Mix
How loud each track is, where it sits left or right, and how it sounds. The mix is what you hear; the takes don't change. Ctrl+3.
The layout
- The timeline stays. Each track head becomes a mini channel strip: volume, pan, LC / EQ / CMP on-off buttons, M (mute) and S (solo), and fix.
- The console below has a bigger strip for every track: a fader, pan, reverb send, a meter (two bars, left and right, on a stereo track and the master), and one-click FX (LC low-cut, EQ, CMP compressor, AMP, DLY delay).
- The master strip on the right is the last volume control for the whole song, with a loudness readout.
- Track FX on the right shows every knob for the selected track. Hover any knob for what it does.
Let Cobander do the first pass
- Auto mix listens to each track and sets levels by role (drums, bass, guitars, keys, lead and backing vocals), a low-cut, tone, compression, guitars and harmonies panned apart, reverb on vocals. A rough mix to start from. Amp tones are never touched.
- Auto master makes the whole song as loud as a streaming release (−14 LUFS) without distorting; a limiter catches the peaks.
- A/B (or B) flips between before and after. Undo takes it all back.
Fix one track in plain words
Click fix on any strip. The moves are named for what they do, and each is undoable:
- Vocals: Sit the vocal in the mix, Tame the harshness.
- Bass: Tight and even. Guitar: Less mud, Make room for the vocal. Drums: More punch. Keys: Make room for the vocal.
- Anything: Brighter, Darker, Warmer, Thinner, Even it out (compress), Add space (reverb), Dry it up.
- Copy the sound from… another track. Start over (flat). Fader 0 dB · pan centre. Open Track FX for all the knobs.
Do it by hand
- Fader: volume in dB. 0 is as recorded; −6 is about half as loud.
- Pan: left / right position in the speakers.
- Low-cut (LC): takes out the rumble below an instrument's lowest note. Cleans up vocals and guitars.
- EQ: turn frequencies up or down. Low = bass and boom, mid = body and honk, high = sparkle and hiss.
- Compressor (CMP): evens out loud and quiet moments so a vocal sits steady. Threshold = where it starts working; ratio = how hard.
- Reverb send: how much of the track goes into the shared room sound. The master reverb's decay, pre-delay and damp shape the room for everyone.
- Delay: echo. Synced delay repeats in time with the song.
- Amp: the amp sim for guitar and bass tracks (clean, crunch, lead, high gain, fuzz, bass models and cabinets).
- Low-pass: cuts above a frequency. Takes the pick click off a bass DI, tames fizz.
- Gate: silences a track below a level, so hum and spill between notes go away.
Take-level handles
- Drag the top corners of a take for fade in / fade out. Drag the line up or down for the take's own level.
- Right-click a take → Normalize sets its level from its loudest moment.
Fix a sloppy take
- Right-click the take → ⏱ Timing report shows how early or late each bar is. If the whole take is just late (a latency offset), Nudge fixes it in one click.
- Tighten to the grid… pulls each hit part of the way onto the beat. Try 50–70% before 100%. Preview first. The attacks stay untouched and the original stays in the folder.
- 🎯 Pitch check on a vocal take marks flat (blue), sharp (red) and wrong (amber) notes so you know what to re-sing. Nothing is auto-tuned.
Mute and solo
- M silences a track. S plays only that track (and anything else soloed).
- Mute and solo are yours alone: they live on this computer, never in the shared song, so a bandmate sitting on a solo'd part doesn't take anything out of your mix. Cobander remembers your picks per song on this computer.
Get the song out
- Share ▾ → Bounce the mix: the whole song as one WAV file in the song's
bounces/folder. It also shows up under Versions → Bounces. - Share ▾ → Bounce stems: one file per instrument, for a studio or a friend with a mixing program.
- Share ▾ → Hand off to a DAW…: writes a folder with a project file for a studio program, a MIDI file with the parts as regions and chords as markers, stems, the raw takes and
chart.txt. For when a song outgrows Cobander. - Share ▾ → Share a part — mix + chart: bounces one part (with a bar of ring-out) plus its chart, and copies a message for the group chat.
Compare mixes
- Versions → Tag this version… before you start. Then A/B plays the tagged version against what you have now, from the same spot.
- Every save is in History. Right-click a row → listen to the song before it, or roll back.