Manage your Catalog

Previewing a song in the Catalog

If you aren’t sure if a song in the Catalog is the one you want, you can preview it before adding it to the playlist.

To preview a Catalog song

1. Double click on the song in the catalog
2. Skip ahead in the song by clicking on the Seek Preview Ahead button in the song preview toolbar at the bottom of the Catalog. (Use the View menu to hide or show this toolbar.)

To stop playback of a Catalog preview

Do one of the following:

• Click on any other song in the catalog.
• In the song preview toolbar at the bottom of the catalog, click the Stop Previewing button. (Use the View menu to hide or show this toolbar.)  

Searching the Catalog

To select music by Category

1. At the top of the Catalog section of the screen, click the down arrow next to the Show Catalog Category box.  (The default value in this box is Entire Catalog.) 
2. Pick a category from the list that appears

You can then pick from the Catalog entries that have been assigned to that category.

To find a track by name

1. At the top of the Catalog section of the screen, click in the Catalog Search String box.  This is the empty box to the right of the Show Catalog Category box.
2. Type in the letters or words that you want to search for.  For example, enter “Boy” to find songs by the Beastie Boys and Fatboy Slim, as well as songs with the word “Boy” in the title, the album name or the genre.  Type in a number to find songs that were published that year.

MixMeister will search the catalog for songs that match what you typed in.  It will hide any songs that don’t match what you typed.  To see the complete catalog again, delete what you typed in the Catalog Search String box.

Organizing your Catalog with Categories

The MixMeister Catalog allows you to group your songs into mini-catalogs called Categories.  You could use categories to identify the format of songs (such as Techno, Trance, Party or Rock) or to group songs for a particular purpose (such as Dinner Music, Party Warm Up, Aerobics Workout and My Favorites). 

To assign a music file to an existing category

1. In the Catalog, right-click the song you want to assign to an existing category.
2. Click Manage Categories, and then click the category you’re adding the song to.
   (Note: If a song already belongs to a particular category, you’ll see a check mark next to it.)

To assign a music file to a new category

1. In the Catalog, right-click the song you want to assign to a new category.
2. Click Manage Categories, and then click New Category.
3. Type the name of the new category, and then click OK. MixMeister adds this song to the new category and also adds this category name to the list of categories available in Step 2.

To remove a music file from a category

1. In the Catalog, right-click the song you want to remove from a category.
2. Click Manage Categories, and then click one of the check marked categories. The next time you perform these steps for this song, no check mark will appear next to this category.

Note: If you delete a music file while viewing a category, you will remove the song from the entire catalog, not just the current category.

Working with the Beats Per Minute (BPM), Time and Music Plot

MixMeister automatically calculates the BPM and builds a song plot for each song when you add it to the catalog.  Since it takes about 30 seconds to a couple of minutes to calculate the BPM and build the volume plot for each song, MixMeister processes the songs in the background whenever MixMeister is open. It will continue to do this until all of the songs in the catalog have been processed.  If you have a lot of song files, it may take several sessions for MixMeister to calculate the BPM of all of your songs. 

MixMeister uses the BPM, time and music plot to determine how to mix songs together when using either Standard Mixing or Beat Mixing.

As MixMeister calculates the BPM, time and music plot for each music file, it stores this information on your hard disk.  Each song will add between 50 Kb and 500 Kb to the archive file.  You can change the location of this archive file if you want to. 

To get MixMeister to process a song sooner

You can get MixMeister to calculate the BPM, time and song plot for a song sooner simply by dragging the song into the Playlist and then scrolling through the timeline for the entire Playlist.

To manually enter BPM

If MixMeister’s calculation of BPM is way off, follow these steps to modify it:

1. Right click on the song in the Catalog or Playlist.
2. Select Manually Enter BPM from the menu.
3. Do one of the following:
• Press Play and then click your mouse in the box that says Click Here on Each Beat in tune to the music.  MixMeister will calculate the BPM based on your clicks.
• If MixMeister is off by 50%, click either the 2x Current or the ½ Current button to adjust accordingly.
• Simply type in the correct BPM in the “New Value” box.
4. Click OK when you are finished.  MixMeister will update every occurrence of the song in the catalog and playlist with the new value.

Notes about manual BPM entry:

• MixMeister will not accept a BPM entry above 250 or below 40.

To tell MixMeister to recalculate the BPM

Follow these steps if you want MixMeister to restore a song's BPM to the value that MixMeister detected and reverse any manual overrides on the BPM:

1. Right click on the song in the Catalog or Playlist.
2. Select Recalculate BPM from the menu.

It may take a few seconds for MixMeister to determine the BPM.

To change where the BPM and music plot are stored on your hard disk

Do this:

1. Click on the Tools menu and select Options.
2. Click on the Profile tab at the top of the box that opens to see the Profile page
3. In the Archive Directory box, type in the directory where you want to store the BPM and Music Plot information.  You could also click on the Browse button to select a directory.

Copyright © 2001 MixMeister Technology, LLC