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Tracktion Manual
Chapter 5 - Built-in Filters and Synths
Tracktion provides a basic set of built-in filters. Unlike plug-in filters, these are tightly integrated with the user interface, and are guaranteed to be available on any other Tracktion system to which an archive is taken.
Volume and pan
Unlike most other non-linear audio software, Tracktion doesn't have hard-wired volume and pan controls for tracks, so these are treated as filters. The advantages of this are that in a track's output, you can freely move the volume about to go before or after filters, and even have multiple volume controls at different stages in the filter pipeline.
Clicking-and-dragging in the central rectangular area of a volume filter will pop-up a floating volume control to let you drag the level up and down; clicking-and-dragging on the horizontal bar will let you drag the panning left and right. Both of these areas change colour as the mouse moves over them to make it clear what'll happen when you click.
To pick up the volume filter and move it to another place, click-and-drag at its very edge and it can be moved like any other filter.
Level meters
Rather than hard-wiring level meters into each track, level meters are implemented as filters. This means that they can be moved around to any point in the filter chain where you want to monitor the level, or multiple ones can be placed in the same track, or they can even be deleted altogether where they're not needed.
Clicking on a level meter gives you a more accurate view of the levels, and right-clicking on the big level meter view will provide a choice of different monitoring styles (peak, RMS or sum-and-difference).
When the levels entering a level meter peak, a red marker appears at the top of the meter, and will remain until cleared by clicking somewhere inside the meter.
Sampler
Tracktion provides a basic built-in sampler. Nothing very fancy about its features, but one big advantage is that when you create an archive of an edit that uses one of these samplers, all the samples it needs will be automatically compressed, trimmed and exported in the archive in the same way that normal audio clips are.
To add samples to a sampler, you can either click it's 'add' button, copy-and-paste clips into it, or drag-and-drop audio files from Windows Explorer.
Selecting one of the samples from the list will then let you assign it to a range of midi notes, adjust its root note, and its volume and pan. Samples can also be set to 'ignore release' mode, which means that once started, each sample will be allowed to play to its end even if the midi key that triggered it is released.
Below the keyboard is a basic small waveform view which lets you trim the portion of the file being used for the sample. To move its ends, click and drag either the start or end of this waveform.
A more accurate way to select a subsection of a file for sampling is to create a normal clip in an edit that is the exact length needed, then copy-and-paste this clip into the sampler.
Reverb
The Tracktion built-in reverb is based on the open-source Freeverb plug-in, with a few bugfixes and enhancements for different sample rates.
4-band Equaliser
Very straightforward 4-band e.q. - drag the circles around to change the parameters; two of the circles are band-pass filters, one is a high-pass and one is a low-pass. To reset a parameter drag it off the top of the window, and to reset them all, press the 'reset' button.
Phase inverting will simply invert the output signal, whether or not any equalisation parameters are active.
Compressor
Very simple compressor, with all the parameters you'd expect.
Delay
A simple delay that benefits from being able to set the time based on multiples of the edit's tempo.
Pitch-shifter
A basic pitch-shifter, using a phase-vocoder technique.
Chorus
Simple chorus, all the usual parameters.
Phaser
A seven-octave phaser with variable feedback.
Low/High-pass Filter
Just a simple low/high pass cutoff filter, for times when the 4-band equaliser would be overkill.
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