written by
Ziga Rezar

Mixanalog how to - step by step

App 7 min read

1. You found us! Yay!

Jean Luc Picard is happy to have found mixanalog
You've found a web service that lets you use analog gear for pocket change! Yesss!

Below, you can find a step by step guide how to use Mixanalog.

To read more info about us, what gear we offer at the moment, how much it costs to use it, how it sounds and some other FAQ visit our homepage. If you want to skip the guide and start using Mixanalog right away, click the blue button "Enter The Studio" in the top right corner of this blog.

2. Log in or make an account

Log in dialogue at mixanalog
Log in or sign up at Mixanalog

To start using Mixanalog, click big red button Try it for free on homepage. If you've been here before and have already created an account, simply enter your credentials or click one of the third-party log in options. If not, choose the way to create a new account to your liking - you can either use your Facebook or Google account, or create a Mixanalog specific account with an email and a password. In any case, we take good care of your data and conform to all the strict European privacy directives.

3. The booking page - also known as the "Lobby"

This is the control panel for your projects. Think of it as a coffee shop next to the studio, where you can sit with your laptop, prepare the tracks and plan your process, so you can spend the time booked in the studio as efficiently as possible.

Sessions

In the Sessions tab, you can continue past sessions with the same files and settings, delete (cancel) the current and future ones or create new ones.

In the SESSIONS tab you can see the past, current and future bookings. From here, you can continue working on the same track with the same settings as before - useful if you only have to make a few small tweaks for another bounce without the need to store and recall presets. You can also delete/cancel your current and future sessions if you've made a mistake when booking a time slot or finished a session early and you'd like to get some MATs back. In any case, that only deletes the time slot reservation - all the files associated with the booking stay in your Files tab.

My Files

mixanalog files tab view
My Files view in the booking page. All your uploads and bounces end up here.

In the FILES tab you can find all your files - uploads and bounces. If you've created a new, fresh account, only two demo songs will be waiting for you there so you have something to try Mixanalog with, even if you don't have your own material ready for that right now. But if you do, use the Upload New button to upload your files before you book or start a session, so you don't waste time waiting for the upload to finish when the clock is ticking.

3.1 Book a session

Clicking on the big + in the middle starts reservation process

Clicking on the big + button starts a reservation process for your new session. Here you can book a session - a reservation for a time period on a piece of processing gear (or a whole chain like our Rack1) that will be available only for you to process your tracks.

File upload page - you can upload files from your computer or use online options such as Dropbox ,Google drive and others.

On the first step of reservation you are reminded to upload your files. If you have already done that, simply skip this step and proceed to Select Gear step.

Gear selection step

On the second step, select the piece of gear that you'd like to use. You can select a single piece of gear or premade mastering bundles. Gear is organized in categories so you can quickly find the gear that you need.

Time selection step

On the last step, select the time slot. Green little squares are available slots and yellow squares are your currently selected slots*. Above the squares you can change the day up to 1 week ahead and slot duration between 15 and 60 minutes. If you need more than 60 minutes simply repeat the booking process!

* The time is displayed in your local time, so if it seems or behaves strangely, make sure your computer's time is synchronised to one of the global network time servers.

Here you can also name your session to find it more easily should you want to continue working on the song later and (un)tick the box for an email reminder shortly before the session starts. Reserve button will display the amount of time that you booked and the MAT* price. Click it and that's it, you have booked a session!

*A word on MATs. MAT stands for "MixAnalog Token" and before you start screaming "aaargh, another blockchain, noooo!!" let me calm you down - it's not a cryptocurrency. It's only an internal usage credit system that lets us unify the whole booking process while still accepting lots of different currencies for purchase and subscriptions, hand out rewards or free time on specific gear and so on.

When it's your time, the Start button will appear and take you to the processing app - the studio.

If you got the immediate time slot that's already active, a green Start button will appear on your reserved session. If you've booked a session for later, the text will appear at the bottom of the session, displaying time until the booking starts. If it starts to lag or if by your local time the session should have started already, simply refresh the browser tab and the green button will appear.

Here we go!

4. Process your tracks on Mixanalog

mixanalog processing app Rack1
This is the Mixanalog online studio - here, you can adjust the parameters of the gear that you've booked and hear the result in real time and lossless quality!

If you have used any audio software before, you should find this interface fairly familiar. To start processing your tracks, first select your source file from the menu on top. A green waveform will appear on the bottom and you can get to work!

Settings

If you experience glitches in the stream, click on the cog/gear icon next to the file selection dropdown to access the settings. Try raising the buffer length first and if that doesn't solve the problem, try one of the lossy formats (we recommend Opus, but it only works at 48kHz local sample rate). Those settings apply to streaming only, the processing and consequent bounces always happen at 192kHz and are downsampled as needed.

mixanalog streaming settings dialogue
The streaming settings dialogue in the mixanalog studio app

Other than that, pilot the machinery the same as you would with digital plugins! The settings are instantly applied to the automation circuitry and you can hear what you're doing with only the streaming's latency.

Meters

The meters on the dark-green IO unit are D/A (upper) and A/D (lower) converter levels and the two knobs next to them are digital gain/attenuation before D/A and after A/D.

mixanalog IO unit
Mixanalog IO unit with D/A and A/D converter level meters

The top-left meters are monitor/output meters and show the level that's going to be written to the file when you bounce the track. The inner two columns show the sample peak level and the outer two show RMS/VU level with 300ms averaging. You can change RMS meters to LUFS meters and turn on/off the meter history for additional information.

RMS meters, LUFS meters and meter history

Bounce

When you're happy with what you're hearing, click the BOUNCE button in the lower-right corner. That will open a pop-up where you can name your processed file and select the target sample rate. We took great care in adjusting the resampler's parameters to get the best possible sound quality (we're using the SoxR resampler library) but if you want complete control over that process, choose 192kHz and resample the bounce with your own sample rate converter of choice.

5. Shop

Shop

You can find Shop next to Sessions and My Files tabs. Here you can either buy more MATs in one-time purchase packets or switch to a subscription that naturally packs even more bang for the buck.

6. Profile

Profile

You can access your profile if you click on the arrow next to your name in the top right corner of the page. This is where you can find the data about your account and a check-switch to allow us to send you emails (or not, but we really don't send a lot of them and it can be useful to get a reminder shortly before your booking starts).

DONE!

Basically, this is how to use Mixanalog! For more in-depth info about particular pieces of gear please visit our YouTube channel, where you can find a playlist of tutorials and guides for every piece of gear that we offer, or join us on one of the bi-weekly live webinars on the same channel and ask away - we'll be happy to give any and all the info needed!

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