Working with Primary and Overlay tracks

Most of the time, you’ll be working with Primary tracks in MixMeister. By default, MixMeister assigns the Primary track designation to all tracks you add to a Playlist. However, there may be situations when you want to add something extra to your mix by adding an Overlay track—adding special sounds (such as "Whoosh"), voice-overs, or perhaps a riff that foreshadows a song coming up later.

When you drag a track from your Catalog to the Playlist or the Timeline, MixMeister assumes it is a Primary track. However, you can easily change any Primary track to an Overlay track. You edit Overlay tracks much as you would Primary tracks; we describe some of the exceptions—such as changing the tempo—below.

About Primary tracks

About Overlay tracks

To create an Overlay track

To change an existing Primary track to an Overlay track

Make sure the song follows the one you want to overlay.

To crop or extend an Overlay segment

If you extend an Overlay track beyond the end of the original music file, it will loop back and play from the beginning. For example, if you stretch a 30-second segment to one minute, you'll hear the 30-second clip twice.

  1. In the Timeline, point to a segment line at the beginning or end of a segment in an Overlay track.

  1. Drag the line to the point where you want to crop (shorten) or extend (lengthen) the segment, and then release the mouse button.

Note If you want to crop or extend a Primary track segment, see Cropping or extending a Primary track segment.

To move an Overlay segment

  1. In the Timeline, point to the title bar at the top of an Overlay track.

  1. Drag the track or segment to the position you want, and then release the mouse button.

To change the tempo of an Overlay segment using Standard Mixing

Because Overlay tracks do not have tempo boxes, you can’t fine-tune the BPM as you can with Primary tracks. However, you can "stretch" an Overlay track by following these instructions, thereby affecting the tempo. As with Primary tracks, MixMeister adjusts the tempo of the music in an Overlay track without changing the pitch.

  1. In the Timeline, point to the segment line at the start or end of an Overlay segment. Make sure the pointer is over the bottom of the track.
    Text appears that says Adjust Segment Length (Speed = XX.X% or YYY BPM).

  1. Drag the line to the point where you want to adjust the segment, and then release the mouse button.
    The Overlay segment is now stretched or compressed to play in the time span selected.