Using Acid Pro as a mixer bynaz Note: this is a very basic Acid tutorial. If this isn't of any use to you, try fucking yourself Like Soundforge, Acid wasn't designed as a mixer. It's a sequencer that happens to perform very adequatedly as a mixing program. As it is professional software, there is a learning curve when trying to use it for mixing. Part One: MULTITRACKING Use the view > explorer option to display the file explorer. Drag a sound file into the centre of Acid. The beatmapper dialog will appear for long tracks. You can skip ahead to the beatmapper part of the tutorial now or later. For this part I cancelled the beatmapper wizard. A track will appear on the left part of the work area. To start your mix, click the pencil icon and click and drag the waveform right. This can take a while and its quite awkward. To multitrack, load a second file into Acid and start dragging where you want to start the overlap between tracks one and two. Part Two: ENVELOPING A volume envelope allows you to control the volume levels. Right-click a track, Insert Volume Envelope. A brown line will appear. Right click the line where you would like to begin a volume transition, select add point. Add another point where you would like the volume transition to end. Drag the points to manipulate volume. Part Three: BEATMAPPING When you load a large file into Acid, the beatmapper dialog appears. Beatmapping your tunes allows you to seamlessly mix tunes that around the same tempo. Sometimes. Firstly, Acid will attempt to locate the first downbeat. This, to me, means the first strike of the standard beat of the tune. Acid often gets it wrong. The below picture depicts a minimalist techno track, you may have to find the downbeat yourself. After the downbeat has been defined, Acid attempts to create a loop. A properly beatmappedloop, if played continuously, will sound natural, no clicks, in time. Sometimes. The best way to get used to mapping the length and tempo of a loop is by experimenting with a dance track. When you have defined the loops correctly, proceed to the next screen. Inspect a few loops, to see if it remains in time. If so, click next and select Preserve Pitch. The bottom left of the work area contains the tempo control for the entire project. If the project is set at 120 BPM and you beatmap a tune at 80 bpm, the tune will run at 150% of its proper tempo. Set the project tempo to whatever your mix material has been beatmapped at. You should aim to mix tunes of similar tempos together for the best sounding results. To change the project tempo half-way through a mix use Insert>Key Tempo change. Part Four: EXPORTING File> Render As. Have fun.

Using Movable Type

Movable Type is a content management system which allows the user to publish text and images to a website without having to use HTML.

Go to http://b00mb0x.org/movetype/mt.cgi to log on.

Login using your username and password.

In the Main menu, choose which blog you wish to publish to.
B00mB0x controls the main news page of the site; new mixes, remixes and intros for articles are posted here. B00MBL0G is the actual web
log, where the new articles are posted.

From the main editing menu you have access to most of the
publishing tools. To make a new entry in the blog, choose New Entry.

Fill in the Title field and enter the text of the new entry in the window called Entry Body. Select a piece of text and use the B, i, U and Url buttons to make the selection bold, italic, underlined or a link.
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To upload and insert an image choose Upload File on the menu to the right. Use the browse button to locate the picture you want to upload on your computer. Leave the local archive and local site fields blank. Choose Upload.
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Choose SHOW ME THE HTML. If your image is very large choose popup image, if you want it embedded in the entry choose embedded
image.
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Copy/Paste the code from the image window into the new entry.
width=412>Finish writing and uploading images until your entry is complete. At the bottom of the page Choose SAVE occasionally. Make sure the dropdown menu is set to PUBLISH not DRAFT.

Your entry should now be on the site

The text on which this tutorial is based was originally posted by
Younglove on the Syntrillium board at  http://www.audioforums.com/
A friend and I reworked the original instructions slightly,
hopefully to make it easier to follow.  I do not pretend to understand all
this stuff.  I asked a couple of audio guys if it made sense and they said
it did.  RMS stands for Root Means Squared, so RMS Normalizing is
normalizing to the Root Means Squared (ha ha) rather than to peak (which the
Normalize function does).  This gets the output levels sounding all the
same (close anyway).  It works for me, and while a little tedious I find it
takes less time in the long run to do this procedure.


So, here's the manual procedure for RMS Normalizing in CEP 1.2 and
CE2000:

If you wish, to save time...Disable Undo


Edit - Enable Undo
(click so there is
No check mark)


 1. Bring up the cue list:


View - Cue
List

 2. Open the first
track.

File - Open

 3. Edit - Select Entire Wave. The whole wave should now be highlighted.

 4. Press the Add button on the cue list window.


 5. Open Append (not Open) (File – Open Append) all the remaining tracks (now the whole compilation is opened as a single wave
file and each track will have its own cue range).  Warning: if you select multiple files in a directory to Open
Append at once, CEP does not Open Append these in the same order as your selected list.  If you want them in order, add them 1 at a time. (Or, after
the first track is loaded, starting with the last track, select each track one at a time while holding down the CTRL key.  If you do this in
inverse order, last to 2^nd, they will all load correctly.)  Otherwise you’ll have to listen to them all when you’re done to put them in the
right order.

 6. Edit - Convert Sample Type the compilation wave to
32 bit.  When the window opens, on the right side, under 'Resolution',
select 32, then click OK.


When I started doing this I had a P2 400 and a full disc of
music was 70 mins.  This step took approximately 20 mins.  (Double
that with Undo on).  Currently, with a P3 1 gig a full disc (80 mins) takes
about 8 mins.  Most mixes are shorter, so the time involved will be
relative to the length of your mix or disc and the speed of your computer.

 7. For each cue range (track), do:
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'">
…A: style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'"> select the cue range so that it is
highlighted


…B:
Analyze - Statistics. 


When you click on ‘Statistics’, a window opens and it
immediately starts analyzing.  The    first time, when it
has completed the analysis, set the RMS Window Width to 0 ms and
press the Recalculate button.
src="http://b00mb0x.org/b00mb0x_Cool_Edit_RMS_Normalize_files/image014.jpg" width=578 v:shapes="_x0000_i1031">

 You'll only need to recalculate the first time, once set to 0, it should stay. 

Note the Average RMS Power of the louder of the left
and right channels (the one whose value is closest to 0 dB).
i.e. if one channel is -15.71 and the other -15.92, select
-15.71.


in this example, you would choose –20.59 db.  Remember
(or write down) the number and click CLOSE.
…C:
 Transform – Amplitude – Amplify



 
by *minus* that many dB (the value to amplify by will normally be
a positive value, for example "minus -24 dB" = 24 dB;  using our example
the number to enter is 20.59 db.
src="http://b00mb0x.org/b00mb0x_Cool_Edit_RMS_Normalize_files/image020.jpg" width=576 v:shapes="_x0000_i1034">

Make sure that the “Constant Amplification” button is
selected.

Make sure that the "View all settings in dB" and
"Lock Left/Right" boxes are checked.  Click “OK”.  (This
will temporarily grossly amplify your track - don't worry about it: it's
a 32-bit float!)
Move on to Track 2, do A, B, C, etc. etc. etc.

 8. Having done step 7 for each track, the tracks are now

normalized to RMS with respect to each other, rather than to
peak.  Now:  Edit - Select Entire Wave.

 9. Transform – Amplitude - Normalize


Normalize to whatever value you want, say 98%. This brings the
levels back down without clipping or loss, and leaves a little headroom.

Fill in your number and click “OK”.
 It will take anywhere between 2 to 5 mins before you see a
progress bar, be patient.  This step will take about the same time as the
converting to 32 bit did.
10.  Edit - Convert Sample Type - Convert back to 16
bit.

This time, select 16 in the Resolution window.
11.  You can now use the Batch function on the Cue
List (highlight all the cues first: highlight the bottom one, hold the SHIFT
key, click on the top one) to automatically save the tracks to separate
files.


Make sure that ‘Save to Files’ is checked.  Enter a
letter of the alphabet, or whatever you want in the Filename Template. 
Enter the number 1 in the Starting Index box.
Set a destination with the Browse button.
Make
sure that you select
Windows PCM (*.wav) for Output Format.
Click “OK”.  Each file will then be saved in your
destination folder.
********************   ENABLE UNDO  
***********************
When your done and you close Cool Edit, it will ask you if you
want to save the changes to “Filename whatever” which will be the first track
you loaded.  Just say NO.
The procedure reads complicated, but if you try it, it's really
quite easy, just a bit tedious because it's a manual
procedure

How to Compress Your Mix for b00mb0x

Ingredients

You'll Need
-

CDex (freeware)
a mix

I should mention at the front of this tutorial that if your mix isn't compressed enough for the site, we'll compress it for you. So if you don't want to learn this; please go about doing whatever you've been doing. If, however, like the young moth who yearns to cocoon in study so he may one day flourish like a butterfly, you would like to learn this yourself and save us the time... well here ya go:


When saving your mix in whatever program you have used, you want to save as a WAV file. NOT as an mp3 file. Save this file somewhere temporary where you can find it. It will be quite large.

Now, download, install and run CDex.
This is the program you will be using to compress your mix.

We need to adjust your encoding settings (how the mp3 will be compressed). This will be one time only if you will only be using CDex to compress mixes for our
site:

Select Options from the top menu, then select Settings. (Or just
hit your F4 key)

Select the Encoder tab (it should be auto-selected the first time this window opens) and change the settings to look like below:

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CDex Configuration Settings for b00mb0x Thread Priority - Normal - Normal should be fine for you. Setting this higher will allow your mp3 to encode fast, but at the expense of the rest of your computers performance. Encoder - LAME MP3 Encoder Check 'don't delete ripped WAV after conversion' if you want to encode your mix at a higher quality for some other use. Version - MPEG 1 Bitrate Minimum - 32kbs - this is important. you will be wasting precious file space if you set this higher. Also, there is no degredation in sound quality by setting this low. Max - 320kbs - same idea. You can set this as high as you want. All you are doing is giving the program latitude to do what it does best (which is make these decisions for you). Mode - J-stereo - J-stereo will encode identical left/right audio track sections as Mono, again saving precious file size with no difference in sound. Keep private, checksum, Original and Copyright unchecked. Most of these are silly copyright protection schemes; except Checksum; which may degrade sound quality so leave it alone. Quality - Normal (q=5) - Since your encoding at a lower bitrate, setting quality to High might actually HURT your sound quality. DO NOT set quality to low. It will be. Low quality, that is. Uncheck - On-the-fly-MP3 Encoding - This has no bearing on what we are doing as it only refers to when you are ripping from CD (you are encoding from a WAV file right now). But it's best to keep it unchecked in general unless you are very low on hard drive space. VBR Method - VBR-MTRH - I'm not getting into explaining this. Just select that one. I'm right and you are wrong. VBR Quality - VBR9 - This is the most important setting. VBR9 is the lowest quality setting for variable bitrate and the only setting that is guaranteed to make your mix small enough for our site (as long as it's under 74 Minutes that is). VBR9 sounds totally fine. I wouldn't pump a VBR9 through your local stadium show, but for us serving your mixes it sounds totally cool.

For the record, if you want to save your mix at a higher quality for your own purposes, all of these settings apply for the most part. A decent higher quality setting without giving away the file-size cow is to keep all the above settings, but change Quality to High (q=2) and change VBR Quality to VBR 2. For super-bestest-ever quality change to VBR 0 but at that point, why not just keep the WAV file you freak?

Now hit the Filenames Tab.

Next to Wav-->MP3, hit the triple dot button (...). Select
the folder where you want your mix to be saved once an mp3. Pick somewhere you can easily find it (like Desktop).

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Now you have your settings ready. Click OK.

You now want to select, from the buttons on the right side, the fourth large button from the top (the third from the bottom). The popup text will say for this button "Convert WAV File(s) to Compressed Audio File(s)" class=italics>(Below pic - 1.).

A windows will popup where you now must find where you saved your WAV file. Hit the triple dot (...) button next to Directory class=italics>(Below pic - 2.).

Find the folder your WAV file is in and select it. All WAV files in that file will be shown now in the window below. Highlight your mix and hit the large
CONVERT button on the bottom (Above pic -
3.)

If you have an ancient processor like mine (300mhz Celeron), go get some dinner as this will now take 2 hours.