Mixer guide

Mixer is a mix maker built for dancers. You add your songs, Mixer detects each one's tempo and where its 1 falls, and builds the mix with the cuts on whole 8-counts and the transitions already in. Then you fine-tune everything your way and download it.

Your songs aren't uploaded anywhere: everything happens in your browser, including the tempo detection and the export.

The first time you come in from a browser you don't need to sign up: the visit is free until you close the tab. To export the mix you do need your UTOPIC account (it's free, and you get 1 month of Pro).

First mix for a dance routine?See how to make it in 3 steps→

1. Drop them or pick them

   Drop your songs on Drop your songs here or tap the area to choose them. MP3, WAV, M4A and AIFF all work, and you can add several at once.

2. Wait for the tempo

   Each song goes through tempo detection, one after another: you'll see Waiting to detect the tempo and then a bar with the percentage. The first time takes a little longer (the detector downloads); after that, a few seconds per song.

3. Check the list

   The songs appear in Your songs, each with its length and its tempo tagged Automatic. The arrows change the order and the bin removes one.

   

4. Open the editor

   When they're ready, press Open the editor. If you want a specific section of a song, set it first (see the From and To section). You can come back to this list later with Songs and sections.

On Free, each mix takes up to 3 songs; with Pro, as many as you like. To add more with the editor open, use Add songs.

Mixer suggests each song's tempo and where the 1 of its eights falls. It's a suggestion: what you set always wins. Next to the tempo you can see where it comes from: Automatic, Tapped by you, Typed by you or Corrected by you.

Tap a song on the timeline and its panel opens below. In Song tempo you have everything to correct it:

1. Type it or fine-tune it

   Type the BPM in the box (50 to 220, with decimals if needed), or adjust it with −1 and +1, and with − and + in steps of 0.1.

2. Half or double

   If Mixer counts it twice as fast or half as fast as you do, press ÷2 or ×2: the button already shows the tempo you'd get. The 1 next to the In point stays where it is.

3. Move the 1

   In The 1 you can see whether it's (Mixer's suggestion) or (your choice). One count earlier and One count later shift it one count at a time; the In and Out points move with it to stay on whole 8s.

4. Or another tempo?

   Some songs can be counted two ways (it happens with triplets). Then, while the tempo is still the automatic one, a button like Or 94 BPM? appears next to it: tap it to count the song that way; if you don't like it, the same button takes you back.

If you've corrected a song by hand and want to go back to what Mixer detected, press Back to automatic: the button reminds you which tempo it was.

If you'd rather set it yourself, or Mixer couldn't find a clear beat, press Tap it myself in the list or Tap it in (your first tap is the 1) in the song's panel. What you tap replaces the automatic tempo.

1. Listen

   Press Listen. To start somewhere else in the song, tap the waveform: the yellow line says Start here.

2. Start on the 1

   Wait for the start of a phrase (the 1 of an 8) and start tapping right there. Your first tap is the 1: it sets the bar so the 8-count lines up when you mix.

3. Tap to the beat

   Tap the big Tap here to the beat button (or the T key): 1, 2, 3, 4… 8 taps are enough; the more, the more accurate. Next to it you see the tempo so far and how many taps are left.

4. Save it

   Press Save tempo. If it comes out with decimals and you know it's a round number, Round to 94 (with your number) makes it whole. Lost the count? Start over.

   

If you already know the tempo, type it in the Already know the BPM? Type it: box and press Use it. If you've tapped once on the 1 first, Mixer uses it to place the bar.

You don't have to use the whole song. In the list, each song has its Section with two fields: From and To. Type from which minute to which minute you want it, for example 0:45 and 2:10, and press Enter or leave the field.

1. Mixer snaps it to the 8s

   The In point goes to the 1 closest to From and the Out point to the end of the 8 closest to To. Below, it tells you where it comes in and goes out and how many whole 8s are left. If a whole 8 doesn't fit, it snaps to the nearest count.

   

2. No section? It still trims

   If you leave it empty, Mixer skips the quiet intro and the fading ending, always starting on a 1.

3. Transitions go in by themselves

   Between songs it adds a one-8 transition (a fade on Free; a bass swap with Pro) and lines it up so the count keeps going. If the last song is cut before its end, it adds a one-8 fade at the end.

4. What you change stays

   As soon as you change a transition or move an In point by hand, Mixer leaves it alone. To send a song back to its automatic cut, press Remove section.

In the editor, the section you asked for shows in the song's panel as two dashed lines, so you can see how far each mark moved to land on whole 8s.

At the top is the transport: Play, the loop button, the clock, the mix Tempo (60 to 200 BPM, with − and + in half steps), the Metronome, the zoom (Zoom out, Whole mix and Zoom in) and Add songs.

Below it, the timeline: songs alternate between two lanes, each with its waveform and its grid. The thick lines with a «1» are the start of each 8. The red line shows where you are: tap the ruler at the top or any empty spot to move it there.

Between songs there's a pill with the transition's drawing, one dot per effect and how many counts it lasts. The striped area with the yellow curve is where the transition plays. At the start and end of the mix there are two more pills: the intro and the ending.

1. Tap to edit

   Tap a song or a pill to open its panel below. Tapping the selected song again moves the red line to that spot (on your phone, the first tap already does it).

2. Reorder and remove

   In the song's panel, Earlier and Later move it and Remove takes it out of the mix (Ctrl+Z brings it back).

3. Choose its tempo in the mix

   In Tempo in the mix, each song plays at the mix tempo by default. You can keep Its own tempo; setting a custom one (Custom) is Pro. If a song has to be sped up or slowed down more than 10 %, Mixer warns you.

4. Keep the pitch (Pro)

   With Keep the pitch on (it's on by default in Pro), the song changes tempo without the vocals going up or down: Mixer prepares it in your browser in a few seconds and, meanwhile, it plays with the pitch shifted. Underneath, you'll see how many semitones it would shift without it and, if any song is set differently, Apply to all sets them all the same way. On Free, speeding a song up raises the pitch and slowing it down lowers it.

Each song plays from its In point to its Out point. You can move them on the timeline (each song's white edges) or in the song's panel (the yellow bars over the waveform). Both work the same, and you can see the track stretch or shrink live.

1. Choose the precision

   In Precision you decide what the edges snap to: 1 count, 2 counts, 4 counts or One 8 (2, 4 and 8 count from the 1). With Pro, also ¼ count and ½ count.

2. Drag the edge

   Grab the edge and drag it: it moves in precision steps and snaps to the red line when you get close. At the top, when you move the In point, the song stays put and what comes before it moves.

3. Or use the red line

   Put the red line wherever you want and press In point at the red line (I) or Out point at the red line (O).

   

4. Listen

   Tap the waveform: between your marks, the mix plays from there; outside, you hear the song on its own to find a spot.

5. Undo freely

   At the top you have Undo and Redo (Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Shift+Z). Each drag is a single step.

Under the waveform, a line tells you at which second of the song it comes in and goes out, how many counts and eights it lasts, and from which minute to which minute it plays in the mix.

With Cut here you split a song into two cuts right at the red line. Each cut keeps everything from the song (tempo, grid, the 1, Keep the pitch…) and from then on you edit it on its own, like any other song: its In and Out points and its transition to the next one. On the timeline and in Your songs they show up as «Song · cut #2».

1. Pick the song and move the red line

   Tap the song you want to cut and move the red line to the cut point: tap the time ruler, or press Play and stop there. On your phone, one tap on the song does both: it selects it and puts the red line there.

2. Cut

   Press the scissors next to Play, or Cut at the red line in the song's panel, or the C key: the selected song is cut (if the red line is outside it, Mixer tells you). The cut snaps to the 1 when it's close (always, with the whole mix in view); zoom in and it lands on the precision you've chosen. Right after cutting, the song sounds exactly as before: between the two cuts there's an Instant Hard cut.

3. Remove a cut from the middle

   Cut twice, tap the middle cut and press Remove. What's left is joined with a one-8 transition, lined up, like between two songs.

To repeat a chorus, add the song again and cut it.

Cuts of the same song, and the same song added again, count as one song: on Free you can cut as much as you like without going over the 3-song limit. Cutting and removing are undone with Ctrl+Z (on your phone, with Undo in the notice), one step each.

When the 8s line up, the count keeps going as one song hands over to the next: if the first ends on 8, the next comes in on its 1. If trimming a song breaks the count, Mixer tells you:

That change's pill gets a red dot, and Line up the 8s appears above the timeline with how many changes are off. In the change's panel you'll see The 8s don't line up and why: which count the outgoing song ends on and which count the incoming song's In point has to land on.

1. Line it up

   Press Line up the 8s. Mixer moves the incoming song's In point to the closest spot where the count keeps going. The notice turns green: The 8s line up.

2. Or all at once

   The button above the timeline lines up every change in one go.

Tap a pill to open the change's panel: at the top it says which song goes out and which comes in, and whether it's Automatic (Mixer set it). Listen plays the change from a little before.

1. Pick the transition

   Fade (one goes down while the other comes up) and Hard cut (the new one drops in on the 1) are on Free. With Pro, also Bass swap (both play and the bass swaps halfway through, like a DJ does) and Pause (a few counts of silence, for a freeze).

2. Set the length

   In Length: Instant, 2 counts, 4 counts, One 8, Two 8s or Four 8s, or use the slider. The transition happens inside your marks: each song starts and ends exactly where you put them.

3. Decide where it goes

   In Where it goes you choose whether the transition uses counts from inside your marks (Before its Out point, After its In point) or audio from outside your marks (After its Out point, Before its In point).

4. Add effects (Pro)

   On the outgoing song: cut the bass, muffle, echo, reverb, riser, stutter, rewind or vinyl brake. On the incoming one: bring in the bass, open up or vinyl start. You can combine them and set the intensity.

5. Or use a combo (Pro)

   In Combos there are ten ready-made ones (Smooth, DJ swap, Drop, Freeze, Long echo, Vinyl…) that always land on the 1. If you build one you like, Save this one.

   

The pills at the start and the end open the intro and the ending of the mix: Straight or Fade, plus effects with Pro.

The loop repeats a stretch of the mix over and over, so you can rehearse a part of the routine without touching anything. It's on Free and Pro, and it doesn't change what you export: the downloaded mix comes out whole.

1. Mark it on the ruler

   Drag along the time ruler (the strip at the top of the timeline). The loop snaps to the red line and to the 1s; with the whole mix in view it always lands on the 1s, and zooming in gets finer.

2. Or with a button

   The loop button next to Play, or the L key: if there's no loop, it makes one of the 8 where the red line is. In a song's panel, Loop this song repeats the whole song.

3. Adjust it

   Drag the tabs at the ends to change the start or the end, or drag inside the loop to move it as a whole. With the keyboard: Shift+I and Shift+O put the start and the end at the red line.

4. Turn it on and off

   The same button (or L) turns it on and off. When it's on, the loop shows in blue and everything outside it dims; pressing Play outside it jumps to its start (if you're no more than one 8 before it, it starts from there so you can come in on time).

   

5. Remove it

   The loop pill above the timeline says where it goes from and to and how long it lasts; its X removes it.

Creating, moving or removing the loop can be undone with Ctrl+Z; turning it on or off can't (like the metronome). The loop follows the music: if you change the tempo or trim, it stays on the same part.

1. Open the export

   Press Export mix, top right. You'll see how long the mix is and its tempo.

2. Choose format and quality

   In Format: MP3 (on Free) or WAV and AIFF (Pro). In Quality: Low, Medium or High (high is Pro); under each one you'll see the kbps or the kHz and bits, and at the bottom, roughly how big the file will be.

   

3. Download it

   Press Download MP3 (or the format you chose). Mixer renders the mix in your browser and saves it with a name like «UTOPIC Mixer 92 BPM.mp3».

You need your account to download: during the free visit, the button says Create your free account to download.

On Free you get 3 mixes a month. A mix counts when you download it; downloading the same one again (the same songs) in another quality or format doesn't use another. With Pro there's no limit.

The whole mix is exported, with its transitions and effects. The metronome and the loop aren't in it.

On a computer the keyboard is faster (when you're not typing in a field):

Space plays or pauses. ← and → jump one 8 back or forward, and Home goes back to the start. I and O put the selected song's In and Out points at the red line. L creates, turns on or turns off the loop, and Shift+I / Shift+O move its start and end to the red line. C cuts the song at the red line. Ctrl+Z undoes and Ctrl+Shift+Z redoes.

When tapping in the tempo, T is the tap and Space starts or stops the song. In the export window, Esc closes it.

Mixer works the same on your phone: the transport on top, the timeline (which scrolls sideways) and the panel below. Edges and loop tabs are easier to grab with your finger, and dragging along the ruler marks a loop; to scroll the timeline, drag over the songs. One tap on a song selects it and moves the red line there, and the scissors cut the selected song.

If you'll use it often, the Install button on the app page adds it to your home screen with its own icon.

What each plan gives you in Mixer.

The Pro price, monthly or yearly, is on the plans page. See the plans →