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MIXING BASICS

A tour of the timeline — the tracks you can create, the controls on every track, and how to get audio and MIDI clips onto them.

// TRACK TYPES

A Glitch session is a stack of tracks. Each track is a lane on the timeline and a channel strip in the mixer at the same time — there is no separate mixer window. Four track types are available:

Audio track — Holds audio clips. Drag an audio file in or arm the track and record from an input.

MIDI track — Holds MIDI clips. Notes inside a clip are played by an instrument assigned to the track (Sampler, DrumRack, or a VST3 plugin).

Group track — Sums a set of child tracks into a single bus. Useful for drum stems, backing vocals, or any submix you want to process as one.

Master track — The final stereo output of the session, always present at the bottom of the track list.

Three ways to insert a new track:

  • The Insert Audio Track and Insert MIDI Track buttons at the top of the track-controls panel.
  • Right-click any track and pick Insert Audio Track or Insert MIDI Track from the menu.
  • Keyboard shortcuts ⌘T or ⌘⇧T.

// TRACK CONTROLS

Every track strip exposes the same core controls. Audio, MIDI, and group tracks share this set; the master track shows the same minus input arming.

01 / LEVEL

Volume

Vertical slider with a live dB readout you can command-click to type an exact value. Double click to reset to zero db.

02 / BALANCE

Pan

Left–right balance for the track. Defaults to center; command-click to type or drag to set. Double click to reset to center.

03 / MUTE

Mute

Silence this track without removing it from the mix. Lights up when active.

04 / SOLO

Solo

Play only soloed tracks. Multiple tracks can be soloed at once; everything else is auto-muted.

05 / ARM

Record arm

Audio: route an input into the track for recording. MIDI: capture notes from a controller. Glows red when armed.

06 / IDENTITY

Name & color

Right-click and select rename from the context menu. Pick a color from the palette to keep the arrangement readable at a glance.

07 / LAYOUT

Track height

Drag the bottom edge of any track to resize it. Make the track you are working on tall; collapse the rest.

08 / CHAIN

Effect chain

Drop effects onto the track to build a serial signal chain. Reorder by dragging; bypass any slot individually.

// AUDIO CLIPS

An audio clip is a placed region of audio on an audio track. Clips are non-destructive — every edit changes how the clip plays, not the file on disk.

PLACING A CLIP

  • Drag a file in — drag any audio file (WAV, AIFF, MP3, etc.) from Finder onto an audio track lane. The clip lands at the drop position.
  • Record — arm the track, choose an input, hit the transport record button. A new clip is created from the moment recording starts.

EDITING A CLIP

  • Move — drag the body of the clip left or right on the timeline.
  • Trim — drag the left or right edge to shorten or extend the clip without changing the underlying file.
  • Split — split a clip at the playhead or cursor position into two independent clips.
  • Gain & mute— each clip has its own gain and a mute flag, applied on top of the track's level.
  • Pitch shift — transpose a clip in semitones, up or down an octave (±12).
  • Reverse — flip the clip to play back-to-front.
  • Warp modes — choose how Glitch handles tempo changes:Repitch — pitch and time scale together (the classic vinyl effect).Complex — pitch-preserving stretch (WSOLA), the right choice for melodic or vocal material.
  • Name & color — rename a clip or recolor it to make the arrangement readable.

// MIDI CLIPS

A MIDI clip is a region of notes on a MIDI track. The notes themselves make no sound — they trigger whichever instrument is loaded on the track.

CREATING A CLIP

  • Double-click an empty area of a MIDI track to create a new empty clip at that position.
  • Record — arm the track and play a MIDI controller; incoming notes are captured into a new clip on the transport.

EDITING NOTES

Each clip shows its notes inline as horizontal bars on the timeline — pitch on the vertical axis, time on the horizontal. Open the clip to edit in the piano roll, where each note has:

  • Pitch — MIDI 0 through 127, drawn against the keyboard at the left.
  • Start beat — the position of the note within the clip, snapped to the active grid.
  • Duration — drag the right edge of a note to lengthen or shorten it.
  • Velocity — 0 to 127, controlling how hard the note hits the instrument.

The piano-roll grid subdivision (e.g. sixteenth notes) drives where new notes snap when drawn or dragged. Use the grid selector to tighten or loosen quantization.

// NEXT

A MIDI track only makes sound once an instrument is loaded on it. The Sampler, DrumRack, and VST3 hosting are covered in the Instruments guide.