DocsSessions and recording

Studio

Listening to a merged recording track by track and cutting, copying and pasting it without ever putting the tracks out of sync.

Studio shows the separate tracks of a take one under the other: each person’s voice in their own colour, soundpad effects on a track of their own. Your edits never touch the original files; they are written to a project file.

Opening it#

• When the merge is done, Edit in Studio on the Recording ready screen,
• or the Edit button of a recording in My recordings.

Studio takes the whole window. Close takes you back to the previous screen; if there are unsaved changes you are asked first.

The first time, the waveform of each track is prepared; for long recordings this can take a few seconds. Later openings are instant.

Moving around#

Zoomed in far enough, the waveform shows the individual samples.

Selecting#

Drag over the waveform to select a part. Shift-click extends the selection, Esc clears it, Ctrl+A selects everything.

The switch in the toolbar sets what a selection covers:

• All tracks: The selection runs through every track.
• One track: The selection is only on the track you drag on.

Hold Alt while dragging to use the other one for that selection.

Cut, copy, paste#

The same commands are in the Edit menu.

Making a part louder or quieter#

When you select a part, a small level knob appears over the selection (as in Audition). A selection over all tracks changes every track; a selection on one track changes only that track.

• Drag the knob up or right to make it louder, down or left to make it quieter. Shift gives fine steps; the wheel turns it in half-dB steps.
• The label beside the knob says which track the level changes on: All tracks or the track's name. Click it to switch, so you can set one clip on its own. Clicking a clip's top strip also selects just that clip, and right-click › Set this clip's level does the same.
• The value next to it shows how much you added to that selection (down to −40 dB, up to +20 dB). Double-click to put the selection back as it was.
• The waveform grows or shrinks with the sound. At the start and end of the part the level glides over 5 milliseconds, so there is no click.
• You can turn it while playing and hear the change right away. One turn of the knob is one step to undo.

A level change doesn’t move anything in time; when you cut and paste, it goes with the part. The original files aren’t touched.

Two rules keep the conversation lined up across tracks:

• Cutting and pasting on all tracks moves every track together. Cut a part and everyone’s voice moves up by the same amount; paste and the same room opens on every track.
• An edit on one track never moves time. A deleted part stays silent; a pasted part is written over what was there. The other tracks don’t change at all.

A part copied from one track and pasted while no single track is selected goes back onto the track it came from, at the cursor.

Thin lines on the tracks show where the cuts are.

New tracks#

You can add as many tracks as you like while editing: Add track under the track heads, + in the toolbar, or right-click a track › Add track. A new track starts empty; put voices made from text, recordings from the microphone or parts moved from other tracks on it.

• Double-click its name to rename it (or right-click › Rename track).
• Right-click › Delete track deletes only tracks added in the Studio; the recording’s own tracks stay.
• When the tracks don’t fit on the screen, scroll them with the wheel over the track heads, or Ctrl+wheel over the waveforms.
• Added tracks have M, S, volume, pan and FX too; they go into the export as you hear them.

Clips: split, move, disable#

Every clip has a thin strip along its top; voices you made and recordings say what they are on the strip.

• Click the strip to select the clip: Delete removes it (its place stays silent and the track stays), and the knob over the selection changes its level. You can also right-click the clip and choose Delete clip.
• Hold the strip and drag: the clip moves along its track or onto another track. With Ctrl held you can grab a clip anywhere.
• To move only part of the sound on a track, first select that part on one track (One track mode or Alt+drag), then drag the selection by its strip.
• While dragging, the clip snaps to the edges of other clips, to the cursor and to the start.
• Split (the split button in the toolbar or Ctrl+K) cuts the clip in two at the cursor (at the playhead while playing); with a part selected it splits at both edges of the selection. In One track mode only the selected track is split, in All tracks mode every track; nothing moves. Right-click › Split here splits the track you clicked where you clicked. Split parts can be selected, moved and deleted on their own.
• Disabling: right-click a clip and choose Disable clip, or select a part and press the button in the toolbar. The clip stays in place and looks dimmed, but it doesn’t play and stays out of the export. Enable it again the same way.
• Moving doesn’t shift time: where the clip was stays silent, and where it lands it is written over what was there. One step undoes it.

Making a voice from text#

Right-click a track and choose Voice from text… (or use the sparkle button in the toolbar for the selected track, at the cursor). In the window:

The voice goes where you right-clicked, and its strip shows the start of the text. The voice and model you used last are ready next time. The voice is written as a 48 kHz WAV into the studio folder inside the recording’s folder; the original recording files aren’t touched.

Enter the keys in Settings › Voice generation. The cost is charged to the ElevenLabs or OpenAI account the key belongs to.

Recording from the microphone (retouch)#

While editing you can step in and record something:

• Right-click a track › Record from the microphone here (over): the recording starts where you clicked. Playback starts two seconds earlier so you can come in on time; the recording is written over the old sound on that track, and nothing else moves.
• Select a part on one track first and right-click it, and the recording goes exactly into that part and stops by itself at its end.
• Record from the microphone in between (the rest moves): after two seconds of lead-in the playback stops and you talk; when you finish, every track moves along by the length of the recording.
• The red microphone button in the toolbar records into the selected track from the cursor. Stop with the same button, Space or Esc.

The recording uses the microphone chosen in Settings › Microphone and the Recording sound setting. If you listen on speakers, the old sound can get into the microphone; wear headphones for retouches. Microphone recordings are written into the studio folder too and are never sent anywhere.

Track controls#

At the start of each track:

• M mutes the track, S plays only that track (and any others on solo).
• Volume from -30 to +12 dB; double-click to go back to 0 dB.
• Pan moves the sound left or right; double-click to centre it.
• The level meter shows the track while playing.
• Click the colour strip at the left of a track head for a palette of twelve colours and a box for any colour you like. The colour is saved with the project; the waveform, the meters and the speaker and caption highlights in clips all follow it.

Master at the bottom is the level of the whole mix. Undo doesn’t change the track controls; it only takes back edits such as cuts and pastes.

Effects#

The FX button at the start of each track, or the effects panel button in the toolbar, opens the effect cards under Studio. At the top of the panel you pick a track or Master. A track with an effect on shows its FX button in colour.

• The button at the left of each card turns the effect on and off. Turning a knob switches the effect on.
• Drag knobs up and down; Shift for fine steps, double-click for the default, the wheel turns them too.
• Over the EQ curve, the wheel changes the width of the mid band.
• The dot on the compressor and gate graphs shows where the sound falls on the curve while playing; the meter on the card says how much is turned down.
• The master limiter starts on (-1 dB): even if you raise the tracks, the mix doesn’t clip.
• Restore defaults at the top right of the panel puts every effect of the selected track (or Master) back to how it started.

Effects don’t move anything in time; with them on, all tracks stay on the same sample. The settings are saved with the project; the original files still aren’t touched.

Vertical clip (Instagram, TikTok, Shorts)#

You can turn a part of a recording into a 1080×1920 video. Select the part on the waveform and press the clip button in the toolbar; the Clip button in My recordings and on the screen that appears right after a recording opens the same window.

The window shows a live preview on the left and the settings on the right:

The clip carries a band of sound along its foot that moves with the talking, and the words sit on a dark panel so they read over anything. Around each person's photo a ring answers to their own voice, so a voice you made from text stands there like anyone else. The colours come from the tracks.

Right-click a track and choose Add a photo to the track: the photo is kept with the project and used in clips on its own.

After Make the clip: the sound of the part is prepared (with cuts, levels and effects), what is said is written down, the pictures are drawn and the video is written. The clip goes into the Klipler folder inside the recording's folder as an MP4; open it with Show in folder.

Captions use the OpenAI key from Settings › Voice generation: the sound of the part you chose goes to OpenAI and comes back as words with the moment each one starts (about $0.006 a minute). Who said which word is worked out from whichever track is loudest at that moment, so no separate speaker detection is needed. With Captions: None nothing leaves your computer.

Saving#

Save (Ctrl+S) writes your edits to mixapod-studio.json in the take folder. Open Studio again and you carry on where you left off.

• The original WAV files never change.
• If you delete the project, the recording opens in Studio as it was recorded.

Exporting#

Export in the top bar writes the edited recording as files. Cuts, track settings and effects go into the file just as you hear them in Studio.

For long recordings the loudness is measured first, then the files are written; the progress shows in the window. When it is done:

• Add to production puts the file on the Production list, so you can join it with an intro and outro.
• Show in folder opens the files in File Explorer.

The original recording and the MP3 and WAV from the merge don’t change; an export always writes new files.