Mixing Desk and Mixing Sessions

The Mixing Desk is a flexible and powerful mixing console that groups a variety of properties into one view allowing you to fine-tune the audio mix of your game. You can add any object or bus to the Mixing Desk and then define routing, apply effects and Attenuation ShareSets, edit state properties, and modify properties of individual objects and busses within your project.

If you start a capture session, you can also view the activity of each object within the Mixing Desk, including when a voice is playing, if a bus is being ducked, and whether effects are being bypassed. Each bus can also be muted allowing you to tweak the individual objects within your audio mix.

The Mixing Desk is basically a grid where each column is a mixer strip and each row is a section related to a set of common properties in Wwise. Each mixer strip is bound to an object, the name of which is displayed at the top and bottom of the each strip.

	Tip
	By default in Wwise, you can switch to the Mixer layout by pressing F8.

A shortcut menu is available for each property setting in the mixer strip. These menus contain a set of commands specifically related to the selected property. To access the shortcut menus, simply right-click the property settings in the mixer strip. You can also arrange the mixer strips in any order by dragging them from one position to another.

	Tip
	When multiple objects are selected, modifying a property (slider or fader) will affect the whole selection and set the object's value to all other objects in selection. However, when holding the Alt key and dragging a slider or fader, the selected objects values will be offset instead of being set to an absolute value.

Using a Control Surface with the Mixing Desk

You can attach a control surface (MIDI hardware controller) to the mixing desk. For instructions, refer to Understanding Control Surface View Groups.

Additionally, the shortcut menu for the Mixing Desk (when right-clicking outside the grid) shows a Control Surface Bindings sub menu. This sub menu allows selecting which of the State Group being referred in the session will be used for the control surface binding group associated with the Mixing Desk.

By default, when using a Control Surface Binding Group on the Mixing Desk, the objects associated with each column will be used for the bindings (Session Objects menu item). However, if you select a State Group from the Control Surface Bindings sub menu, the State Group's current state will be used for binding the properties, such as the Voice Volume.

This can be useful when using the Mixing Desk for mixing states. You could have the mixing desk to automatically follow the current state, using the Follow States button. That would affect the control surface bindings.

	Tip
	There are global commands available through keyboard shortcuts or control surface binding that allow you to change which state group is being used for the Control Surface Bindings, without the need for the shortcut menu.

Interface Element

Description

(Mixing Session Selector)

A list of mixing sessions that currently exist within the project.

The name of the selected mixing session is displayed in the corresponding field.

Editing States

The name of each State Group and corresponding States associated with the objects in the mixing session.

The currently selected state changes the States being edited in the Mixing Desk.

Follow States

Determines whether the States in the mixing session follow the States in the game.

When enabled, the mixing session follows the State changes made in game. When disabled, the States in the mixing session do not follow the State changes in game.

Push States

Determines whether changing states in the mixing session will also change the States in the game.

When enabled, each time the editing states are changed in the mixing session, the States will be also change in the game. When disabled, changing the States in the mixing session will not change the States in game.

Opens the Copy States Values dialog where you can copy the property settings from one State to another within the same State Group.

Activity

Indicates, using a series of icons, whether there is any audio activity within the bus or object.

You can monitor the activity of each object or bus using the following icons:

Voice Playback - Indicates when the object is being played. In the case of a bus, it indicates when a playing voice is being routed through the bus.
Ducking - Indicates whether the bus is being ducked.
Effect Bypass - Indicates when an inserted Effect is being bypassed.

(Mute and Solo)

Controls the Mute and Solo states for the object and shows the implicit mute and solo states for the object.

Muting an object silences this object for the current monitoring session. Soloing an object silences all the other objects in the project except this one.

A bold M or S indicates that the Mute or Solo state has been explicitly set for the object. A non-bold M or S with faded color indicates that the object's Mute or Solo state was implicitly set from another object's state.

Muting an object implicitly mutes the descendant objects.

Soloing an object implicitly mutes the sibling objects and implicitly solos the descendant and ancestor objects.

	Tip
	Hold the Ctrl key while clicking a solo button to exclusively solo the object for which the solo button is associated.

	Note
	Mute and Solo are designed to be used for monitoring purposes only and are not persisted in the project or stored in the SoundBanks.

(Meter)

A per channel peak meter. For more information about speaker configurations and channels, refer to Understanding Bus Configurations.

The signal level is green under -6 dB, yellow from -6 to 0 dB, and red over 0 dB.

The meter data source can be synchronized with the currently playing objects or, when a profiling session is present, with historical values. When the meter is showing the profiling session history, use the LIVE button on the Wwise toolbar to return to current values.

	Note
	Meters are not available on non-mixing busses. Refer to Understanding the bus icons and processing status for more information on the various processing statuses.

The Mixing Desk lists all properties associated with the objects added as mixer strips to the Mixing Session, if they are set to be displayed in the Mixing Desk Settings. For details on the properties, refer to the objects' corresponding Property Editor documentation under the Master-Mixer Hierarchy, Actor-Mixer Hierarchy, or Interactive Music Hierarchy pages.

Widens the mixer strips.

Resets the mixer strips to their default width.

Narrows the mixer strips.

	Tip
	When multiple mixer strips are selected (by holding Shift or Ctrl and clicking the mixer strip headers), modifying the Volume, Pitch, Low-pass filter, or High-pass filter will affect the selected objects.

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