command brings up a selection window where you can open a previously saved 3D Mixer project or a single sound file. The Save Project and Save Project As commands save a project in a proprietary 3D Mixer format. If you want to be able to play your mixed sound on other platforms (or by other applications), save your project as a mixed soundfile by choosing Save Mix as WAV.

  Don't miss About Benôit Mix in the File menu.

• Edit has the standard commands (Undo/Redo, Cut, Copy, Paste). These commands apply to Time View only.

• In the Display menu we find:
  • Show/Hide Mixer (Alt+t) toggles between Time View and Space View. If your monitor is large and is set to a high resolution, you may get a split screen that shows both views at the same time. At lower resolutions or on a smaller screen, you'll just see one view or the other. 

  • Show/Hide Controls shows or hides the volume slider and level meter (described in Volume Control).

  • Show/Hide beat marks does the same with the time line display (Time View only).

  • Fast Display affects the speed and accuracy of the wave form that's displayed in Time View. With fast display on, drawing speed is gained at the price of accuracy; when it's off, drawing takes longer, but the waveform is more accurate.

  • Tracks menu let you mute/unmute and solo/unsolo the selected track(s), add a new empty track, delete the selected tracks, and select all tracks.

  • Misc. The commands in this menu let you set the tick size (as displayed by the time line) as equal subdivisions of the selection in the time line(Ticks from Time Selection), or as subdivisions of the samples in the selected track (Ticks from Sample Length). The commands bring up the "Tick Window" in which you set the number of subdivisions you want.

    

Volume Control

A level meter and volume control are displayed down the left side of the 3D Mixer:

The level meter is a real-time indication of the amplitude of the playing sound. The volume control slider is a "master" control: It affects all tracks that are currently playing.

To show/hide these indicators, toggle the triangle below the menu bar immediately to the right of the level meter; you can also toggle these controls in and out of view with the Tab key.