Mixer
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The is the Mixer focus/hide toggle button.
To add a mixer channel, press the box with the + button that is to the left of the Effects Chain box.
A mixer channel can be selected by clicking on its name or background (or by navigating to it using the arrow keys). The background will turn grey (highlighted/focused) from near-black (unfocused) to indicate it is selected. One mixer channel can be selected at any time. When a mixer channel is selected, the Effects Chain for that mixer channel will display in the Effects Chain box at the far right end of the mixer window.
The above options can be accessed through the right-click context menu on a mixer channel. You can move through the channels without clicking by focusing on the Mixer window and clicking the right and left arrow keys to switch between channels. You can also easily move and reorder channels by holding down the Alt key and clicking the left or right arrow keys to move a selected channel to the left or right. You can also rename a channel by selecting that channel and pressing the F2 key, or by double-clicking the channel name where it is shown horizontally on the channel. You can also delete a channel by selecting it and pressing the delete key.
Each mixer channel has a fader with a volume meter that shows the volume of the left and right channels. The fader slider can control the overall volume of the channel's output.
Each mixer channel also has Solo and Mute toggle switches.
Each mixer channel also has a digital readout of the maximum volume of audio that has gone through that channel so far. This readout, called a peak indicator, can be used to tell if there is any clipping in the track after the entire track has been played. If you find the readout on the master is positive, then your track has clipped during playback. It is too loud.
The readouts default to negative infinity (-inf) upon channel or project load till as long as the channel stays silent. The value can be reset by left-clicking on this readout.
By default, all instruments have their mixer channel routing initially set to channel zero which is the "Master" channel at the far left end of the Mixer window. The Master channel or the master bus controls the overall volume of all the combined instruments and channels that are routed to it. Effects applied to it are applied to the overall output.
To add an effect to a mixer channel, select the mixer channel, then click the Add effect button below the EFFECTS CHAIN box (see image). This will open a dialog box where you can select one effect from the list of all available effect plugins. You can add another effect by clicking the Add effect button again.
Adding an effect will open the "Controls" dialog individualized for the particular effect plugin you just added where you can edit the effect plugin's configuration. Adding an effect appends it to your effect chain. Each effect's entry has a standard set of visible controls:
LED toggle (green) to enable or disable effect
Knobs for W/D, Decay, and Gate (these are explained in the FX section of Instrument Window)
Controls button that toggles opening the effect plugin's configuration dialog
The above options can be accessed through the right-click context menu on any effect. Effects can also be dragged up and down to reorder them in the effect list (effects are applied in the order of their listing). Effects can also be moved up and down in a list without dragging: you can select an effect by clicking it, then down Alt and use the up or down arrow keys to move them up or down.
Also notice that the Effects Chain box itself also has a green LED toggle that can toggle on or off the entire effects chain for a channel. Using this toggle you can disable all the effects on that channel only.
You can use the context menu on a track in a track list to create a channel specifically for that track. You can also change which channel the track is routed to through this context menu.
To easily assign an instrument to a specific channel, you can also either change the channel routing via the mixer channel spinbox in the track list, or through the instrument window. You can also right-click this spinbox and find a channel assignment menu similar to the one found under the context menu as shown above.
Multiple instrument tracks can be assigned to a single channel. A track can only output to one channel at a time, but since a channel can be directly routed to any number of other channels at once, you can create a channel specifically for your instrument track so it can output to multiple channels at the same time. This is not to be confused with routing your track through a series of channels.
The interface in LMMS for sending channels can be navigated as follows:
Select a channel other than the Master channel.
The other channels should have a "SEND" button above them.
Click on a send button on any channel to send the output signal of the current selected channel to that channel.
You can adjust the strength of the signal you are sending with volume knobs below the send buttons.
If the SEND button of a channel is green, this indicates that the output of the selected channel is being routed to that channel. You can disconnect this by clicking the SEND button again.
You can SEND to multiple channels. You can send any amount of output to any number of channels.
Note that all mixer channels are routed to the master channel by default. If you want your mixer channel to go through another channel for effects before it reaches master (eg, if you want to send a channel for your bass track through a channel specially for EQ and send the output of the EQ channel to the master and not send the original instrument), be sure to disconnect your channel from the master channel too. Similarly, if you no longer want to route the channel through another to master, make sure to SEND to master again when you un-SEND it from the middleman channel.
