NAME

       dbmixer - Mixer application for the DBMix sound system

SYNOPSIS

       dbmixer

DESCRIPTION

       dbmixer  is  an  advanced  mixer  application to control various audio channels.  It is part of the DBMix
       sound system and requires a running dbfsd.  The user interface is devided into four  parts:  the  channel
       boxes,  one  for  each channel, on the top left, the crossfader box below, the sample editor box right of
       the channel boxes, and the controls box to the far right.  Each of them is described in detail below.

CHANNEL BOX COMPONENTS

       The list box on top assigns each channel to a particular input device.  Pause and Mute buttons below  are
       pretty self-descriptive.  Cue redirects the channel to the cueing device and is only enabled if dbfsd has
       been  started  with the -c option.  The buttons labelled Once and Loop act in conjunction with the sample
       editor (see below).  They play or loop respectively a short, pre-recorded sample on the current  channel.
       To  adjust  the channel's volume, move the vertical slider up and down.  (The number on top of the slider
       is a bit misleading--100 means absolute silence while it shows 0 when the volume is at its  maximum.)   A
       horizontal  slider  controls the pitch of the sound output.  The row of buttons below resets the speed to
       100 per cent (middle button), or alters the speed by five per cent in either direction  (left  and  right
       buttons).   The  bottom  row,  finally,  comprises  of the Pitch Sync buttons.  While being pressed, they
       temporarily slow down (-S), pause (.]S[.), or speed up (S+)  the  sound.   The  purpose  of  these  three
       buttons  is  to  assist  in  beat  matching:  First use the pitch control to adjust two songs to the same
       speed, the use the sync buttons to match the beats.

CROSSFADING BOX COMPONENTS

       The crossfader comprises of three parts, the fader slider itself, and the two channel selectors,  one  on
       each  side  of  the  fader.   To  crossfade,  first  select  the  channels to fade between in the channel
       selectors.  Then move the fader slider to the desired position, or push one of the  autofade  buttons  to
       the  right.   <  fades  to  the  left, /\ centres the fader, and > fades to the right.  A slider labelled
       Autofade Spd. controls the autofade speed.  It is actually located in the controls box,  but  belongs  to
       the crossfader, really.  The value of this slider is the fade time from end to end in seconds.

       To  either  side of the crossfader channel selectors there are buttons that say Punch.  Doing so sets the
       volume for the selected crossfader channel to maximum.  When the button is released, the  channel  volume
       returns  to  its  previous value.  This is usefull for quickly overlaying soundbytes from one stream over
       another.

SAMPLE EDITOR BOX COMPONENTS

       The list box on top connects the sample recorder to one of the  channels.   The  Load  and  Save  buttons
       (re-)store  samples  on  disk.   To  record  a sample from the selected channel, press the Record button.
       Press again to stop recording.  Max recording time is ten seconds.  The start and end sliders are used to
       fine tune the start and end times of the sample; values on  top  of  the  sliders  the  time  offsets  in
       seconds.

       One  can  copy  a  sample to another channel using the Copy Sample To button and its associated list box.
       First select the channel from the list, then click the button.

CONTROLS BOX COMPONENTS

       The green light on top turns red whenever samples are clipped in the output.   This  is  most  likely  to
       occur  during  a crossfade.  Next is the Mic Talkover button.  It cuts all regular output channels to one
       third of their volume to allow microphone input to be heard.   See  dbin  (1)  to  learn  how  to  enable
       microphone  input.  Cue Split places cue output in the right cup of the headphones, and the master output
       in the left.

       The Balance slider controls the volume ratio of left vs. right in the master output, while the  Main  and
       Cue  sliders allow to adjust the soundcard volume for the master and cue devices, respectively.  Autofade
       Spd. actually belongs to the crossfader and is described above.

KNOWN BUGS

       dbmixer refuses to start if the maximum number of clients are already running.  In this case,  close  one
       of your clients, start dbmixer, and then restart your last client.

SEE ALSO

       dbcat(1), dbin(1), dbfsd(1), dbmix(7).

AUTHOR

       This  manual  page was written by Daniel Kobras <kobras@debian.org>, for the Debian GNU/Linux system (but
       may be used by others).  It is heavily based on DBMix's README file written by Robert Michael S Dean.

                                                 August 8, 2002                                       DBMIXER(1)