While many people have come to Mix2r.com, not everyone has understood it’s true purpose and the capabilities it represents. Mix2r.com was set up to facilitate the complete work flow for creating, recording and producing audio projects via the internet. In order to use Mix2r.com to do this, there are some basic capabilities you will require.

1. A computer (PC or Mac) with software to record multi track audio projects
2. An instrument/MIDI port or audio card/interface to plug your instrument/microphone into; OR a digital workstation capable of making producing audio samples from scratch or via MIDI controllers
3. An account on Mix2r.com and a network connection.

To get set up with these capabilities, there is a cost however it is rather small (less than $200). This will buy you an entry level personal studio system for your computer that is by no means of entry level quality. I will break out each of these components and discuss them individually.

The basic configuration is as follows:

Computer Audio Interface

The audio port device is a small, usually somewhat inexpensive device that plugs into a USB port on your computer and allows you to plug in a guitar using 1/4" standard cable or Microphone using the standard XLR cables. These devices generally cost between $100 to $1000 depending upon the quality and the features. They are made by many manufacturers but the most popular are by Digidesign, M-Audio and Line 6. I will talk about the Line 6 Toneport given I am familiar with this device and use it regularly. The concepts discussed are equally applicable to other devices.

The Toneport UX1 and UX2 are available from Line 6 online. The Toneport UX series ships with a standard software package called Gearbox which allows you to emulate several of the most famous guitar sounds in the industry as well as bass and vocal profiles. Here is a screenshot of the front of the Toneport UX2.

Once you have it set up, you can plug the back end cable directly into your USB port on your computer (laptop or desktop), then connect a guitar/bass patch cord into the front. The UX2 allows two concurrent connections while the UX1 allows one. Once you have the connections established and the device active, you can use the Gearbox software to dial in the exact sound you want for your guitar. The Gearbox software has a great, easy to use interface as shown below.

The sound you can get from a guitar alone are quite astounding. Here is a tone called "new wave" and here is one called "Ain't talking about love". Once you have established the basic sound, you will need to start up your multi track recording software to handle the input from the device.

Software to record multi track audio projects

You will need to set up this software before you can start recording guitar tracks. To add a guitar track to an existing sound from Mix2r.com, simply to to the page of the song, then download the song and save it to your computer. On Mix2r.com, audio project owners can set their projects to be download-able by others who wish to add tracks. A great way to find an overview of projects that are not finished is to use the "browse Audio by" and look for Again, there are lots of packages available but be careful when buying them. Some of them are not compatible with hardware devices. I will use the Ableton Live 6 product for this tutorial for two reasons. One is that it ships with the Toneport UX series in its' Lite version, the second is that I am most familiar with it. This is not to be implied as an endorsement for either toneport or Ableton over other manufacturers. Some others include Pro tools, Reason, Logic, Cubase and Garage Band (comes free with Mac OS/X). If you want to try out these concepts now, you can download a trial copy of Live 6 from Ableton's website here.

Simply set up your software package to be able to record the incoming signals from your audio interface device, then you are ready to import the song. In Ableton live, this is very easy to do. Once you have the MP3 file from Mix2r.com, you can import it into an audio track as shown below:

1. Simply use the file explorer to find the track you want

2. Then drag and drop the file into the track

At this point, you can set up another audio track to record your guitar over (Mac -> CMD T or on PC -> Ctrl T), then arm both the track and the session for recording using the red buttons. To start the song and play along with it, simply select the input for the track then hit the small triangle shaped icon inside the tracks clip (the lime green bit above). You can then play with a song and your contributions are recorded alongside the original track, time indexed so other can hear exactly what you did.

Here is a project shot from my screen with a bass track loaded into one track of a song called "509" from 22nd Century with me recording a second track.

When you are finished, your project can be saved and converted to MP3. There are several free software packages to convert wav and AIFF files into MP3's for posting back to Mix2r.com. Once you are ready to post back to Mix2r.com, navigate to the page where the original song was and click "Derivatives" as shown on the shot below.

This will open up a new form and allow you to upload a derivative of the song you played a track on. If your song is an original song, you can also post it for the first time by using the "upload audio" link to post a new project to Mix2r.com You retain the complete rights to all tracks you create and you can declare the license type you want.

A word on MP3 vs. WAV's

For listening to songs and submitting ideas, MP3 at a high sample bit rate is fine however for professional quality recordings, the owners of songs will likely want to get the wav files of the original tracks. If you are asked, you can use the FTP site (when ready) for transferring the WAAV files to the songs owner and make final arrangements for how you wish to be compensated for your track submissions (whether it be cash, royalties, credit or whatever).