User Interface Overview
Mixxx's user interface is designed to be simple and easy to use when DJing live.
This section outlines the main features of Mixxx's interface.
Playback and Hot Cue Controls
The playback controls allow you pause, play, and otherwise manipulate the playback of a song. The REV button toggles reverse playback when pressed during regular playback.
When playback is stopped, pressing the CUE button places a cue-point at the current position on the waveform. A cuepoint is marked by a white vertical line in the waveform view.
If the CUE button is pressed during playback, the song will seek to the cue-point and stop. Holding down the CUE button while the song is positioned on the cue-point will result in the song temporarily playing back, and seeking back to the cuepoint upon release of the CUE button. This describes the “CDJ
Mode” cue behaviour, which is modifiable in the preferences under Interface→Default cue behaviour.
The Hot Cue buttons allow you to place additional cue-points inside a song, which immediately start playback when triggered. Clicking a Hot Cue button the first time will place a hot cue at the current position in the song, and pressing it again will begin playback from that position. Hot cues are useful for marking different sections of a song for easy access and for manipulating a song. Placing hot cues at the start of different drum sounds in a song allows you to use the Hot Cue buttons as a mini drumkit. Try placing hot cues on different parts of a melody, and use that to remix songs on-the-fly.
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Tempo and Looping Controls
The tempo controls allow you to slow down and speed up a
song. This is frequently useful for beatmatching songs when
mixing. The RATE slider changes the tempo of a song when it is moved. The PERM buttons apply fine adjustment to the
RATE slider, and the TEMP buttons apply a temporary pitchbend when depressed. The amount by which the PERM and
TEMP buttons alter the pitch of the track can be changed in the Options→Preferences→Interface menu. The SYNC button attempts to automatically match the tempo of the song in the corresponding channel with tempo of the song in the other channel, based on the calculated BPM.
The IN, OUT, and RELOOP/EXIT buttons let you create a loop within a song. The IN button places a starting marker for a loop at the current playback position, and the OUT button places an ending marker and begins looping. The
RELOOP/EXIT button is used to break out of a loop if you're in one, or seek back inside the loop if you're outside of it. Loops can be very useful when you're approaching the end of a song, but you don't have the next song ready yet. Try placing a loop in a song's outro during your next mix.
See also the SYNC button below.
Headphone, Flanger, and Tempo
Synchronization
When toggled, the HEADPHONE button sends the selected channel's audio to the Headphones output audio device selected in the preferences under Sound Hardware. This
feature is commonly used when headphone cueing and
beatmatching .
The FLANGER button enables a built-in flanger effect on the selected channel. A flanger effect applies a “sweeping” sound to the channel and can add extra depth to a mix when used tactfully.
The tempo SYNC button SYNC will change the tempo of the song in the current channel to match the song in the opposite channel. SYNC can be used to beatmatch songs quicker, and is useful for DJs of all skill levels.
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Volume and EQ
The VOL slider controls the volume of the selected channel.
The GAIN knob can be used to apply extra amplification to a quiet song, which can be used to match its volume with the song in the other channel. The HIGH, MID, and LOW knobs perform equalization on the channel, reducing or increasing high, mid and low frequencies accordingly. The light at the top of the VU meter indicates when the audio in the selected channel is clipping. If this light goes on, reduce the gain or
EQs for this channel to eliminate distortion.
Waveform
The waveform display shows the loaded tracks' waveforms near the playback position. On songs with certain dynamics, the waveform displays will visibly show the beats in the song. When a cue mark is placed, it is drawn on the waveform as a vertical white line. Clicking and dragging on a waveform allows you to seek through a song.
Waveform Overview
The waveform overview provides some important information about the song currently loaded in the corresponding channel. From left to right, these are: Track tempo in BPM, current playback position, and track duration. The more interesting part however, is the waveform visualisation of the song, which is useful for seeing breaks or other important changes in the track so that you don't get surprised when they occur while DJing. It also allows you to jump to an arbitrary position in the track by clicking somewhere on the waveform.
End of Track Mode
The end of track mode determines the Mixxx's behaviour when it reaches the end of a track. The end of track mode is changed by
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clicking the block to toggle between the three available options; each channel has it's own end of track mode setting that can be changed independently. Stop mode will do nothing further once the end of the track is reached until you load a new track into the channel or seek backwards through the current track. Loop will return to the beginning of the finished track and play it again from the start. Next will automatically load and play the next song in the 'play queue'.
Master and Crossfader Controls
The crossfader (in the center of the picture) enables you to smoothly fade between the two channels and defines what you hear through the master output. When set all the way to the left, only channel 1 is heard, and set to the right, only channel 2 will be heard. Every position in between gives you the mixed output of both channels. (Note: The actual volume of each channel depends on the crossfader curve, defined in the Crossfader preferences pane.)
The Volume and Balance knobs control the volume and the balance (stereo distribution) of the master output. The Pre/Main knob controls what you hear on the headphone output. It works like the crossfader but instead of crossfading between channel 1 and 2, it crossfades between the Master and
Cueing signal. If the Pre/Main knob is set to the left, one only hears the cueing signal, which can be useful for prelistening tracks. The HeadVol knob controls the volume of the headphone output.
The Depth, Delay and LFO knobs control the flanger. A flanger is an effect that mixes the input signal with a delayed copy of itself which leads to interferences in the signal and creates a comb-filter like effect. By routing the output of the effect back into the input (feedback), this effect can be enhanced. In Mixxx, the volume of the output signal that is routed back into the input can be controlled with the depth knob, which controls the intensity of the effect. The delay knob sets the initial value for the delay length. Inside the effect however, this value is not constant but modulated by an LFO (low frequency oscillator), controllable with the corresponding knob. If this is too technically for you just play around with it and see how the different parameters affect the sound. :)
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Library
The library manages all your music files. This is where you can find the tracks you want to play and load them into a channel. Alternatively, you can also use your external filemanager and drop files onto the waveform display. The sidebar on the left contains different collections of music. The view on the right displays the songs in those collections.
The Search box in the top-left the current view for songs that match your query.
The Library is displays a sortable list of all the songs in your music library.
Mixxx imports your music library automatically when it is run for the first time, and automatically detects newly added songs on each subsequent run. If you want to manually refresh your library without exiting (for example because you added or moved files) you can do this with Library→Rescan Library in the menu.
To load a track into a player, you can either simply drag it to the waveform display or use the context menu (right-click on a track). The right-click context menu also allows you to add a track to the Auto DJ queue, playlists, or crates.
The Missing Songs view is accessible by expanding Library tree item in the sidebar. Any songs that were previously loaded into your library, but were later detected to be missing from your hard disk by Mixxx will appear here. Mixxx does not automatically delete records of missing songs so that extra metadata
Mixxx might have (such as hot cues and the BPM) will not be lost if the file is replaced.
The Featured Artists view contains free promotional music that may come bundled with your version of Mixxx. These songs are DJ friendly, and you are licensed to perform live with these songs at any event you'd like.
The Auto DJ queue is a special playlist that contains extra controls for enabling
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automatic mixing. Toggling the “Enable Auto DJ” button within this view will tell Mixxx to automatically load the next song from this playlist when the current song is nearly finished, and crossfade into it. Mixxx will continue to automatically mix until the Auto DJ playlist is empty.
Playlists can be created by right-clicking on the “Playlists” sidebar item, and selecting “New Playlist”. Songs can be added to a playlist by finding them in the Library, and drag-and-dropping them onto the name of a playlist in the sidebar, or by selecting a song in the library and right-clicking on it. Playlists are not directly loadable into Mixxx's players as Mixxx is primarily intended for live, attended performance use. However, you can add the contents of a playlist to the Auto DJ queue, and use automatic mixing.
Crates are unordered collections of songs, and are similar to playlists. A crate can be created by right-clicking on “Crates” in the sidebar, and selecting “New
Crate”.
Browse mode works like a file-manager and allows you to load songs that are not necessarily already in your Mixxx library.
The Analyze view allows you to see a list of recently added tracks, and to run
BPM detection on them in advance.
The iTunes (Windows and Mac OS X only) and Rhythmbox (Linux only) views allow you to view the music libraries you have created in 3rd party applications.
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