The Be User's Guide Table of Contents

3D Mixer Tutorial



This tutorial steps you through some simple loop editing. To follow this tutorial, you need a soundfile. At the end of this document you'll find some additional Tips and Tricks that you may find useful.


Creating a Simple Loop

  1. To start a project, launch 3D Mixer; the Time Viewwindow opens. Note that, by default, you can't open 3D Mixer by double-clicking a soundfile; you must open the application first, and drag a sound file into it (or use the File > Open Project... command). You can have only one project window open at a time.

  2. Drop a soundfile into the window. The file (or "track") automatically opens in a track view, just below the time line.

  3. Click and hold on the track to pop up a red-bordered box that displays time information about the track. Drag the sound along the track to see this information updated in real time. Notice the vertical lines that appear at either end of the sound when you begin to drag it; these help you to locate the sound in time (against the time line).

  4. Hold down the control key while dragging the sound to force it to snap to a tick mark.

  5. Change the height of a track by grabbing and dragging the triangle in the track's lower-left corner.

  6. Drag the red line in the Zoom Control at the bottom left of the window to the left to zoom out and enlarge the sound file. This lets you see more easily where the file actually begins and ends, and also magnifies it component parts for easier editing. 

  7. Hold down the shift key, grab the dark left edge of the sound, and drag. The track "viewer" moves relative to the sound. You use this method to "trim" the beginning of a sound.

  8. Select a portion of time by dragging across the time line. The app will automatically loop the portion of your sound that falls within the time selection.

  9. Select Misc > Ticks from Time Selection and change the number of divisions (in the panel that pops up) to 16.

  10. Hold down the control key and drag the red tab at the bottom right of the sound out to snap the length of the sound to the duration of the time line selection.

  11. Extend the time line selection by shift clicking "into the future". Your sound will no longer fill up the entire "loop space"— in other words, instead of "DingDingDing", you'll hear "Ding   Ding   Ding   ".

  12. To fill the newly extended loop space with your sound—to create copies of your sound in the silent portion of the loop— grab the shaded right end of the sound and drag out so it fills the time line selection. The "gray" sound that's dragged out is a looped copy of the original sound.


    Tips and Tricks



    The Be User's Guide,
    for BeOS Release 4.5.

    Copyright © 1999 Be, Inc. All rights reserved.