Hey guys, in this video we’re going to start taking a look at Tracktion 7.
This is a free digital audio workstation that you can download for Windows, Mac and Linux.
With this program, we’ll be able to record and edit audio and MIDI.
In this first tutorial, we’ll cover getting the program installed and configuring everything.
Previously, Tracktion 7 was only available with the purchase of a Behringer or Mackie
product, but it’s now completely free for anyone to download.
Either way, I still recommend picking up a budget audio interface like the Behringer
U-PHORIA UM2 so you’ll have an audio input to record with.
I’ll link those in the video description for you to check out.
When you go to Tracktion’s website, you’ll need to fill out a form to register to get
the product.
Then you’ll be brought to the download page where you can choose the installer you need.
For Windows, I’ll be using the 64 bit version, but check whether the plugins you like to
use are 32 or 64 bit before choosing the download, since you need to match the versions to get
it to run properly.
Now that we have the program downloaded, just run it and install it.
There’s not really any options throughout the installation process, so just run the
program when you’re done.
Tracktion 7 has a first time setup we can use to get everything configured for us.
We’ll still need to activate the program when we install it, so use the username and
password you entered when you downloaded the program to activate it.
Then we’ll configure our audio interface.
The first thing I do is set the audio device type at the top to ASIO.
This allows us to use all the inputs from our audio interface with low latency, and
we can also adjust the latency here if we need to but that can cause issues like pops
and clicks in the audio if we set it too low.
Since I have multiple devices connected, I’ll change the device to my Focusrite Scarlett
interface, but choose yours accordingly.
Many of the Behringer interfaces like the UM2 fall under ASIO4ALL, and the driver for
that needs to be installed separately.
Once the audio interface is chosen, I need to enable all the inputs.
The default is just the two inputs, so I’ll enable the rest of them as well.
Next we can select our MIDI device.
For now I’ll leave it as default, but we’ll come back to this when we cover MIDI in more
detail in a few videos.
After that we have to tell Tracktion where all our plugins are stored on this computer.
I have a few folders so I’ll add each of them.
To do that, click Scanning and Sorting and then Scan for new or updated VST plug-ins.
Press the plus button in the bottom left to add folders on your hard drive where the VST
plug-ins are stored.
Then press Scan and Tracktion will add all the compatible plug-ins to the program.
I had a few problems with some plugins not being compatible, but I’m pretty sure that’s
because they are the older 32 bit versions of these plugins.
The plugin needs to match the Tracktion version we’re using, and since most of my plugins
are 64 bit, I’m running a 64 bit version of Tracktion, but unfortunately those older
plugins won’t work here.
Next we can scan for loops in a similar way, but I don’t have any to add at this point.
Then we can choose to download a demo project, and these can be helpful if you’re just
starting out to see what a full project looks like.
The marketplace is where we can go to download additional plugins but they’re all paid.
Of course, we can also get 3rd party 64-bit VST plugins, install them, and add the scan
path as we did previously, so we’re not really limited by what’s available in the
marketplace.
I don’t recommend watching the tutorial video, since it doesn’t really provide much
useful information for getting started with the program, and we’ll cover everything
in this series anyways.
Last we have a quick start guide you can use for reference if you need more information
about how to use the program.
Thanks for checking out this video on installing and configuring Tracktion 7.
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