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)