Acoustica Mixcraft 7 - Manual (Page 35)

29
Audio tracks contain audio clips. Audio clips can be recorded by the user or loaded
from pre-existing libraries.
LOADING AUDIO FILES
To load an audio file, double-click in the Main Clip Grid. (Make sure the cursor is to
the right of an audio track.) Then, navigate to the sound to be loaded and click the
Open button at the bottom of the window. You can also click the Add Sound button on
the toolbar, third from the right. The Add Sound icon looks like this:
The sound will appear at the current location of the Caret.
MONITORING/HEARING YOURSELF
“I need more me!,” said some musician, to every sound engineer who ever lived.
Some sound devices let you listen to the input recording in real-time, or very close
to it, during recording. This is known as “software monitoring.” To enable software
monitoring for a track, click the arm button, then click the speaker icon. The
speaker icon will turn green to indicate that software monitoring is enabled
for the track.
We recommend using headphones in order to avoid feedback when recording with a
microphone. (Closed-ear headphones also help to prevent the click from bleeding into
mics during recording.)
One caveat when using software monitoring is that audio hardware must be set to a
low latency, otherwise the monitored audio will have an audible delay. (For the lowest
latency and best audio performance, use the ASIO audio driver if available. Check
in File>Preferences>Sound Device to see if ASIO is available; it may be necessary to
download and install drivers from the manufacturer of your audio hardware.) The
downside to reducing buffer size is, depending on your sound card and computer
speed, you may hear gaps or clicks in the audio. Learn more about setting up your
sound device in Important Sound Setup Information (see pg. 1).
HEARING EFFECTS DURING RECORDING
If effects are added, they’ll be audible when software monitoring is on. This is often
desirable, e.g., adding reverb when tracking a vocalist, or when tracking electric guitar
with Mixcraft’s Shred Amp Simulator. Though you’ll hear the effects during recording,
effects are not recorded into the track. In other words, Mixcraft always records dry.
In this way, effect settings can be changed or removed later without altering the
original recording.