If you are recording from a high-impedance microphone, like the ones designed to be plugged directly into a computer's sound card, make sure that it is plugged into your sound card's mic jack.
If you are recording from a low-impedance dynamic or condenser microphone, like the ones designed to be plugged into a PA system, you need to either run them through a microphone pre-amp or mixer with line level output, and connect the pre-amp's or mixer's output to your computer's SoundCard's line-in jack.
If you are recording another audio source, such as the output of a tape deck, connect its line level output to your sound card's line jack.
Select Mixer from the View menu.
Add a new Audio track to your song by selecting Create Audio Track from the Edit menu.
Press the beside the Compose button.
Select the sound card you want to use if it is not already selected.
Examine the various volume controls. These control which hardware devices contribute to the Audio signal that will get recorded.
Make sure that the Selected check box beside Mic is checked.
The Selected check boxes under all other sources like Music CD, Phone, etc. are NOT checked.
Set the volume for the device you want to record from, like Mic to full (all the way to the right).
Select the Audio Track by clicking on it and making a green dot appear at its left.
This makes it the active track - the track that will get recorded.
Erase the track by selecting Erase track notes from the Edit menu.
Press the VU button to warm up the audio device, so you don't record power-on noise.
Press the button.
Because of the settings in the button, this causes the audio source plugged into your sound card's Mic or Line jack to be recorded onto the new Audio track.
Press the stop button, or the button again when you are ready to stop recording.
Right-click the audio track's On field so that it changes to solo.
This makes it the only track that will be played when the Play button is pressed.
Press the play button.
Press the stop button and right-click on the track's solo field, so that all tracks are enabled again.
If the track is too quiet, increase the Mic / Line-In's volume and go back up to step 12.
If the track has static noise, decrease the Mic / Line-In's volume and go back up to step 12.

I hear no sound while recording an Audio track

Select Mixer from the View menu.

Make sure the active track Type column is Audio and not Instrument or Rhythm.

Press the

beside the Compose button.

Select the sound card you want to use if it is not already selected.

Examine the various volume controls. These determine which audio sources contribute to sound produced by the speakers connected to your sound card.

Make sure that the Mute check boxes beside Mic and Line-In are NOT checked.

Set the volume for Mic and Line-In at about half volume (in the middle).

To avoid feedback and to keep each track clean of signals from other tracks, connect headphones to your SoundCard's speaker jack rather than speakers.

Try recording again.

When I record a second audio track, it contains sound from other tracks

Anvil Studio is capable of producing independent audio tracks with no bleed-through.

Make sure that you are listening to headphones while recording the second audio track, so the speakers are not bleeding into the microphone and getting recorded onto the new track.

Select Mixer from the View menu.

Press the

button beside the Compose button.
The audio sources listed below the

button control which hardware devices contribute to the audio signal that will get recorded.
Different SoundCards support different audio sources.
Some SoundCards can only record from a single audio source at one time.
They, have a Selected box beside each audio source like this:

Other SoundCards can record from a mixture of audio sources at the same time.
They have a Mute box beside each audio source to control which sources are not to be recorded.
Make sure that the Mute box is set for all but the source you want to record.

If this does not help, please select Options from the View menu, then select the Audio tab and press the button: Create Audio Diagnostic File and email the resulting file to support@AnvilStudio.com.

Playing Audio tracks on Web Browsers

When you record Audio tracks, Anvil Studio creates a different .WAV file for each track. These .WAV files are saved in the same folder as the song's .MID file, and have the same first 4 letters of its filename. For example, if the song is named "ThisIsMySong.mid", the audio tracks will be saved in files with names like "Thisg_a.wav", "Thisg_b.wav", etc. The filename of each track's .WAV file is displayed on the Mixer screen in the Instrument column. These .WAV files can be emailed and played by any Audio player, including the Windows Media player and Web Browsers. If you load the .MID file into another application, such as a Web Browser, you will only hear the Instrument and Rhythm tracks. That is because there is no standard for storing audio data within .MID files, so Anvil Studio simply stores references to the .WAV files inside the .MID files.
See the section: Mixing all tracks down to a single .WAV file for a description of how to mix all of your Audio, Instrument and Rhythm tracks down to a single .WAV file. The single .WAV file can then be played by any application, including Web Browsers.

You can use a variety of shareware/freeware tools to convert the .WAV file to an .MP3 file, which can be 1/10th the size of an equivalent .WAV file. Anvil Studio does not yet support creation of .MP3 files.

The Audio and Instrument tracks of my song play back out of sync

If you use a WaveTable synthesizer such as WinGroove or SXG50 for your MIDI Output, and your song also has audio tracks, you may experience the Audio tracks playing ahead of the Instrument tracks. Similarly, tracks tied to synthesizers connected to external MIDI ports also play faster than tracks tied to the WaveTable synthesizer. This is because the WaveTable synthesizer delays its output for about half a second while it computes the necessary wave forms using software rather than hardware. You can overcome this problem by letting Anvil Studio know the latency of your device. To do this,

Select MIDI / Audio Device Latency from the View menu,

in the resulting window, click the entry for the WaveTable synthesizer,

set its latency property to the number of milliseconds it delays its output, usually 500 (half a second).

This problem can show up at record time as well. If you record a new Audio track while playing an existing Instrument track that is tied to the WaveTable synthesizer, when you play the two of them back, it will sound like the Audio track is playing 1/2 second behind of the instrument track. The solution is the same - change the WaveTable synthesizer's latency to 500 milliseconds.

Some WaveTable synthesizers, such as WinGroove, provide an alternate Audio Out device that is also delayed by the same amount as the MIDI Out. If you use such a device for your Audio Output, you need to set the Audio Out device's latency property to 500 as well by selecting MIDI / Audio Device Latency from the View menu.

The best way to test your device latency values is with your ear.
If you want to play Instrument or Rhythm tracks with Audio tracks, try the following:

Create a new file.

Select Mixer from the View menu.

Click the track's Instrument column to change it from Accoustic Grand to Woodblock (#116).

Select Composer from the View menu.

Insert about 8 quarter notes.

Create an Audio track.

Hold your microphone close enough to your speakers that you don't get feedback.

Record the Audio track (this will record the Woodblock sounds onto the audio track).

Select Mixer from the View menu.

Set the Pan for the Instrument track to 0 (far left).

Set the Pan for the Audio track to 100 (far right).

When you play them back, try to hear if one track is playing earlier than the other.

If the Instrument track is playing earlier than the Audio track, it means the Audio device has some latency, so you need to select MIDI / Audio Device Latency from the View menu and click the Audio Out device you have assigned to play the Audio track, and set its latency a little higher (250 = a quarter second, 100 = a tenth of a second).

If the Audio track is playing earlier than the Instrument track, it means the MIDI device has some latency, so you need to select MIDI / Audio Device Latency from the View menu and click the Synthesizer you have assigned to play the Instrument track, and set its latency a little higher.

If both the Audio and Instrument tracks sound like they are playing in sync, you have the device latency properties set properly.

I hear distortion when playing audio tracks

Try selecting Composer from the View menu and examining each audio track. If the signal touches the top or bottom of the window very often, that track was recorded with too high an input volume and will sound distorted when played back. In that case:

select Mixer from the View menu

Press the

beside the Compose button.

Set the volume(s) for the selected input source (e.g. Mic) a little lower.

Try recording the track again.

If all of the audio tracks have clean signals:

Select Mixer from the View menu.

Look for the

controls.
If the Auto Mix Volume box is checked, Anvil Studio does everything it can to keep clean signals from getting distorted when mixed.

Sometimes, setting this checkbox causes the output to sound too quiet. For some applications, you want to add a little distortion to the mix. In either of these cases, uncheck the Auto Mix Volume box. This causes the Audio Mix Vol slider to appear. Sliding the Audio Mix Vol slider to the right increases the mix's volume. Sliding it too far to the right introduces distortion.

I cannot load SoundFonts into the composer

Please select How do I... from the Help menu and read the section on using SoundFonts.

I can't delete a rest on the Composer screen

To delete a rest, hold the mouse down to the left of it, and drag the mouse right until the entire rest (or rests) have a dark background. Make sure that both the treble and bass clefs are selected by holding the mouse between the two clefs. Then, release the mouse button and select the Edit/Cut or Edit/Delete menu.

The notes on the screen don't look the way I expected

If you are recording a song from a MIDI keyboard:

Before you record a track, select Options from the View menu and press the MIDI tab. Set the Record no rests option if you don't want the duration of a note to be not determined by when a note is released, but by which notes are still down when a new note is pressed.

When you finish recording, try selecting Quantitize from the Track menu. If the smallest real note you tried to play was 1/8th note, set both fields to 1/8th note.

If you are editing songs that you obtained elsewhere:
There are two types of MIDI files

those that are designed to look correct when printed as sheet music. Let's call them quantitized
those that are intended to sound good when played by a MIDI player, let's call them real-time.

Quantitized files are usually created by someone dragging notes to a staff in a MIDI editor. The notes begin and end exactly where they should. A whole note lasts exactly 960 MIDI ticks. A half note lasts exactly 480 MIDI ticks. etc. These quantitized songs tend to sound mechanical when played by a MIDI player. You can eliminate some of this mechanical feel by adjusting tempo and other MIDI parameters over time.

Real-time songs are created by someone playing a MIDI keyboard, and recording it to a MIDI recorder or sequencer. The notes do not fall on measure boundaries and the durations are all over the place. When played, you can hear the expression exact as it was originally played (recorded).

Because it is less time consuming to produce a real-time MIDI file than a quantitized one, and because there is far more demand to have MIDI files played by MIDI player software, than there is demand to print sheet music for them, the vast majority of MIDI files you are likely to find are real-time MIDI files.

For real-time MIDI files, if you select Event List from the View menu, you can see the wide distribution of the note durations.

Anvil Studio, like most MIDI editors, includes a Quantitize function on the Track menu to help convert real-time MIDI files into quantitized MIDI files that can be printed. If you save a file that has been quantitized, be sure to give it a different name from the real-time MIDI file, because the real-time MIDI file will always play with more expression.

Every time I change the instrument on one track, it changes on the instrument on another track

Select Mixer from the View menu.
Make sure that each track is assigned its own Channel.
You can only have one instrument per MIDI channel.

Reporting a problem with Anvil Studio

To help us diagnose the problem you are having, please do the following:

Press either shift key while starting Anvil Studio, and continue to press it until you see Anvil Studio's initial screen.
This causes Anvil Studio to create a log file named log.txt in Anvil Studio's program folder.

Then repeat the steps that demonstrate the problem you encountered in Anvil Studio.

Close Anvil Studio if it hasn't already crashed.

If the program did not crash, a file named log.txt will be displayed on your screen. please email that file to us at support@AnvilStudio.com

If the program crashed while producing the log file, please email the file log.txt from your Anvil Studio program folder (e.g. c:\program files\anvil studio\log.txt) to us at support@AnvilStudio.com

If you cannot find the file log.txt, please download and run the program www.AnvilStudio.com/DrSetup.exe which will find the log file and gather setup information and send it to us.

If the program crashes, could you also include any error message or number that showed up on the screen when the program stopped.

If you encounter a Setup problem, please download and run our Setup Diagnostic tool from:
www.AnvilStudio.com/DrSetup.exe
(It is very small and just take a few seconds to download.)

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