Mackie Tracktion2 User's Guide

TRACKTION2

MUSIC PRODUCTION SOFTWARE

U S E R ’ S

G U I D E

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Part No. SW0193 Rev. A 3/05

2	Tracktion 2

LOUD TECHNOLOGIES INC. END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT

Tracktion 2.0

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User’s Guide	3

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Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Getting started with Tracktion-----------------	7
1.1 A quick overview of Tracktion’s user interface -------------------------------	7
1.2 Setting up your audio and MIDI devices---------------------------------------	9
1.3 A word on hardware requirements ---------------------------------------------	12
1.4 Setting up your plug-ins paths--------------------------------------------------	13
1.5 Trying the demo songs------------------------------------------------------------	14
Chapter 2: The projects page—working with projects
and items---------------------------------------------------------	16
2.1 An overview of the projects page----------------------------------------------	16
2.2 Creating a new project-----------------------------------------------------------	18
2.3 The project properties-----------------------------------------------------------	19
Chapter 3: The edit page--------------------------------------	21
3.1 Familiarising yourself with the edit page-------------------------------------	21
3.2 Tracks, clips, and the arrange area---------------------------------------------	25
3.3 Handy shortcuts for working with tracks-----------------------------------	28
Chapter 4: Working with audio------------------------------	29
4.1 A brief introduction to digital audio-----------------------------------------	29
4.2 Recording and importing audio------------------------------------------------	31
4.3 Working with audio clips--------------------------------------------------------	37
4.4 Trouble-shooting audio problems--------------------------------------------	39
4.5 Handy audio clip and recording shortcuts----------------------------------	40
Chapter 5: Working with MIDI-------------------------------	42
5.1 A brief introduction to MIDI ---------------------------------------------------	42
5.2 Using external MIDI gear -------------------------------------------------------	44
5.3 Working with virtual instruments, and MIDI filters ----------------------	44
5.4 Recording MIDI -------------------------------------------------------------------	46
5.5 The MIDI editor-------------------------------------------------------------------	48
5.6 Quantising, and working with groove templates---------------------------	52
5.7 Troubleshooting MIDI recording problems ----------------------------------	53
5.8 Handy MIDI editing shortcuts-------------------------------------------------	54

User’s Guide	5

Chapter 6: Mixing and Adding Effects----------------------	55
6.1 Adding effects and setting levels ----------------------------------------------	55
6.2 Working with sub-mixes and auxiliary sends-------------------------------	59
Chapter 7: Automation----------------------------------------	62
7.1 Recording and editing automation--------------------------------------------	62
7.2 Mapping MIDI controllers to automation parameters-------------------	64
7.3 Handy automation editing and recording shortcuts----------------------	65
Chapter 8: Tempo, sychronisation, and the time line---	66
8.1 Working with tempos and the time-line ------------------------------------	66
8.2 Using markers---------------------------------------------------------------------	68
8.3 Working with the click-track--------------------------------------------------	68
8.4 Synchronising to external hardware, and video---------------------------	69
8.5 Handy tempo and quantise shortcuts ----------------------------------------	71
Chapter 9: Exporting and distributing your music-------	72
9.1 Exporting your music as an audio file ----------------------------------------	72
9.2 Burning your music to CD, or creating an MP3------------------------------	73
9.3 A few final words-----------------------------------------------------------------	75

Note: Tracktion originated in the mind of Julian Storer, an English programmer with a love of audio. Stateside Tracktioneers* will notice a distinctly British flavor to the user interface. To help you understand Tracktion better, the manual was written with a British accent (thank you to Adam Starkey). So sit back, imagine yourself overlooking an English moor (or in an English pub if you prefer), and enjoy Tracktion!

*People who use Tracktion

6	Tracktion 2

Chapter 1: Getting started with Tracktion

1.1 A quick overview of Tracktion’s user interface

Welcome to Tracktion! Tracktion is a powerful audio and MIDI sequencer, designed with simplicity and ease of use in mind.

Do not be fooled by Tracktion’s uncluttered interface however; ease of use in this case does not equate to a lack of features. Tracktion is capable of delivering professional results that only a few years back would have required a significant investment in expensive hardware. When you open Tracktion, you have at your disposal, all of the tools needed to turn your musical ideas into great sounding mixes.

The Tracktion interface

Tracktion is made up of three pages, each of which shares a similar look and feel.

Page tabs

Hint box and window widgets

Main section

Controls

Properties panel

Misc. tools

Figure 1.1.1

Page tabs

Use these tabs to switch between Tracktion’s three pages: the projects page, the settings page, and the edit page (shown above). You can use the keyboard keys F1, F2, and F3 to switch between the three tabs.

When Tracktion is first opened, you will see the projects page. All three pages will be described throughout the chapters of this user guide.

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Hint box and window widgets

When you move your mouse over a tool in Tracktion, a useful hint will be shown in the hint box along the top of the Tracktion interface. This is a great way of learning your way around Tracktion.

The windows widgets allow you to close, minimise, and resize the Tracktion interface.

Main section

This is where the majority of the action takes place, on each of the Tracktion pages.

Control section

The region labelled “controls” in the image below is called the control section. Here you will find most of the tools for working with Tracktion. The tools available depend on the page you have selected.

Properties panel

Many items in Tracktion have a range of tools and options specific to them. When such items are selected, these tools and options are displayed in the properties panel.

The properties panel is integral to Tracktion’s “everything in one place” design. If you have ever used other sequencer software that requires you to work though layers of menus and windows, thus constantly breaking your workflow, you will definitely appreciate the properties panel.

Misc. tools

This section is only used when the project and edit pages are open. When the project page is selected, this section shows the current clipboard for copy and paste operations.

If you switch to the edit page, this section will become the transport section, where you can control the transport and change related settings.

Page tabs

Hint box and window widgets

Controls

Properties panel

Misc. tools

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1.2 Setting up your audio and MIDI devices

•Click on the settings tab at the top of the Tracktion interface. This displays the settings page with tabbed names along the left hand side.

•Select the “audio devices” tab to view and configure the audio and MIDI devices available on your computer.

The top-most part of this page is the wave device region (Fig. 1.2.1).

Figure 1.2.1

At the top of this display, there is a drop-down list. This is where you choose your wave device. Tracktion will normally select the correct ASIO or CoreAudio driver by default. If for some reason it does not select the best choice, or if you have more than one sound card installed, you may need to change this.

The entries in the wave device list refer to the available audio drivers installed on your computer. There may be a number of entries in this list depending on the type(s) of sound card(s) you have installed, but generally speaking, you will only be interested in the ASIO/ CoreAudio options.

PC and ASIO drivers

If you are using a PC and have no ASIO options available, then you probably don’t have an ASIO capable audio device installed. As such, you will need to try one of the other options. However, using Tracktion with non-ASIO drivers may have an impact on performance, and it is worth investing in a sound card or computer audio interface with ASIO driver support.

If you know your hardware has ASIO support but you do not see it in the list, you may need to uninstall and reinstall the drivers for this audio device. Consult the documentation that came with the sound card for further information.

Mac and CoreAudio drivers

If you are using a Mac and some of your CoreAudio devices are not listed, this may be because they are not currently connected to the Mac. Close Tracktion, check the connections, and try again.

User’s Guide	9

Setting the sample rate

Select your desired sample rate from the drop down list. For audio intended for CD, you will typically want to set this to 44100 Hz. Opinion is split on whether working at higher rates is worthwhile, but if you like to work at higher sample rates then it is a good idea to increase this value in fixed multiples of your desired final sample rate (e.g., 88200 Hz for CD audio which will end up at 44100 Hz). Be aware that higher sample rates require correspondingly more processing power, so doubling the sample rate will likely halve the amount of effects, VSTis, and tracks your computer can process.

Setting the latency

To provide an uninterrupted audio stream it is typically necessary for computers to buffer a few milliseconds of sound before sending it out to the audio devices. This buffering causes a slight delay referred to as latency. In real terms this means that if you hit a key on a MIDI keyboard that is controlling a virtual instrument inside Tracktion, or play a guitar live into the software, there will be a (very) small period of time before the sound is actually heard. For play-back and mixing purposes, latency is seldom an issue. For live performance or recording, however, latencies above 20 ms are usually considered to be hard to work with. Fortunately, modern computers and audio interfaces are capable of achieving extremely low latencies with no noticeable delay.

It should also be noted that for end-to-end operation, where sound is being recorded and played back at the same time, the overall latency is double the value set in this box. So, if you are using Tracktion to add effects to a live guitar performance, for example, you may need to set this value a little lower than usual.

Very low latencies can have a high cost on computer performance though, and setting the latency value too low will usually cause “glitchy” playback (characterised by pops and clicks) if you are using an older machine.

ASIO settings

The PC version of Tracktion has a few extra options, specific to ASIO.

The “use ASIO direct mode” option may improve performance with some ASIO drivers. Typically it is benign at worst, so it is probably worth leaving it enabled. If you are having problems with sound in Tracktion, you should try toggling this setting.

The “show ASIO control panel” button displays the control panel for the currently selected ASIO device. Please note, the screen you see here will be specific to your hardware, so refer to the documentation that came with your audio hardware for further information.

The “use real-time priority mode” option can help with compatibility for some ASIO sound cards. Note, this option should only be enabled when absolutely necessary, as it can conflict with some VST plug-ins, causing Tracktion to freeze. It never hurts to try this setting to see if your performance improves and switch back if it doesn’t.

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PC user’s note: Some ASIO drivers do not allow settings such as sample rate and latency to be adjusted by external applications. If your ASIO driver is one of these cases, then the sample rate and latency options will only display current values of the dedicated ASIO control panel. In this case, you will need to set these values from the ASIO driver’s own interface by clicking the “show ASIO control panel” button. Be sure to click the “restart device” button when you are done.

The audio input and output devices

With a suitable wave device chosen, select which audio inputs and outputs you will be using. Be aware that all active inputs and outputs consume computing power, so disable any I/O channels that you do not need. Equally, if you use a particular input or output only occasionally, it probably makes sense to leave it disabled. You can always enable it when needed.

At the bottom of the “audio devices” tab there is an option labeled “only show enabled devices.” Enabling this option can be convenient if your audio interface has a large number of inputs and/or outputs, some of which you rarely use. For now, leave it disabled so that all of your devices are visible.

To enable or disable an audio device, just click on the enable/disable label to the left of the entry.

You can also nominate one audio output to be the “default audio device.” The default output will become the master output for Tracktion’s mixed stereo output from the master fader in the lower right hand corner of the edit screen. To make a different output the default, just click on the “make this the default” label.

Setting up your MIDI devices

•Click on the settings tab at the top of the Tracktion interface. This will display the settings page.

•Select the “audio devices” tab to view and configure the MIDI devices available on your computer.

The bottom part of this page is the MIDI device region (Fig. 1.2.2).

Figure 1.2.2

At the bottom of the “audio devices” tab there is an option labelled “only show enabled devices.” Disable this option so that all of your devices are visible.

To enable or disable a MIDI device, just click on the enable/disable label to the left of the entry.

A default MIDI output can also be set similarly to the default audio output. Simply click the “click here to make this the default” label to make a midi output the default.

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1.3 A word on hardware requirements

Although Tracktion provides great results even on modest computers, the available computing power of a machine directly affects how large a project Tracktion is capable of playing in real-time.

Three factors go together to determine the computational resources available to Tracktion:

Processor (CPU) speed

Every track, software instrument, audio effect, and input device used by an edit requires a chunk of your computer’s processing power. Tracktion features a CPU meter that shows how much of your CPU resources are being used at any one time.

Software effects and instruments place especially high demands on the processor, so if you find your edits require too much processing power, look for ways to use these plug-ins more efficiently, including Tracktion’s “freeze” feature (explained elsewhere).

Hard drive speed

The speed at which data can be read from your hard drive defines how many audio tracks can be played at once. Laptop computers, in particular, tend to use slower 2.5” form factor hard drives than desktop machines, which use faster 3.5” form factor hard drives.

When using a laptop computer, if you find that your edits consistently require more hard drive performance, you may want to consider investing in an external hard drive, which houses a desktop 3.5” hard drive in an external enclosure that can interface with your laptop through USB2 or Firewire.

Memory (or RAM)

If a computer has insufficient memory, processor performance and hard drive performance will both be adversely affected. Every program or plug-in that is running on your computer will use some of your available memory. In fact, just loading the operating system (Windows XP or OSX) will use a significant amount of RAM.

When a computer runs out of RAM, it will attempt to create extra space by using sections of the hard drive as a slower form of memory. These read-write operations consequently steal some of the hard drive bandwidth from your audio tracks. In addition, because it takes many thousand times longer for your processor to read data from a hard drive than it would do to read it in main memory, processing tasks take much longer too.

Although Tracktion and its supported OS will run on 256 megabytes of memory, 512 megabytes will deliver a much better user experience, with even higher amounts being appropriate when using memory hungry instrument plugins (like virtual samplers for instance). In general, the more memory you can put in your computer, the better all programs, including Tracktion, will operate.

Note: Be aware that background processes such as virus checkers, printer monitors, or instant messengers all will use some of your precious computing power. If possible, disable any background processes that you do not actively need.

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1.4 Setting up your plug-ins paths

•Click on the settings tab at the top of the Tracktion interface. This will display the settings page.

•Select the “plugins” tab to configure VST and ReWire plug-ins on your computer.

Tracktion can host 3rd party instrument and effects plug-ins in the form of VST plug-ins, and ReWire slave applications.

VST plug-ins

The VST technology allows sequencers such as Tracktion to incorporate 3rd party applications called “plug-ins.” These plug-ins can be used to add new audio effects such as reverb or delay, or complete instruments such as emulations of classic analogue synthesisers. In Tracktion, such plug-ins are referred to as “filters,” and we will see how to use them later in this manual. This section merely describes how to tell Tracktion how to find any plug-ins you may have installed your computer.

The top-most part of the plug-ins tab shows the list of directories that Tracktion searches for VST plug-ins (Fig. 1.4.1).

Figure 1.4.1

The directories listed in the large box, and all of their sub-directories, are searched for VST plug-ins.

To add a new search path, simply click the “add path...” button and navigate to the top level of your plug-in directory. Repeat this method for each main directory you would like searched for VST plug-ins. A path can be removed by highlighting it, and clicking “remove path.”

The “move up” and “move down” buttons allow you to adjust the order in which directories are searched. Directories at the top of the list are searched first.

The next box (Fig. 1.4.2) shows a list of plug-ins that Tracktion has chosen to ignore. If a plug-in file cannot be opened as a VST plug-in, Tracktion will add it to this list.

Figure 1.4.2

Sometimes plug-ins are incorrectly added to the list because they failed to initialise correctly at some point. If you believe a plug-in should work, but it has been added to this list, try removing it and rescanning the plug-in directories. Do this by first highlighting the plugin in the ignore list and pressing delete to remove it from the list. Then click the “rescan plug-in directories” button and choose “just look for plug-ins that are new or have changed” from the pop up list.

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Tip:TheInternetishosttoahugearrayoffreeorinexpensiveplug-ins,manyofwhicheasilyrival hardware you could have paid hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars for just a few years ago.

For a good resource for plug-ins of all flavours, go to the KvR Audio Website at http://www.kvraudio.com

ReWire slaves

ReWire provides a method by which an audio application can be run as a slave to another application. It is possible to have two sequencers running on one computer, with one essentially acting as a virtual instrument inside the other.

To configure Tracktion to host ReWire applications, just click the “enable ReWire” option.

A note on plug-in organisation

The tree-structure displayed when adding new filters to tracks will correspond to the directory structure used to organise VST plug-ins on your hard drive (Fig. 1.4.3).

Figure 1.4.3

The image on the left shows a folder-view inside Windows Explorer. The image on the right shows Tracktion’s filter pop-up menu. If you look at the tree structure for both, you will see that the filter list matches the VST directory structure. This can be very handy if you have large number of VST plug-ins installed, as it allows you to organise them in a meaningful manner. The plug-ins above have been categorised by companies.

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1.5 Trying the demo songs

Now you have Tracktion all set up and ready to go, a good way to familiarize yourself with your new software is to check out some of the included demo songs.

•Click on the projects page tab, to bring the projects page to the fore.

•On the left hand side of your screen is the project list (Fig. 1.5.1). This is where all of your active projects are shown. To start, select “Everyone Wants You” from the list.

Figure 1.5.1

•The main area to the right of the project list is called the item list; it shows all of the edits and media associated with the currently selected project.

•Double-click on the edit named “Everyone Wants You,” or select it and click the “open for editing” button at the bottom of the page.

After a few moments the edit will load and you will see the “edit page”. It is here that you construct your songs. If you play this demo, you can see visually how the song is constructed by watching the vertical time-line cursor (or “play-head”) scroll through the arrangement.

•To play the song, click the “play” button in the bottom right of the screen (Fig. 1.5.2), or hit the SPACEBAR key.

•Click the stop button again (or press the SPACEBAR key) to stop playback.

Figure 1.5.2

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Chapter 2: The projects page—working with projects and items

2.1 An overview of the projects page

To help you organize your work, Tracktion provides a handy project manager that keeps track of projects and their associated files (called items). In addition, the “projects” page allows you to add custom descriptions to items and projects, making it much easier for you to keep track of your work.

Figure 2.1.1

If you look at the projects page (Fig. 2.1.1), you will see that the main region is broken into three panels. In the image above, these panels are labelled as A, B and C. The panel labelled A is called the “project-list.” The panel labelled B is called the “item-list.” The final panel, labelled C, is the “search box.”

A: The project-list

The project-list is not, as it may at first appear, a list of all projects on your hard drive. Rather, it shows those projects that are currently “open.” An open project can be thought of as a book-marked project. It isn’t open in the way that a document may be open in a word processor; rather it is marked as being a work in progress. All newly created projects, will be opened by default ready for you to work on them. Projects that you have previously closed, however, will need to be re-opened before they can be edited.

To close a project, right-click on the project name, and select the “close project” option. You can also opt to close all open projects from this menu. Closing a project does not alter the project in any way; it simply removes the reference to the project from the project-list. To open a previously closed project, click the “open project” button, and from the displayed dialogue box, navigate to the project file.

When a project is selected in the list, various related options and values will appear in the properties-panel. These options will be discussed later in this chapter.

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If you wish to change the order in which projects are listed, you can simply drag their names up or down to the desired location. Notice that there are two folders displayed in the project list. These are simply for your convenience in organising your projects into “active projects” or “library projects” that are not being worked on as regularly.

B: The item-list

The item-list shows all material associated with a project. This material may take the form of MIDI files, audio files, and edits.

If you are used to simply placing all of the files related to a project in the project’s folder on your hard drive, then you may be wondering what advantages the item-list offers. Primarily the item-list is there to streamline the process of managing projects and related media items. It does this by providing a way of storing extra information about individual files, and a mechanism by which files can be shared between projects. In the same way, if you have reason to keep files in different locations on your hard drive, the item-list will help you keep track of things.

Selecting an item in the item-list, will display various related options and values in the properties-panel. These options will be discussed later in this chapter.

Clicking on the column names just above the item-list will cause the list to be sorted on that column. If you wish to manually change the order in which items are listed, simply drag their names up or down to the desired location.

C: The search box

Just below the project-list, there you will see a search box (Fig. 2.1.2). You can use this search tool to search your open projects for keywords. The search is often useful for finding resources attached to projects. For example, if you have a hi-hat sample in a project and you wish to use it in another, assuming the sample had “hi-hat” somewhere in its name, you could do a search for that keyword to locate it.

Figure 2.1.2

Search keywords: Type the name, or part of the name, of the material for which you are searching.

Select projects: If you wish to narrow the search to specific projects, click this button and choose the projects you wish to be searched from the list.

Search: Click this button to perform the search. The results will be shown in the itemlist. Click a search result in the item-list to find out more about it, including which project it belongs to.

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2.2 Creating a new project

A typical song may grow to consist of a number of edits, audio files, and MIDI clips. To help you keep these components organized, Tracktion combines them all into projects. A project is simply a collection of edits, and references to any audio files needed by these edits. The components of a project need not be located in the same folder as the project file on your hard drive, which makes it easy to share media between projects.

Tip: Tracktion’s project system makes keeping track of your songs and associated files fairly painless, but it is still good practise to keep everything related to a project in one place. You may find it helpful to create folders for each of your projects and place in them any files referenced by the project.

If you try to create a new project in a folder that already contains other files, Tracktion will ask you if you wish to create a new folder that is named after the project.

Starting a new project is simple:

•Click “new project...” (See Fig. 2.2.1).

Figure 2.2.1

•A dialogue box appears asking you where you wish to save the project. Choose a location on your hard drive, and enter a name for the project, for example, “Tracktion Tutorial.” (See Fig. 2.2.2).

Figure 2.2.2

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As shown in Figure 2.2.3, the new project will be now be present in the Active Projects list. Select it and you will see that a default edit named “new edit #1” has also been created. You can think of edits as being versions of a song. As you work, you may want to save copies of the current state of your song. This can be accomplished by simply copying your edit and continuing with your work.

Figure 2.2.3

•Open this edit by double-clicking on it, or by selecting it, and clicking the “open for editing” button near the bottom right corner of the properties panel (Fig. 2.2.4).

Figure 2.2.4

User’s Guide	19

2.3 The project properties

When a project is selected, its properties are displayed in the properties-panel (Fig. 2.3.1). Various tools and options related to the project can be found on this panel.

Figure 2.3.1

Name: You can view and edit the project name from this field. It is this name you see in the project-list. Note that changing the name here does not affect the project file name.

Description: This field allows you to enter a description of the project, or make notes for future reference.

File: This field shows the location of the project on your hard drive.

Export project: This option allows you to bundle the project and related materials into an archive. Use this if you want back up your work, or transfer it to another computer. Exporting is discussed in the final chapter of this guide.

Create new edit: This option creates a new empty edit in the current project.

If you wish to make a copy of an existing edit, select the edit in the item-list and click the “make a copy of this edit” button.

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Chapter 3: The edit page

3.1 Familiarising yourself with the edit page

The edit page is where you arrange your compositions, and is the main screen in which you will spend most of your time in Tracktion. If you look at Figure 3.1.1, you can see there are nine sections of note on this page. Working from the top-left hand corner notice the following:

Figure 3.1.1

A: The quick scroll tool

The blue box shows the area of the whole edit that is currently in view. At a glance you can see how far into a song you are. By dragging the box from side to side, you can also use this tool as a fast way to navigate through the entire length of your edit.

B: The time-line

The time-line provides a series of time divisions against which you can arrange the components and sections of your song, in terms of bars/beats, seconds/milliseconds, or seconds/frames.

In figure 3.1.1 you can see three vertical lines, that span the section labelled “E,” and reach up into the time-line. The orange lines are the In and Out markers and the blue line is the play-head cursor.

The In and Out markers are used to define a section of an edit to be played in looped mode. They are also used to specify record start and stop points for punch mode. Some editing tools can also be set to work only on the region between the In and Out markers. To move these markers, simply click and drag them left or right.

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During playback, the play-head cursor shows the current location on the time-line. Dragging the play-head cursor left or right scrolls through the edit.

C: Miscellaneous tools

The “new filter...” icon is used to add new filters to tracks. We will look at filters in more detail in a later chapter.

Toggle option to show/hide the input section (shown as “D” in Fig. 3.1.1). Shortcut SHIFT + CTRL + I.

Toggle option to show/hide the filter section (shown as “F” in Fig. 3.1.1). Shortcut SHIFT + CTRL + F.

Toggles the visibility of the rack editor window (not shown in Fig. 3.1.1). Shortcut CTRL + G (CMD + G for Mac users). We will look at rack filters in a later chapter.

D: The input section

This is where you manage your input devices, the input channels of your audio interface and MIDI interface(s). There are two display modes available for the input section. Figure 3.1.1 above shows the “per-track view” mode. The alternative display type shows all of the inputs as draggable icons (Fig. 3.1.2). Both modes behave slightly differently, and have their own advantages and disadvantages. The “per-track view” makes keeping track of a large amount of inputs far easier than the icon view. The icon view allows more than one input device to be connected to a single track, and works better when only a few input devices are present. We will look at the input devices in greater detail in the later chapters on audio and MIDI.

Figure 3.1.2

In addition to the input devices, the input section has selectable track names which you can use to re-order tracks, or access the track properties. We will look more closely at tracks later in this chapter.

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E: The arrange area

The arrange area is where you actually construct your songs. Working with the arrange area, tracks, and clips, is described later in this chapter.

F: The filters section

The filter section can be though of as a mixer and as a plug-ins effects rack all in one place. Another way to think of it is like a traditional “mixer”, but rotated 90 degrees on its side, allowing it to peacefully exist as part of Tracktion’s one-screen interface. We will look at filters in more detail in later chapters. For now, bear in mind that each track has a corresponding filter strip.

G: The control section

The control section contains various tools and options for working with Tracktion.

Figure 3.1.3

With the exception of the undo/redo buttons, when clicked, these buttons display a popup menu with various options and functions available. We will look at the options available from the control section throughout the rest of this user guide, but let’s take a look at the help button right now.

When you click the “help” button, you are presented with a pop-up menu showing the following options:

•Show Tracktion help pages: This option launches the Tracktion documentation file so you can read through it. Keyboard shortcut: F12.

•Turn on pop-up help : When this option is enabled, Tracktion displays a pop-up window next to options. This can be handy when you are first finding your way around Tracktion. Keyboard shortcut F11.

•Use longer delay before pop-up help appears: When this option is activated, Tracktion will wait a few moments before displaying the pop-up help, which some users prefer. This setting will have no effect unless the pop-up help is enabled.

Tip: If you would like to see the pop-up help for any item, simply position the mouse over the item, and press F10 on your computer keyboard. This works even with pop-up help turned off.

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