Want to add real mixing to my mix CDs on my Mac.

June 16, 2007 7:57 PM

I'm a long time mixtape (er CD..) enthusiast and MAc user, and I'd like to take things to the next level by actually doing some real mixing and looping etc in my creations. I've researched a lot of DJ tools (Tracktor, Logic, Mixxx, etc), but I'm not really interested in doing anything live or realtime. Nor do I particularly care to replicate decks. On the other hand, I don't think high-level audio production suites are what I'm looking for either. Overkill. Either way, the costs seem prohibitive in most cases. It boils down to this: I need to be able to beatmatch, crossfade, loop and save to mp3 and then split the resulting track into smaller ones of my choosing. My thoughts so far are to use a BPM counter in Itunes and then try my hand at Audacity. Don't really know how to split mp3s yet... Any alternative ideas or successful set-ups?
posted by two7s_clash to Media & Arts (7 answers total)

Best answer: You can edit MP3s losslessly with Rogue Amoeba Fission and then mix them down (and loop) with Ableton Live. Live can mix down to a MP3 or AIFF file.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 8:55 PM on June 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

I think what you want is ardour.

Ardour is a digital audio workstation. You can use it to record, edit and mix multi-track audio. You can produce your own CDs, mix video soundtracks, or just experiment with new ideas about music and sound.

Ardour capabilities include: multichannel recording, non-destructive editing with unlimited undo/redo, full automation support, a powerful mixer, unlimited tracks/busses/plugins, timecode synchronization, and hardware control from surfaces like the Mackie Control Universal. If you've been looking for a tool similar to ProTools, Nuendo, Pyramix, or Sequoia, you might have found it.

Above all, Ardour strives to meet the needs of professional users. This means implementing all the "hard stuff" that other DAWs ( even some leading commercial apps ) handle incorrectly or not at all. Ardour has a completely flexible "anything to anywhere" routing system, and will allow as many physical I/O ports as your system allows. Ardour supports a wide range of audio-for-video features such as video-synced playback and pullup/pulldown sample rates. You will also find powerful features such as "persistent undo", multi-language support, and destructive track punching modes that aren't available on other platforms.
posted by filmgeek at 9:25 PM on June 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

Second the Ableton Live suggestion...
posted by SweetJesus at 10:01 PM on June 16, 2007

I think you could do all of that with garageband, which you may already have
posted by travis08 at 11:24 PM on June 16, 2007

Ableton Live is amazing, really. You can do anything with it quickly, it's easy to learn (comes with helpful tutorials), and it's not even expensive. You won't regret it.
posted by empty commercial spaces at 1:08 AM on June 17, 2007

I've been fiddling with audacity recently, as a noob, and I think it fits your bill and is pretty easy to get into. So your plan sounds good to me. (caution: noob advice)
posted by -harlequin- at 1:30 AM on June 17, 2007

Best answer: I can't advise Traktor for this enough, as this is exactly what it was built for.

BPM matching? Check. Looping? Check. Automated or manual crossfading? Check. Mix editing, post-processing, basically everything needed to make a mix cd? Check.

Now, you could edit mp3's with an editing program, shift BPM, cut out loops, and paste them all back together into a multitrack editor, but the amount of time required to do this and make it sound professional is astounding. $200 may seem like a lot, but once you're three weeks into working on that mix, it'll seem like a lot less.

Plus, it's fun.

(not that it matters, but I was a dj for many moons)
posted by onedarkride at 8:03 AM on June 17, 2007 [1 favorite]