Hello everyone, I am a totally blind dj who is sick of using regular cd turn tables to spin tunes at venues. I installed the demo of mixmeister 6 and gave it a whirl. My screen reader (jaws) can read the two track lists, one for normal and the other for preview I guess, but I'm having trouble doing things like changing sprocket positions, using overlay tracks and that kind of thing. Are there keyboard shortcuts to accomplish all the mouse dragging tasks or is attempting advanced mixing with this software going nowhere if I can't drag? This brings to mind a new feature request, maybe as an alternative to dragging, what about an edit box to type in a time in a song where the sprocket will be placed? Any help would be greatly appreciated, I'm sick of burning new cds every week to keep up with promo only and top 40.

Sorry to say there will be no further development changes or improvements to version 6 of MixMeister software ... in fact, it is no longer for sale, so it is curious that you have just now installed a demo of the product ... are you by chance referring to Express 6 rather than Pro 6? Where did you come across this demo?

The two track lists represent the complete library of tracks (on the left) and the current playlist (on the right.)

quote:

Originally posted by MadameFLY:
Sorry to say there will be no further development changes or improvements to version 6 of MixMeister software ... in fact, it is no longer for sale, so it is curious that you have just now installed a demo of the product ... are you by chance referring to Express 6 rather than Pro 6? Where did you come across this demo?

The two track lists represent the complete library of tracks (on the left) and the current playlist (on the right.)

I had to spacifically google around for it, I tried installing 7 originally but found it completely unusable so grabbed old versions of 5 and 6 and found 6 to be the best thus far. But to get back to my original question, I will be unable to use this software unless I can perform drag and drop maneuvers? Or are there keyboard shortcuts not documented in the help files to control live and preview at the same time?

quote:

I will be unable to use this software unless I can perform drag and drop maneuvers?

I would have to say this is true, somewhat. There are keyboard shorcuts to add trax to the playlist, but you will need to 'fine tune' the trax ahead of time (in the beat slicer) using the mouse and dragging a cursor back and forth, visually lining it up with the trax's waveform. This requires us to zoom into key areas and make minute adjustment with visual aids assisting us (this would be the sprocket adjustment you referred to).

Too be honest, I think Fusion would be very difficult to use without vision, however, I am completly speaking out of ignorance, and do not want to under-estimate your abilities (in fact, it would be nice to prove me wrong).

Again, out of ignorance, I would have assumed decks would be the best for your situation. Are you just sick of lugging the decks and cds around, or is there another reason you're looking to move to something else?

and just to clarify things...

no matter what version you go with, 5, 6, express, fusion, etc, there will be a need to fine tune the sprocket locations to the waveform, which is the visual process.

quote:

Originally posted by phreaq:

quote:

I will be unable to use this software unless I can perform drag and drop maneuvers?

I would have to say this is true, somewhat. There are keyboard shorcuts to add trax to the playlist, but you will need to 'fine tune' the trax ahead of time (in the beat slicer) using the mouse and dragging a cursor back and forth, visually lining it up with the trax's waveform. This requires us to zoom into key areas and make minute adjustment with visual aids assisting us (this would be the sprocket adjustment you referred to).

Too be honest, I think Fusion would be very difficult to use without vision, however, I am completly speaking out of ignorance, and do not want to under-estimate your abilities (in fact, it would be nice to prove me wrong).

Again, out of ignorance, I would have assumed decks would be the best for your situation. Are you just sick of lugging the decks and cds around, or is there another reason you're looking to move to something else?

If I only djed one genre decs would be fine. Problem is, I'm in a smaller city without enough venues or popular preference for a single type of music. This puts the amount of cds I have to lug around in the thousands, it'd be far simpler to bring a laptop and external hdd. Secondly, cd decs with the ability to change the tempo of a song and not its pitch are prohibitively expensive for a student like myself. Those are my primary reasons for wanting to switch and so far mixmeister is the most blind usable mixing software I have found to date. If I edit the tracks in goldwave before hand I can have mixmeister beatmatch everything and it comes out sounding really good, problem is you can't do that live. Freak: to answer your statement, mixmeister fusion is very unreadable by my screen reader, hence my trying out version6 in the first place. I do think that in the next edition of fusion they should include the ability to place the sprockets using time points as well as the mouse, or at least the ability to zap the sprocket to the play curser position.

quote:

Freak: to answer your statement, mixmeister fusion is very unreadable by my screen reader, hence my trying out version6 in the first place. I do think that in the next edition of fusion they should include the ability to place the sprockets using time points as well as the mouse, or at least the ability to zap the sprocket to the play curser position.

Just to be clear, there will not be any future improvements to any version of MixMeister prior to Fusion / Studio 7.

If the improvement you suggest to Fusion (ability to place the sprockets using time points) were adopted, would that help you, or would Fusion still be "very unreadable" by your screen reader?

quote:

Originally posted by MadameFLY:

quote:

Freak: to answer your statement, mixmeister fusion is very unreadable by my screen reader, hence my trying out version6 in the first place. I do think that in the next edition of fusion they should include the ability to place the sprockets using time points as well as the mouse, or at least the ability to zap the sprocket to the play curser position.

Just to be clear, there will not be any future improvements to any version of MixMeister prior to Fusion / Studio 7.

If the improvement you suggest to Fusion (ability to place the sprockets using time points) were adopted, would that help you, or would Fusion still be "very unreadable" by your screen reader?

Hmm, my main issue with fusion is that its list views for playlist and current track don't look the same as in mixmeister6. If those lists became readable and the sprocket modification was introduced then I would be able to make use of the software. When I'm in goldwave I can hit play on the song (and make it play at twice the speed for quick selection of part of the song), and place the sprockets where I want them while the song is playing.

Can I ask what other products you've tried? I would've thought something more physical like Final Scratch or Serato Scratch might be easier than mixmeister. I find myself constantly zooming in and out of tracks to make minor adjustments to get things sound just right. I may be completely ignorant but I would expect this to be much harder to do than if you were to using something which integrates with decks or cd decks. There's a whole host of other djing software which plays mp3 through decks. He's a list (by no means complete)

• Mixvibes
  
• Virtual Vinyl by Numark
  
• Serato Scratch
  
• Stanton Final Scratch
  

quote:

Originally posted by Vinyl Matt:
Can I ask what other products you've tried? I would've thought something more physical like Final Scratch or Serato Scratch might be easier than mixmeister. I find myself constantly zooming in and out of tracks to make minor adjustments to get things sound just right. I may be completely ignorant but I would expect this to be much harder to do than if you were to using something which integrates with decks or cd decks. There's a whole host of other djing software which plays mp3 through decks. He's a list (by no means complete)

• Mixvibes
  
• Virtual Vinyl by Numark
  
• Serato Scratch
  
• Stanton Final Scratch
  

I've looked into those, problem is there is no way for me to try them without buying the hardware, that and the fact that to buy the software and hardware is very expensive as compared to just buying software. What I mean is, the software interfaces might not even be accessible and I would have no way of knowing. Plus, on line returns are a pain.