Contents
The Mixer
Think of the Mixer as a proper mixing desk for your music, with one strip for each of the 16 MIDI channels and a master alongside. Every control sends to your device in real time, so you can balance a song while it plays.
- Open it with
⌘6(Display → Mixer).
Not sure what pan, brilliance (brightness), or the reverb and chorus sends actually do? See Effects & Sound Shaping.
Per-channel strips#
Each of the 16 strips carries the same set of controls, labelled here as they appear on screen. Drag any of them and the change is sent straight to the hardware or built-in synth, no need to stop the music first.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Fader | The channel's volume: how loud this part plays compared with the others. The song sets its own balance as it plays; move the fader and your level takes over for the rest of the track. |
| Pan (top dial) | Places the channel's sound between the left and right speakers. Spreading parts across the stereo field is what keeps a busy mix from crowding the centre. |
| REV | Reverb send: how much of this channel feeds the song's shared reverb, adding room and space around the part, like moving it from a small booth to a hall. |
| CHO | Chorus send: thickens the part with a gentle shimmer, as if several instruments were playing together. Lovely on strings and electric pianos. |
| VAR | Variation send: feeds the channel into the song's chosen extra effect, which might be a delay, a phaser or a rotary speaker. On GS files this dial becomes DLY and feeds the delay instead, adding echoes that trail behind the sound. |
| BRT | Brilliance: brightens or softens the channel's tone, from mellow and rounded to crisp and present. One of the quickest ways to pull an instrument forward or tuck it into the background. |
| EXP | Expression: a second, finer volume that rides on top of the fader. Songs use it for swells and fades within a phrase, the way a player leans in and out of a note, so do not be surprised to see it moving on its own as the music plays. |
| Transpose | Shifts the channel up or down in semitones, up to two octaves either way. Handy for dropping a lead line an octave or nudging a part into a different register. |
| Meter | A live level meter with a peak-hold cap, so both quiet passages and brief peaks are easy to read. |
| Voice name | The instrument the channel is playing. Click it to swap the voice (see below). |
| MUTE / SOLO | Mute silences the channel. Solo plays it alone and quietens the rest; click Solo again to bring the others back. |
Not sure what a control does? Hover over it and a plain-English description appears, right there in the window.
Tip
Right-drag a fader or dial to move that control on every channel at once, by the same amount, handy for nudging the whole mix's reverb or volume together. And if a channel's transpose has wandered, double-click its value to snap it back to zero.
Your mixer tweaks apply to the track you are playing. When the next track starts they reset, so every song begins from its own settings.
When a control is dimmed#
Not every output or format supports every control, so the Mixer dims whatever does not apply, and hovering a dimmed control tells you why:
- The standard built-in synth supports volume, pan, expression and reverb; the chorus, variation and brilliance dials need MIDI hardware.
- Load your own SoundFont and reverb, chorus and brilliance come alive too, leaving only the variation send unavailable.
- On MT-32 files, the module itself only supports volume and pan per channel (see MT-32 Support).
- Plain GM files stop at what the General MIDI spec defines: the variation dial stays dim, and for original GM files so does brilliance.
The master strip#
On the right, the master strip shows a combined stereo meter of the overall output level. It is a display only: there is no master fader here, so it reflects the level rather than setting it. To adjust the overall level, use Master Volume in Settings → MIDI Output.
Swapping a channel's instrument#
Fancy hearing the lead line on something other than what the file chose? Click a strip's voice name to open a picker and choose a different instrument for that channel. While an override is active the pill is highlighted; pick Reset to file to return to whatever the file originally used. (Voice swapping is not available in MT-32 mode.)
When you are playing through a SoundFont (the built-in synth with a custom SoundFont loaded), the picker lists that SoundFont's own instruments and drum kits, so you are always choosing from sounds the font actually contains.
Give a channel its own SoundFont#
Sometimes a SoundFont is lovely overall but weak on one instrument, or you have a dedicated guitar, drum, or voice font you would like to use for just one part. On the built-in synth you can hand a single channel its own SoundFont.
Right-click a channel strip and choose Assign SoundFont, then pick a .sf2 file. That channel now plays through its own font while every other channel keeps the main one. A small marker on the voice name shows the channel is using its own SoundFont. To go back, right-click and choose Clear SoundFont.
While any channel has its own SoundFont, the top of the Mixer shows a SOUNDFONT readout listing those channels (for example SOUNDFONT: CH 1), with a CLEAR button beside it. CLEAR removes every per-channel SoundFont at once and keeps the main one, so you can reset back to a single font without visiting each strip. It appears only while a per-channel SoundFont is in use.
Assignments last for the session and stay put as you move between tracks. They apply only to the built-in synth with a SoundFont loaded, so the option appears when that is your output. Loading a different main SoundFont clears any per-channel assignments.
This is different from a companion SoundFont for a single file, which swaps the whole SoundFont for that one track.
Multi-port setups#
Running more than 16 channels across several MIDI ports? The Mixer can page through banks of 16 channels (1 to 16, 17 to 32, and so on) using the bank picker in the title row.
Resizing#
The Mixer window resizes freely, full screen included, and scales to fit while keeping all the strips legible.
Related pages#
- The Part Inspector to drill into everything shaping one channel.
- The Visualiser to see channel activity.
- GS & XG Effect Monitors for deeper effect control.
- MIDI Output & Devices for routing.