How to Use a Mixer
Interactive mixing desk lessons
Load your tracks (stems or recordings, one per channel), or try the demo song. Drop a file on any channel, or choose a microphone or audio interface input as its source to mix live.
Playing live? Get the lowest latency
- Use wired headphones or speakers. Bluetooth adds 100–300 ms that no software can remove.
- Use a USB audio interface if you have one, and pick its inputs as channel sources. Built-in laptop mics are fine for speech.
- Chrome or Edge give the lowest browser latency. On Windows, set your interface to 48 kHz in Sound settings and close other apps that use audio.
- Keep this tab in front and plugged in: browsers slow down background tabs and battery saving adds delay.
- The latency shown above is the full trip from input to output reported by your browser. Under about 15 ms feels instant to most performers; 15–30 ms is fine for speaking and most singing.
Use headphones with live inputs, or the speakers will feed back. Everything runs in your browser; your files and recordings are never uploaded.
About How to Use a Mixer
The best way to learn a mixer is to move the controls and hear what happens. This page opens a small mixing desk with a five-piece band (drums, bass, piano, guitar and vibes) and eleven short lessons. Each one explains a control, lights it up on the desk and has a Show me button that turns it for you, while the waveform, EQ curve, stereo picture and meters show what changes. The same controls are on every mixer, from a small Yamaha or Behringer desk to a church or studio console.
- Press Play the band.
- Read the lesson and press Show me to watch and hear the control change.
- Try it yourself on the highlighted control, then press Next.
Frequently asked
What do the knobs on a mixer do?
From top to bottom on each channel: gain sets the input level, low cut removes rumble, EQ shapes the tone (high, mid and low), aux or FX sends feed effects and monitors, pan places the sound left or right, mute and solo switch channels off or on their own, and the fader sets the channel's level in the mix.
What should the gain be set to?
High enough that the loudest parts light the meter well up into the green or yellow, but never the red clip light. On most desks, sing or play at full volume and turn the gain up until it peaks around −6 dB, then back off a touch.
What is an aux send?
A second, separate mix of the channels. It feeds an effect like reverb (as here) or stage monitors, so each performer can hear their own balance. Post-fader sends follow the fader; pre-fader sends don't.
Are my files uploaded to a server?
No. The tool runs entirely in your browser and there's no server behind it, so your files never leave your device and nothing is stored. You can check: it keeps working if you go offline after the page has loaded.
More from the Music drawer
Other tools kept in this drawer, plus a few favourites from the bench.