Mackie Tracktion 3

Mackie Tracktion 3

If you like sifting through endless menus and windows to make music, Tracktion 3 is not for you. Based on a simple, single-screen interface, Tracktion is the fast, powerful, complete solution for turning your ideas into finished songs. And unlike the competition, Tracktion 3 comes with all the power and plug-ins you'll ever need. So if you want to keep your music flowing--not locked in menus or limitations—you've come to the right place.

Composition is the first part of the music-making process, and it’s also the most important. If you’re like many musicians, you don’t want your audio software to simply document your performances; you also want it to inspire them. So we made sure T3’s interface served up everything you needed to get your creative juices flowing, right at your fingertips.

LOOP BROWSER

Tracktion 3’s integrated Loop Browser is possibly the most obvious difference between this and previous versions of Tracktion. This Loop Browser is a big time-saver when you’re writing music. It lets you pull up a massive variety of pre-recorded music loops in the widest possible range of file formats, including Recycle, Apple Loops and Acid. The Loop Browser pre-organizes these loops by “instruments”, “genres” and “descriptors” (single, ensemble, part, fill, acoustic, etc.). You can further narrow by “key” (major, minor, both, neither), and finally via a “search” field where you can type in keywords. So you just narrow your search, then click through the loops to audition them. Once you find the loop you like, drag it into the Arrange Window. To get you started, both the Tracktion 3 Project and Ultimate Bundles include hundreds of ultra high-quality loops in a variety of styles from Sonic Reality. And you can find many, many more on commercially available loop CDs and on the Internet. You can even create your own loops and make them searchable for easy finding in the future.

TIME STRETCHING / PITCH SHIFTING

At first, Time Stretching and Pitch Shifting may seem a bit out of place in a section on “Composition.” But that’s only until you use these powerful tools in action. In the case of Tracktion 3’s new high-quality Time Stretching, it lets you radically adjust the tempo of various loops and samples - or even your own recorded tracks - and bring them into your current creation with superb results. Pitch Shifting lets you put instruments and samples that were originally played in other keys into your song, making it sound as if they were played expressly for your current creation. Imagine taking an old ballad vocal and time stretching it up 20 beats per minute for your new dance track. Or getting your drummer to play that song 10 beats per minute slower - without ever having to talk to him, of course. With built-in Time Stretching and Pitch Shifting, it’s that easy.

VIRTUAL INSTRUMENTS

It used to be that recording musicians were limited to the actual instruments that they and their friends owned. No longer. The amount and quality of virtual instruments on the market today is staggering. And Tracktion 3, of course, gives you some of the cream of the crop. Imagine auditioning over 200 different simulated analog synth sounds to find just the right one. Or dozens of pianos... or thousands of drums... You get the picture. It’s like having a warehouse full of both popular and ultra-obscure, well-recorded, instruments - literally a few clicks away. Just connect a MIDI keyboard and play away. Both Tracktion 3 Project Bundle and Ultimate Bundle give you top offerings like SampleTank, DrumCore, Garritan Personal Orchestra, Native Instruments Kontakt 2Player, LinPlug Alpha 3 Classic Synth and Cronox 3 Sample Synth, the RM IV Drum Addiction, and more. (Click here to learn about the differences between the T3 bundles and the virtual instruments included with each.)

MIDI EDITOR

For recording performance information from an external MIDI device (like a keyboard or sampler), Tracktion 3 features a powerful-yet-streamlined MIDI editor. This MIDI editor - widely acclaimed in the previous version of Tracktion - has been optimized for even greater speed and ease of use, whether you’re recording frantically from your synth or doing detailed editing of a performance with the MIDI pencil tool. And like everything Tracktion, the MIDI editor is a snap to use, so you’ll keep your composition flowing right along.

REWIRE

Because we realize that many new-school remixers and electronic music makers absolutely live and die composing in software like Ableton Live and Reason, Tracktion 3 includes full ReWire 2.0 support for integration with killer applications like these and other ReWire-supporting software. ReWire is like having an "invisible cable" that allows you to connect one application to another so you can stream audio and MIDI to and from the linked programs. Tracktion acts as a master (or "mixer") application to which other ReWire slave (or "synth applications") can be linked; simply enable ReWire in Tracktion, setup a track to receive the output of the "synth application," launch it, and crank out that hit to send to Paris Hilton’s ex-boyfriend’s cousin.

QUICKTIME™ VIDEO INTEGRATION

For those composing music for video, Tracktion 3 supports QuickTime video playback. Just select a movie and start tracking - compose music, add effects, replace your dialog, and win your Oscar®. This opens up a world of project studio post-production to Tracktion users. And since both Tracktion and QuickTime are cross-platform compatible, it's as easy to share video projects as it is audio.