Mixxx reference

February 11, 2016

AutoDJ

  • Activate with Shift-F12, a little android icon will appear in top left corner and control over crossfader will be automated
  • Skip track with Shift-F11
  • Set fade time to negative value for breaks in between songs, don’t forget to turn it off. Setting a negative value will make mixxx not respect cue points!
  • Use crates to refill cue if necessary
  • Seeking to cue point on load can be turned off in preferences

Musicality

  • The BPM detection is insufficicient

Knobs

  • Any effect will increase audio latence, this includes key lock
  • Don’t forget to turn off filters after the song has ended
  • Mind the crossfader
  • Use the gain slider cautiously, and turn it off immediately afterwards
  • For effects: select appropriate channel

Recording

  • CTRL-R to start-stop recording, little icon will appear in top left corner

Organizing

  • Use playlists for tracks in a specific order
    • Tandas are designated T:Genre:Artist(tempo):Singer/mood/etc. (year from-til), where genres are
      • Cd - Candombe
      • Fx - Foxtrot
      • Mi - Milonga (Mi/Cd: Milonga Candombe)
      • Ta - Tango
      • Va - Vals
      • X<Genre> - Fusion (genre), nuevo
    • Setlists are designated Deployment:Date:Location
  • Use crates for collections of tracks

Tagging

  • Song title: Name | Alternative Name (canta Singer y Another Singer y coro)(en vivo, extra information).
  • Extra information, in title or otherwhere, is in Spanish
  • Singer also goes into vocal field(which most players do not display)
  • Artist: Just the name, omission of ‘Orquesta’ if possible e.g.: Carlos Di Sarli, Orquesta Típica Victor, Quinteto Francisco Canaro(Dir. Antonio D’Alessandro)
  • Album: Title | Subtitle. If artist is mentioned in album title, include the name in album tag(e.g. Milongueando con Canaro). Disc number goes into a separate tag
  • Genre is capitalized/title cased, e.g. Milonga Candombe
  • Year: Either YYYY or YYYY-MM-DD
  • grouping tag is for eras(guardia vieja, early, late, …), can be displayed in mixxx
  • Use comment field for danceability information/tagging, trivia etc. goes into my notebook
  • Tagging-todo:
    • Implement rating system from 0 to 100 like on tango-dj.at instead of stars, rate for milonga suitability(and custom tag/commandeer one?)
    • Grouping standards(maybe from tejastango)
    • Where to put Instrumental tag? In song title(El chamuyo (Instrumental))? Into grouping?
  • Fuzzy matching: ~key:c#m finds “tracks with harmonically compatible keys to C# minor”
  • artist:Danger duration:>3m rating:>=4
  • genre:hip-hop -year:1990 (negate with -)

Building, audio format support

Don’t forget to install libmp4v2-2

for m4a support:

Ubuntu should have m4a support with ubuntu-restricted-extras and ubuntu-restricted-addons installed

If not, use these prebuilt files:

or build everything yourself like a madman:

  • apt-get build-dep mixxx, put deb-src [...] universe in sources.list
  • install libupower-glib-dev
  • install libavformat-dev libavcodec-dev for ffmpeg and m4a/aac support
  • install development build from mixxx.org
  • scons --PREFIX=<prefix> -j <cores> optimize=native faad=1 ffmpeg=1
  • go to lin64_build/plugins/lin64_build/m4a/ and copy libsoundsourcem4a.so to /usr/lib/mixxx/plugins/soundsource/
  • Links

Importing

  • Exact Audio Copy will write id3(?) tags that are hard to get rid of. They do not appear in puddletag, but can be spotted with a hex editor(e.g. bless). Use Tag Tools -> Remove id3/ape Tags in puddletag to remove them, or use mutagen to programatically get rid of those tags and weird output like Junto a tu corazon;Junto a tu corazon (feat. Alberto Podesta)

USB audio

  • Check with dmesg -w whether the device was recognized as USB AUDIO
  • Check aplay -l whether the interface(?) appears
  • Check whether snd_usb_audio kernel module is loaded with lsmod
  • After a kernel update: reboot and check if issues persist
  • Install alsa-utils, alsa-firmware, alsa-plugins, pulseaudio-alsa
  • Manage with pavucontrol

Wishlist

  • Support for rating system from 0 to 1, in arbitrary increments
  • Cue out points
  • Saving metadata to files
  • Displaying arbitrary tags
  • Less weird sorting, reliable sorting either by Artist-Album-Discnr-Tracknr or Album-Discnr-Tracknr
  • Setting loudness, not just via ReplayGain but also manually, to make cortinas more quiet
  • ‘Danceability’ tag(or maybe just use comment)
  • Showing comment as multiline popover when hovering instead of a long string

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