Mixer

The Mixer is a versatile control module providing a standardized interface to drive almost any part of the Visual Stage app. It consists of 24 tracks composed of a fixed number of macros that can be assigned to almost any available parameter of any module.

In the [Mixer layout], tracks are aligned with two rows of modules. The top row for source modules and the bottom row for destination modules. Which source and/or destination module each track is aligned with is normally organized automatically by the Mixer Layout Wizard, based on the current routing of source and destination modules. Track name, color and macro assignment can likewise be generated automatically with Auto-Config Mixer Tracks, or organized and set manually - depending on the current project, which parameters need to be controlled and how.

If the most useful parameters can be seen and changed directly from the interface of their respective modules, many of them are actually hidden and accessible only from the macros, hence the central role of the Mixer, allowing access to all parameters unavailable otherwise through the app’s interface.

While typically each used source or destination module will have its own designated track (i.e. one track controlling one module), it is absolutely possible to mix parameters from various modules within the same track for different approaches (e.g. one track to control all relevant parameters for one given scene).

Navigating tracks

Only 8 of the 24 tracks are visible at any given time in the Mixer layout. To access tracks not visible, the mixer can be horizontally scrolled through the scrollbar and arrow buttons below it. Those can be mapped to MIDI buttons as well (see MIDI Control). The number of tracks scrolled by the arrow buttons is defined with the Banking Mode available in the MIDI mapping settings.

Track layout

The Mixer Layout Wizard fills tracks by walking through all enabled destination modules in their rendering Order (as set in Modules settings), and aligning each with its routed source, if any:

• Layers assigned to a Group are placed together, immediately before the Group itself, sorted by their own Order.
• The Stage’s two dedicated layers are expanded into tracks at the position set by their own Order: the Skybox (destination only, since it has no routed source) on one hand, and each enabled Performer and Platform on the other - one track per module, Performers first then Platforms, all following each other since they share the single Order of that dedicated layer (up to 8 tracks in total if every Performer and Platform is enabled).
• Since the Skybox, Performer and Platform modules actually live in the Stage layout and are too large to fit the Mixer, they are represented there by placeholders instead of their real interface.
• A source module routed to several destinations (eg. a Torrent feeding two Layers) only appears once as an actual module in the Mixer; its other tracks show a text placeholder repeating its name instead.
• Source modules that aren’t routed to any destination but are still enabled (eg. Noise used only as a displacement input for an FX Rack effect) are still given a track, appended at the end.

Only the first 20 of the Mixer’s 24 tracks are managed by the Wizard and by Auto-Config Mixer Tracks. The last four (21 to 24) are always left out of both features and reserved for macros mapped by hand, with no source or destination module ever shown there - so there’s always room for manually mapped controls alongside the automatically managed ones. If the current routing requires more than 20 tracks, the modules beyond the 20th are simply not shown in the Mixer.

Given that the configuration of the Mixer (track name, color, macro assignment preset) is stored in the Setup presets, it is possible, for example, to have multiple configurations for different phases of a production. For example, the writing and production phase might require access to a lot of parameters for building and fine-tuning presets, but only few of them might actually be accessed for manual control during rehearsal and performance.

The Mixer is also the entry point for remotely controlling the Visual Stage app through OSC and MIDI controllers.