The mixer and automation

Keyboard shortcuts use ⌘ on macOS and Ctrl on Windows and Linux; ⌥ is Alt on Windows and Linux. Mix changes are heard as you make them, become one undo step once you let go, and are saved with the project.

Mix on the track heads

Each audio track’s head, beside its lane, has:

• M and S to mute and solo it. A folder’s apply to everything in it. Solo works in place, as in REAPER: a soloed folder, or a soloed track that others send to, is heard with what feeds it.
• The outputs it is heard on (see Outputs).
• Volume, from −∞ to +12 dB. Double-click it for 0 dB.
• Pan. Double-click it for the center.

A MIDI track has M, S, and an output button for the MIDI port and channel it sends to, and no volume or pan. See MIDI.

The Master row, under the tracks, is what every track is heard through unless it is sent elsewhere. It has M (mute everything heard through the master), volume, pan, and a menu for its automation.

The mixer

Press X, or choose the mixer button on the toolbar, to show the mixer under the lanes. Press X again to hide it. Drag the line above it to give it more room or less.

The mixer has a strip for each track, in its folders, and the Master strip at the end. Each strip has:

• The track’s name, and M and S (the master has M only).
• A fader, up to +12 dB, with the track’s level meters beside it, left and right. A red line over a meter marks a peak above 0 dB.
• Its volume in dB, and its pan.
• Where it sends, such as “→ Reverb −10.5”.

The strips and the track heads show the same mix: change one and the other follows. The meters show the project in front as you hear it. The stage screens show the same mixer: see The mixer on the Performance page.

Outputs

Choose the audio device in Settings → Audio. Prest opens it on all its outputs, at the device’s own sample rate, and lists each device with its number of outputs.

Each audio track is heard on the outputs chosen beside its name: a pair (1/2, 3/4, and so on) or one output alone. An output the device does not have is marked (none), and a track sent there is not heard. This is how you send, for example, a click track and cues to the band’s in-ear outputs and the rest to front of house. The metronome has outputs of its own, in Settings → Audio.

Folders, sends, and the master

Tracks sit in folders, as REAPER keeps them. A folder is a bus: its tracks are heard through it, then through the folder it is in, then through the master.

Choose Routing… in a track’s menu to change where it goes:

• Heard through its folder (or Heard through the master, for a track in no folder): turned off, the track is heard only where it sends.
• Invert polarity.
• Send to: choose a track to send this one to. Each send has where it is Taken from (After the fader, Before the fader, or Before FX), its own volume and pan, Mute, Invert polarity, Mono, and Remove.
• Sent here from lists the tracks that send to this one.

Prest plays no effects, so a send to a reverb return from REAPER or Live is heard without its reverb.

Automation

Volume, pan, and mute automation is drawn as a lane under its track.

Show a lane. In a track’s menu, or the master’s, choose Show volume automation, Show pan automation, or Show mute automation. The same items say Hide once the lane is shown.

Edit points:

• Click the lane to add a point. Clicked near the line, the point goes on the line.
• With snapping on (G), points snap to beats. Hold ⌘ to place one anywhere.
• Drag a point to move it. It shows its value and time as you drag, and sticks at 0 dB (for pan, the center) as it passes. Dragged only up or down, it keeps its time.
• ⌥-click a point to set it back to 0 dB, the center, or unmuted.
• Double-click a point, or pick it and press Delete, to delete it.

A dotted line marks 0 dB, or the center. A mute lane steps from on to off, shaded where the track is muted.

The lane’s head has:

• On: click to bypass the lane, and again to hear it. A bypassed lane keeps its points.
• The shape of the picked point, which sets how it runs to the next: Linear, Square, Slow start and end, Fast start, Fast end, or Bezier. Mute lanes only step.
• A menu: Reset point to its default, Reset envelope to its default, Hide, and Remove envelope.

A track’s volume automation scales its fader, and its pan automation moves from its pan knob, as in REAPER.

A clip’s own automation (volume, pan, mute, and pitch) is in its properties: double-click the clip, then use the menu under Automation of the take. It is drawn on the clip.

Automation from REAPER, Ableton Live, and DAWproject projects comes in with them and plays as it was written. See Projects and files.

Next: Projects and files.