Mantis - Digital Audio Workstation

Learning The Basic Functions

To launch the console, select the Mantis link on the Labs page located in the footer. The Mantis console can also be launched from any session you own or belong to. At the top of the session page, select the Record, Edit, Mix button to launch Mantis.

What: The main controls for starting and stopping audio, as well as fast forwarding and returning to the beginning of the track.

Why: Because in order to collaborate you have to hear the music!

How: At the top of the mixing console Click on the far left button (rewind) to jump back a bar, the button second from the left (play/pause) to start/stop audio, and the button furthest to the right (fast forward) to skip forward.

What: One of the most incredible features of the console is the ability to record wherever you have an Internet connection.

Why: Because you want people to hear the music you make!

How: Arm the track you want to record onto by clicking the red circle on the bottom left of the track. Click on the timeline to move timeline insertion to where you want to start recording.

At the top of the mixing console, click the red circular button to record. Recording will begin automatically. To change your recording settings, select the Record menu at the top of the console. Select mono or stereo to set whether you’d like to record to one channel or two, respectively. Go to the Record Preroll menu to decide how much time you’d like the track to play before you actually start recording. You can set this by bar number or seconds.

What: The Mute function is used to temporarily silence a particular track.

Why: You might want to remove that pesky cowbell while mixing the rest of the song.

How: In the track controls click the ‘M’ button to activate the Mute function – it will turn from black to beige when activated.

What: Solo makes all other track outputs silent and enables you to hear only the selected (soloed) track.

Why: You might want to give a closer listen to the guitar track to hear if an incorrect chord was played, or you might want to solo all the drums together and work on mixing them alone before adding in new instruments.

How: In the track controls click the ‘S’ button activate the Solo function – it will turn from black to blue when activated.

Note: You can Solo multiple tracks at the same time!

What: Changing a track’s volume relative to other tracks in the console.

Why: Changing relative track volume can make a song sound more coherent, especially when different parts were recorded with different gear, at different times, in different places, etc.

How: Use the volume slider (to the right of the Mute and Solo buttons on a track) to raise or lower individual track volume.

What: Altering a track’s output to change the relative balance of how much audio comes out of the left and right speakers.

Why: Panning is a mixing tool that can create a more interesting and dynamic sound by placing audio in different parts of the stereo field (left speaker to right speaker).

How: Click and drag the knob on the Pan fader to the left/right to adjust what percent of the audio comes out of which speaker.

What: Zooming in/out on the timeline to see more/less detail on audio regions.

Why: Zoom in to make functions like auto-volume, cropping, and lining up tracks more precise. Zoom out to make looking at the big picture and sliding audio in time significantly easier.

How: Right below the rewind and play buttons, there is a slider – click and drag the slider to the left to zoom out and to the right to zoom in.

What: The speed or pace of a piece of music, usually expressed in beats per minute (bpm).

Why: Tempo gives participants an indication of how fast the music is. Telling others know what tempo you have recorded to, as well as if you recorded while listening to a metronome (or “click”) track will help them record successfully along with your files. Additionally, the tempo sets the frequency of audible clicks produced by the metronome, when enabled.

How: Double click on the BPM to the left of the Master Output to enter your desired tempo.

What: One of the critical time keeping measures in music. The upper number indicates how many beats there are in a bar, the lower number indicates the note value which represents one beat.

Why: Setting and displaying the time signature for the song will give all participants more information about what they are contributing to, and it will ensure that the metronome is working in the same meter as the music.

How: Click on the time signature to the left of the BPM and select your desired time signature from the drop down menu.

What: The metronome is a time keeping and synchronization tool. When activated it plays a constant audible click in time with the set tempo. Notes are accented at the beginning of every measure, in accordance with the set meter.

Why: If tracks were recorded to the sound of a metronome then the session metronome can be very helpful in lining up tracks to synch with one another.

How: Turn metronome on by clicking the Metronome text at the top of the console. Input the correct Meter and Tempo for the song, line up the first beat of an audio region with the first beat of a measure by visually lining up the beat with one of the bar lines and audibly lining it up with the metronome.

Tip: Tracks can look lined up at every zoom level. After getting things generally in place try zooming in to the closest level to line things up more precisely.

What: Bar lines set to match the tempo and time signature of the song.

Why: To make ensure that audio lines up correctly, with the beats falling on the grid lines.

How: To view/hide the grid click the Grid icon right above Track 1 in the console. If the correct tempo is set, audio files should snap into place on the grid and the files should be lined up.

Tip: If you created the song, make sure the tracks uploaded into the mixer start from 0:00 to make it easier for other members of the session to sync their parts up with the files in the mix.

What: With Snap enabled, when you drag audio regions and let them go the beginning of the dragged region will “snap” to the nearest bar line. This way, you don’t have to line it up precisely.

Why: Especially when working with lined up tracks, be they from midi files, or audio files recorded to a click track, Snap makes lining things up easier.

How: To turn Snap on/off click the Snap To Grid above Track 1, directly to the right of the Grid icon.

Editing Tracks

What: Select and cut to change how you interact with your audio files on the timeline. Use the select tool when you would like to drag your audio files on the timeline, and use the cut tool when you would like to separate the audio file into two or more separate pieces.

Why: The ability to cut comes in handy when you’d like to create a loop of a portion of an audio file, or when only a certain length of audio is needed in your session.

How: Select the Select button at the top of the console (to the left of the Split tool) to use the Select tool. Just click and drag audio files on the timeline to use it. Select the Cut button at the top of the console (to the left of the Rewind button) to select the Cut tool. Click on the place in the audio where you’d like to separate the audio. Using the Select tool, you can click and drag your audio in two separate parts if you wish.

Note: Cutting is not destructive – If ever you decide you want to expand your cut audio, you will still be able to by selecting and dragging the gray triangle at the bottom corner of the audio file.

What: Looping is a tool that enables users to replicate the same audio region multiple times in series within a specific track.

Why: If you want the same pattern or sound to repeat looping is a great way to make that happen easily. For example, many people will loop a drum beat to extend it for several measures and record other parts on top of it.

How: Select an audio region by clicking on it, and then click the loop button in the top right of the audio file. |Click this button, drag the cursor to the right, and release your mouse when you have looped the region the desired number of times.

Tip: Before looping a track, crop its beginning and/or end, if necessary, so that the next time the loop starts it stays on the same beat as the original.

What: The Delete function in the main console controls enables users to remove audio regions from the timeline. This action does not delete the audio files from the console – they will still be available for use from the files list (learn more about the files list here).

Why: Remove audio regions from the mix that you don’t want!

How: Select the audio region you would like to delete from the timeline by clicking on it and select the audio region and then use the Delete button on your keyboard.

What: While each audio region has its own name, you can rename tracks to organize your session and help other members understand what audio is in each track.

Why: To give yourself and others a clearer picture of the elements in the song and to make mixing and editing easier.

How: Double-click on the default track name (“Track 1” for example), type the desired track name, and hit the enter key on your keyboard or click somewhere outside the track name.

What: Slide specific audio regions in the timeline.

Why: For any reason you might want to offset, align, or generally move audio regions around. For example, to line up audio regions with audio on different tracks or to add multiple audio regions to the same track and ensure they are in time with the beat.

How: Select the audio region using the Select tool(it will turn gray when selected) and then click and drag it to the desired location.

Tip: Zooming in can make lining up audio with other regions more precise, while zooming out can make moving regions over a large time period easier.

What: Cropping enables you to adjust the beginning and ending of an audio clip by cutting off undesired notes or empty space. Cropping is non-destructive so you can always undo any adjustments you have made.

Why: If you have empty space or notes at the beginning or end of an audio region that you don’t want to be audible in the song cropping is a quick and easy way to get rid of them. Additionally, if you are looping a region and want to ensure that the loop plays correctly and in time – having extra space at the beginning or end of the region will disrupt the time and throw it out of sync.

How: Click and drag the shaded lower corners of an audio region to the left or right. Let go to crop the file at the current position.

Using Effects

You can add effects to your track by one of the three Add Effect links on your track. Select the effect you want to add, and it will appear in the Effects area of your track. Click on the effect in your track to edit the details of the effect, and click the ‘On’ button to bypass the effect. If you’d like to remove the effect all together, click the X to the left of your effect.

What: The compression effect takes an audio signal and reduces the peaks in volume to make the audio more uniform throughout. Using gain, you can raise the volume of your audio file without having it peak because of your audio is now more uniform.

Details: In the details section of the EZ Compressor, you can edit how much compression you’d like to use, and how much gain you’d like to use to up the volume of your audio file. The gain reduction meter will show how much your audio is being compressed.

Click the reset button to make the details return to their default position, click the bypass button to turn off the effect, and click the remove button to remove the effect.

What: The delay effect will create an echo effect by taking your original effect and replaying it again after a period of time.

Details: In the details section of the Delay effect, you can edit the mix of original vs. delayed signal you’d like to hear. 100 is only delayed signal, and 0 is only original signal.

The four delayed presets determine when the delayed signal will occur. The delayed presets are ¼ (where the delay occurs on the quarter note), Slap, Ring, and Dark.

What: The delay effect will create an echo effect by taking your original effect and replaying it again after a period of time.

Details: In the details section of the Stereo Multi-Tap Delay effect, you can edit the mix of original vs. delayed signal you’d like to hear, the timing of the delay in milliseconds, the feedback (the amount of times you’d like the delay to repeat), and damping.

The Stereo section of the details dialog box allows you to create delay in stereo (moving from the left ear to the right ear, or vice versa). Change the amount of delay in the left versus the right with the delay sliders, and the volume of the stereo delays with the Level sliders.

The pre-sets at the top of the details pop up, you’ll see different timings where the delay can be played, based on the tempo you’ve set in your session. You can have your delay come in a whole note later, a half note later, etc. Note: The ,3’s indicate triplet counts.

What: The 3 Band EQ will allow you to raise and lower frequencies in your audio files, to give them the sound you’re looking for.

Details: In the details section of 3 Band EQ, you can adjust the Hi, Med, and Low frequencies using the sliders. Click the reset button to make the details return to their default position, click the bypass button to turn off the effect, and click the remove button to remove the effect.

What: The 3 Band EQ will allow you to raise and lower frequencies in your audio files, to give them the sound you’re looking for.

Details: In the details section of 3 Band EQ, you can adjust the Hi, Med, and Low frequencies using the sliders. Click the reset button to make the details return to their default position, click the bypass button to turn off the effect, and click the remove button to remove the effect.

The shelf options will allow all frequencies above (for high shelf) or below (for low shelf) to be boosted or reduced as you so choose. Lo cut will remove all frequency information below the frequency you input in the slider.

You can click bypass beneath any of the separated sections to bypass an EQ effect for that area. Click the reset button to make the details return to their default position, click the bypass button to turn off the effect, and click the remove button to remove the effect.

What: The Flanger will copy your signal, and time-delay it by a small and gradually changing amount, usually smaller than 20 milliseconds. The flanger takes this file and mixes it with the original, creating a unique effect.

Details: In the details section of the flanger, you can adjust the feedback, the depth, and the spend of the flanger. Click the reset button to make the details return to their default position, click the bypass button to turn off the effect, and click the remove button to remove the effect.

What: The reverb effect emulates the echoes made when a sound is made in an enclosed space producing multiple decaying echoes.

Details: In the details section of reverb, you can choose from the five pre-sets—room and large hall. You can also manually adjust reverb settings by amount (how much reverb vs. original audio file), length, and high frequency cutoff (cuts off high frequencies to recreate the dulling of the echoes in natural settings).

Understanding File And Mix Lists

What: Open a session you’ve begun in Mantis, save a mix you’ve done on the console, or save a new mix with a different name than a previous mix.

Why: The ability to have multiple mixes and multiple ways to save them gives members flexibility to try new things without losing work or having to choose which mix they ultimately want to use.

How: The three buttons are located just under File in the session toolbar.

What: The Files list is a list of all audio files that have been uploaded to the session. This list appears on the left hand side of the console.

Why: You may have many auditions and regular files to manage and you may not want all of them in the mixer at the same time. The files list keeps files organized and displays exactly what audio you have available to work with in the mixer.

How: Preview the track by clicking on the play button to the left of the file, and drag and drop files into the mixer to start creating your mix.

What: The console supports 24, 16, and 8 bit files in WAV, AIFF, and MP3 formats.

Why: Because you should have the flexibility to work however you want!

How: You can upload any of the aforementioned files to the session that your mix is attached to, or you import them directly into Mantis (see Import Files below).

What: Combine all audio regions in the Mantis timeline, including all settings (volume, automation, panning, cropping, looping, etc.) into a single stereo AIFF or WAV file.

Why: Export allows you to take a session and turn it into a song. It is the final step in any recording process and gives you the ability to share your song with the world through your profile, the Indaba Music Player, your website or Myspace page and gives you the ability to take it with you on your iPod or other MP3 player.

How: Select Mixdown to WAV or Mixdown to AIFF in the File menu to export your mix in a WAV or AIFF format.

Note: Even though Mantis works with low-quality copies of uploaded files in order to substantially decrease loading time in your web browser, Mixdown will use the highest quality files available as long as you have permission to download them (learn more about file permissions here).

What: The preview button plays only the selected file.

Why: In sessions where there are many files with potentially similar names, it is helpful to be able to preview a file before adding it to the timeline, downloading it or deleting it.

How: Select a file from the Files list and click the play button to the right of the filename to preview the audio.

What: How you get a file into Mantis.

Why: Because you need files to collaborate in Mantis, silly.

How: Go to File > Import Files to import a file from you computer to the Session Files list.