I was a long time windows N-Track user from 2000-2010, but moved to Reaper until the end of 2023. I lost my Mac Mini due to a fire at the end of 2023, and am now moving towards iPad tracking/mixing for the foreseeable future. I came back to N-track because while researching DAWs for iOS, it allows changing tempos and I’m not a fan of subscription models so Logic (at least for now) is not within my interests. The style of music I make though needs tempo changes so N-Track makes that appealing.
I’m tracking/mixing modern rock/metal with a good deal of layers and I’m using both Focusrite Scarlet 18i20 and a 4i4 (both 3rd gen) at different times (and different rooms of my home). I love how basically with the iPad, they just plug and play and they work.
I’ve looked around at some of the discussions so I may have missed this somewhere if so let me know. I’m currently using the most recent iOS pro version of N-Track.
Features I’m interested in seeing in N-track.
The ability to add markers, with labels and/or numbers, so while using a blue tooth keyboard if I hit #2 it skips straight to marker #2 (or whatever number is assigned). This makes moving around within a songs territory easy. So far I’ve been having to eye ball where song sections change etc.
The ability to print to track instead of exporting mixes. Time based effects typically don’t like straight exports (at least in my previous experience, at least when using like 20-30 different tracks in a session). So being able to send all tracks to just one new track, arm it and record the rest of the tracks during playback.
An issue I’m experiencing with N-track is that it shows me all of the channels from my Scarlett automatically, instead of letting me just add them one at at time if needed. It changes the master fader, to the first fader of the scarlet interface instead. (If there’s a work around on this please let me know)
So when I export it’s creating multiple wav files but only one main export wav. Again, another reason to print to track.
Turning the metronome on/off with one press instead of it bring up the whole menu. Or some kind of change where there’s two options on screen for simple on/off and the other for all the other stuff. Or a long press maybe?
Hi Tim, welcome on the n-Track forum. We’re glad to hear that you are enjoying n-Track Studio on your iPad.
Regarding your points:
There are a few ways to add markers in your song: if you have a keyboard, the fastest one is probably by placing the cursor at the point where you want the marker and then using the cmd+m shortcut. You can also tap on the yellow triangle and select “Add marker here” from the menu that appears. Another way is to longpress in the time axis (i.e., the top part of the screen, where the yellow triangle moves in) at the point to which you want to add the marker.
You can browse between markers from the above menu or by using keyboard shortcuts (cmd+shift+left/right arrows). From the same menu you can also select “Manage markers” to change the marker color and assign it a name, if you wish.
At the moment it’s not possible to assign a keyboard shortcut to each marker, but you can associate them to MIDI events from a controller, if you wish.
Try this: add a new empty audio track. For each audio track that you wish to print, change the output channel and set it to this newly created audio track. Still on the new audio track, tap on the rec-arm button and select “Record routed tracks”. Start recording and you should have all the routed tracks recorded into a single one. Let me know if that’s clear and if it’s what you were actually trying to achieve.
The export will create a mixdown for every available master channels. If you have the external interface connected, most probably it has two or more outputs, hence the multiple exported wav files. Let me know if that’s not the case.
We have this in our development backlog and it will come in one of the next releases.
Markers are now working for me.
Routing tracks to a print mix are also now working, in mono and stereo. Thank you for helping me resolve that!
I apologize but I was incorrect about the interface, I thought it was an 4i4 but it’s actually a Focusrite 8i6 3rd gen. N-Track is showing me 3 master channels when it’s connected. Basically 3 stereo channels for each of the 6 inputs. I can’t figure out how to get N-track to stop showing me the 2 additional master channels. But, for reference, N-Track only utilizes the first one as the real master channel. The exporting multiple files problem, while annoying, it isn’t too much of a problem for me now that you’ve explained how to print mixes, as that’s always been my go to method for rendering. But for anyone else that might come across that same multiple files export issue it might be worth figuring out how to possibly correct that.
Thanks for all your help!!
Fantastic DAW for ipads.
-Tim C.
Quick update,
The output channels option under settings will allow anyone else who possibly has a similar problem with exporting multiple wave files, remove the additional channels.
My issues have been resolved.