Once you've recorded a bunch of tracks, you'll want to be able to mix and pan. In most programs, you'll access the mixing functions from a second window, although more and more DAWs give some ability to mix in their main arrange/edit window. A mixer is designed to look exactly like a hardware mixer, which you learned about in Chapter 10. Each track has its own corresponding mixer strip, a strip of vertical controls. The more tracks you have, the bigger your mixer will be. Figure 12-5 shows a single mixer strip.

This single strip contains a level meter so you can look at the track's audio level. Next to the level meter is a fader. The fader controls the volume of the track. As you pull the fader from bottom to top, the volume increases. The fader lets you place your audio in the stereo mix. In other DAWs, faders may be horizontal controls. Above the fader are the rotary panning controls.

Figure 12-5: single mixer strip

• Typical Track Controls
• Inserting Plug-ins