This chapter contains two lessons to help you record audio in Mixcraft. Please see the companion DVD for a written tutorial on recording audio in Mixcraft, as well as a video tutorial.
3. Improvising melodies, variations, and accompaniments
4. Composing and arranging music within specified guidelines
8. Understanding relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts
Record a passage of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll and make it into a selection you might hear on an audio-book recording.
Learn how to record using a microphone and an audio interface.
Learn how to automate volume controls to create fades.
Computer with Mixcraft installed
Headphones
Microphone
Audio interface
An acoustic musical instrument (or a friend who has one)
You will find an example of a completed project on the companion DVD. Look for a file titled Alice’s Adventures in Mixcraft.mx5 and an MP3 file titled Alice’s Adventures in Mixcraft Mixdown.mp3.
Launch Mixcraft and select the first option (Record Yourself or Your Band) from the New Project screen. You will see that you are given a template with eight Audio tracks. You only need two Audio tracks for this project, so you can delete the others. Select each one individually and click Track > Delete Track. It’s easier if you scroll down to the last track in the Sequencer and delete them from the bottom up.
You will also notice that Mixcraft gives you a time code in minutes and seconds rather than in bars and beats. If your timeline is in bars and beats, change it to minutes and seconds by clicking the Time button, which you’ll find above the fader for the first track. Save your work so far. Remember to keep saving every few minutes as you work through this project.
You will be recording through a microphone, so make sure your speakers are off, or you might inadvertently pick up the sound of the speakers while you’re recording and create a feedback loop. You should use headphones to listen as you record this project.
Attach your microphone to the input of your audio interface. Check the Sound Device tab of the File > Preferences screen to make sure that your audio interface is selected. In the title bar of the first track, click the down arrow to the right of the Arm button to make sure the correct channel is selected for your audio interface. Select Monitor Incoming Audio if you need to hear what you are recording through the headphones. This may cause some unfortunate delay between what you say into the microphone and what you hear, so it is probably best to leave the Monitor Incoming Audio option unchecked.
Arm Track 1. Speak into the microphone to make sure you are getting a strong signal. Watch the volume readout in the first track to make sure the computer is able to hear you well. If you are getting a very weak signal, you may need to turn up the gain on the microphone input on your audio interface. If your signal is too strong, you may have to lower the level.
Be aware that your proximity to the microphone is also a contributing factor to the strength of your sound. The microphone should be just a couple of inches from your mouth as you are speaking into it. Please note that is it never right to bang a microphone to see whether it’s working. You can easily damage the microphone, headphones, speakers, and even your own hearing in this way.
Press the Record button and read the following passage from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Make sure you include the title of the passage, and try to get through the whole excerpt in one take. If you make a mistake, don’t worry. Just press Stop and then Rewind to Beginning and click Edit > Undo or use the shortcut key combination Ctrl+Z to undo the last recording and record again. You will learn about editing multiple takes in the next lesson.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Chapter 7, “A Mad Tea-Party” There was a table set out under a tree in front of the house, and the March Hare and the Hatter were having tea at it. A Dormouse was sitting between them, fast asleep.
The table was a large one, but the three were all crowded together at one corner of it: “No room! No room!” they cried out when they saw Alice coming. “There’s plenty of room!” said Alice indignantly, and she sat down in a large arm-chair at one end of the table.
The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he said was, “Why is a raven like a writing-desk?”
“I’m glad they’ve begun asking riddles. I believe I can guess that,” Alice added aloud.
“Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?” said the March Hare.
“Exactly so,” said Alice.
“Then you should say what you mean,” the March Hare went on.
“I do,” Alice hastily replied; “at least, at least I mean what I say—that’s the same thing, you know.”
“You might just as well say,” added the Dormouse, who seemed to be talking in his sleep, “that I breathe when I sleep is the same thing as I sleep when I breathe!”
“It is the same thing with you,” said the Hatter, and he poured a little hot tea upon its nose.
The Dormouse shook its head impatiently, and said, without opening its eyes, “Of course, of course; just what I was going to remark myself.”
“Have you guessed the riddle yet?” the Hatter said, turning to Alice again.
“No, I give it up,” Alice replied: “what’s the answer?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” said the Hatter.
“Nor I,” said the March Hare.
Alice gave a weary sigh. “I think you might do something better with the time,” she said, “than wasting it in asking riddles that have no answers.”
Disarm the track. Press Rewind to Beginning and listen to what you have recorded. Click on the FX button beside the Arm button and add some effects to the channel. You might like to add in a compressor to smooth out the sound or perhaps a reverb. You might also like to add in the Acoustica EQ, which will give you more control over the EQ settings of your voice than the simple EQ in Mixcraft’s Mixer tab.
You can trim the beginning and end of your recording by resizing the clip. Hold your mouse over the beginning of the clip, near the top, until it looks like a double-headed arrow. Click and hold, and then you can drag the start of the clip left or right. Try to line up the beginning of your clip with the moment your voice starts to read. Trim the end of the clip the same way. You can then move the clip closer to the beginning of the track by dragging its name bar. Leave a second or two at the beginning.
Listen to the start of the track and make note of when your recording gets to the end of reading the title of the book and chapter. You will need to add some background music to last from the beginning up to this point. Compose or improvise some music on an acoustic instrument, or you could have a friend compose or improvise something. You can try composing or improvising along to the track to get a feel for how much music you’ll need.
Make sure the channel settings are correct for Track 2. Arm Track 2 and play your acoustic instrument into the microphone. You may need to get a stand to hold the microphone or have a friend hold it in place for you. Make sure you’re getting a good signal. When everything is ready, you should press Rewind to Beginning and then Record. Try to record in one take, but if you need a do-over, press Stop and Rewind to Beginning again and use Edit > Undo or Ctrl+Z to undo the last recording. Disarm the track when you have finished recording.
Add some FX to the track. If you used reverb on Track 1, you should probably use the same reverb on Track 2, so it sounds as if the voice and the acoustic instrument were in the same place when they were recorded.
Select the newly recorded passage by clicking on its name and then copy it to the end of the track. Select Edit > Copy or press Ctrl+C, scroll to the end of the track, click somewhere in Track 2 near the point at which the voice recording finishes, and select Edit > Paste or press Ctrl+V. Listen to the end of the recording and move the music clip to a good place, so it starts just as the reading ends.
Press the Toggle Automation button to the left of the FX button in Track 2. The Toggle Automation looks like a tiny line graph, and it will allow you to add some automation to the volume levels in the track. Find a point at which you would like the music in Track 2 to begin to fade and click on the horizontal line you see going through Track 2. Click again at the point at which you would like the fade to end, hold the mouse button, and drag the point down. You will see you have created points on the line, and you now have a descending line between two of those points. This will fade out the music, just like you would do if you brought the fader in the Mixer tab down. Scroll to the end of the track and create a fade-in for the music and a fade-out for the music.
Listen to your work and check the levels of the voice and the music. The voice should always be audible, even when the music is playing. You can edit the level of each, either in the automation lane or by using the Mixer tab. You can also pan your voice and instrument slightly left and right—separating them slightly on either side of center is a good idea. Make sure nothing peaks into the red. (This should be second nature to you by now.) When you are satisfied that your recording is the best that it can be, mix it down to an MP3 using File > Mix Down To > MP3. Make sure to play your recording of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland for friends or family members to see whether they like it.
The passage used for this unit was taken from an abridged edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Find an unabridged copy of the text, either in the library or on the Internet, and find a longer passage you can record. You could even try recording the whole of Chapter 7, “A Mad Tea-Party.” As you record longer passages, you will need to use more background music. Select significant breaking points in the text to include some more music. You might add music where there are changes of scene, changes of character, changes of mood, and so on. Look ahead to Chapter 17, “Putting It All Together,” to find ways in which you can publish your audio-book excerpt online.
3. Improvising melodies, variations, and accompaniments
4. Composing and arranging music within specified guidelines
8. Understanding relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts
Record a passage from a news show.
Add music to introduce and finish the broadcast excerpt.
Record a passage in segments, trim them, and join them together.
Computer with Mixcraft installed
Headphones
Microphone
Audio interface
MIDI keyboard
You will find an example of a completed project on the companion DVD. Look for a file titled The Tongue Twister Tournament and an MP3 file titled The Tongue Twister Tournament Mixdown.
These first steps are almost the same as the early steps in the previous project, “Alice’s Adventures in Mixcraft.” It may seem as if you’ve done all this before (because you have), but it’s important that you set up a session appropriately every time you get ready to record audio. You can save yourself many hours in the music studio or the broadcast studio by using proper preproduction preparation.
Launch Mixcraft and select the first option (Record Yourself or Your Band) from the New Project screen. You will see that you are given a template with eight Audio tracks. You only need one Audio track for this project, so delete the others. Select each one individually and click Track > Delete Track. It’s easier if you scroll down to the last track in the Sequencer and delete the tracks from the bottom up. Add one Virtual Instrument track by selecting Track > Add Track > Virtual Instrument Track or by using the shortcut key combination Ctrl+E. If your timeline is in bars and beats, change it to minutes and seconds by clicking the Time button, which you’ll find above the fader for the first track. Save your work so far. Remember to keep saving every few minutes as you work through this project.
You will be recording through a microphone, so make sure your speakers are off, or you might inadvertently pick up the sound of the speakers while you’re recording and create a feedback loop. You should use headphones to listen as you record this project.
Attach your microphone to the input of your audio interface. Check the Sound Device tab of the File > Preferences screen to make sure that your audio interface is selected. In the title bar of the first track, click the down arrow to the right of the Arm button to make sure the correct channel is selected for your audio interface. Select Monitor Incoming Audio if you need to hear what you are recording through the headphones. This may cause some unfortunate delay between what you say into the microphone and what you hear, so it is probably best to leave the Monitor Incoming Audio option unchecked.
Arm Track 1. Speak into the microphone to make sure you are getting a strong signal. Watch the volume readout in the first track to make sure the computer is able to hear you well. If you are getting a very weak signal, you may need to turn up the gain on the microphone input on your audio interface. If your signal is too strong, you may have to lower the level. Be aware that your proximity to the microphone is also a contributing factor to the strength of your sound. The microphone should be just a couple of inches from your mouth as you are speaking into it. Please note that is it never right to bang a microphone to see whether it’s working. You can easily damage the microphone, headphones, speakers, and even your own hearing by doing that.
Press the Record button and start reading from the beginning of the following passage. If you make a mistake, press Stop and then listen back to what you’ve recorded. Find a place in the recording where you can cut in (probably between sentences or at places where you breathe) and delete anything after the cut-off moment (where the mistake is).
You can delete easily by right-clicking in the track at the point where you wish to make the cut, selecting Split from the drop-down menu, and then deleting the region after the cut. You can also hold the mouse over the top-right corner of the region (the cursor will change to a double-headed arrow) and then click and drag the mouse back to where you wish to make the cut.
After you have made the cut, leave a couple of seconds of gap in the timeline, click in the track where you want to begin recording again, press Record, and then keep reading from the point at which you left off. Keep doing this until you have recorded the whole passage.
We interrupt this broadcast for some breaking news from the Tenth Annual Tongue-Tied Twister Club’s Tongue Twister Tournament. The results are in. Competition was fierce this year, with a new champion crowned as the Supreme Winner of the Tongue-Tied Twister Club’s Tongue Twister Cup. In third place this year was fan-favorite Fred Feather with his flawless rendition of “Red Leather Yellow Leather Red Leather Yellow Leather.” Second place went to last year’s winner, Peter Pepperpot, with his perfect performance of “Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Peppers.” Peter Pepperpot performed well again this year but was pipped at the post by newcomer Josie Moseby, with her outrageously rapid recital of “Moses supposes his toeses are roses, but Moses supposes erroneously, for Moses he knowses his toeses aren’t roses, as Moses supposes his toeses to be!” Phew! Now back to the studio.
Disarm the track. Press Rewind to Beginning and listen to what you have recorded. Click on the FX button beside the Arm button and add some effects to the channel. You might want to add in a compressor to smooth out the sound or perhaps a reverb. You might also like to add in the Acoustica EQ, which will give you more control over the EQ settings of your voice than the simple EQ in Mixcraft’s Mixer tab will.
Trim the beginning and end of each clip in your recording so there’s about a half-second before and after your recorded voice. Hold your mouse over the beginning of each clip, near the top, until it looks like a double-headed arrow. Click and hold, and then you can drag the start of the clip left or right. Try to line up the beginning of each clip with the moment your voice starts to read. Trim the end of each clip the same way.
Move the first clip close to the beginning of the track by dragging the region name. Leave a couple of seconds at the beginning. Drag the second clip to the end of the first clip so that the beginning half-second of the second clip overlaps the last half-second of the first clip.
You may have to zoom in on the Sequencer window before doing this. You can zoom in and out easily by using the number pad +/– keys or by scrolling the mouse wheel up or down.
When you overlap the clips, you will see that Mixcraft draws a big X over the overlapping regions. This is a crossfade, and it ensures that there won’t be a popping sound between the clips as they play back. Listen to your recording from the beginning and adjust the overlap until it’s in exactly the right place. Attach the rest of the clips to their predecessors by overlapping and crossfading.
When you are happy with all of the crossfades, select all the clips in the track by selecting the first region and then clicking Edit > Select All (or use the shortcut key combination Ctrl+A). Now select Edit > Merge to New Clip (or use the shortcut key combination Ctrl+W).
Now you are going to record some music for the beginning and end of your broadcast using your MIDI instrument (or Musical Typing). Find a good sound for Track 2 by clicking the Piano icon in the track. Arm the track and record a few seconds of music to introduce your broadcast. Remember, you can record different notes over a number of takes and merge the takes to a new clip by selecting Edit > Merge to New Clip (or using the shortcut key combination Ctrl+W). You can improvise some music or play some music you have already learned to play on the keyboard. (Many news broadcasts use snippets of prerecorded music, so it’s okay in this case to play something that somebody else composed.)
Disarm the track when you are happy with your recording and then add some FX to it. Move the region in Track 1 so that the voice starts just as the music in Track 2 ends.
Select the newly recorded passage by clicking on its name and then copy it to the end of the track. Select Edit > Copy or press Ctrl+C, scroll to the end of the track, click somewhere in Track 2 near the point at which the voice recording finishes, and select Edit > Paste or press Ctrl+V. Listen to the end of the recording and move the music clip to a good place so it starts just as the news bulletin ends.
If you wish, you can add a fade-in and/or a fade-out to the MIDI recording, just as you did with the acoustic recording in “Alice’s Adventures in Mixcraft.” Click the Toggle Automation button to the left of the FX button in Track 2. Find a point where you would like the music in Track 2 to begin to fade and click on the horizontal line you see going through Track 2. Click again at the point where you would like the fade to end, hold the mouse button, and drag the point down. You will see you have created points on the line, and you now have a descending line between two of those points. This will fade out the music, just as you would do if you brought down the fader in the Mixer tab. Scroll to the end of the track and create a fade-in for the music and a fade-out for the news snippet.
Listen to your work and check the levels of the voice and the music. The voice should always be audible, even when the music is playing. You can edit the level of each, either in the automation lane or by using the Mixer tab. You can also pan your voice and MIDI recording slightly left and right—separating them slightly on either side of center is a good idea. Make sure nothing peaks into the red. When you are satisfied that your recording is the best that it can be, mix it down to an MP3 using File > Mix Down To > MP3. Make sure to play your recording of “The Tongue Twister Tournament” for friends or family members to see whether they like it.
Write your own script for another segment of the news broadcast, record it, and add music to it. You can put together a number of broadcast segments in Mixcraft to create a longer news show. Drag the mixed-down MP3s directly into the Mixcraft window, lay them end to end in the same track, and crossfade them. Look ahead to Chapter 17 for ideas on how to publish your news broadcast online.