In recent years, the DJ has taken on the role of musician, producer, and artist. Today’s top DJs are known for their talents in tatog an existing song — be it heavy, happy, or sappy — and turning it into a completely different tune. This is the art of remixing — laying down an isolated audio track from a song — say, the vocal — on top of a different groove. DJs can also slow down or speed up an audio track to fit a totally different rhythm. That’s the magic of remixing, and that’s what you can now do with Mixman Studio Mac.
The program is composed of two environments: the Remixing Studio (where you’ll spend most of your time) and the Recording Studio. The Remixing Studio screen is comprised of two turntable motifs, where you can load up to 16 different tracks, 8 per turntable. When you’ve loaded all your tracks, press the play button to perform a rudimentary remix. Record this performance, then later export it as an audio file that you can play with most audio players or burn to an audio CD. The Recording Studio screen has the sole function of recording or importing audio.
At first glance, Mixman Studio seemed hke nothing more than a plaything geared toward adolescent techno-heads. When we tried out the different styles of music, though, the program’s alluring performance controls entranced us. The control you have over a simple series of on/off buttons makes using the program an addictive experience. This five, intuitive approach to rembdng is both fun and a key selling point for Mixman Studio. It’s designed for ease of use — an alternative to the traditional graph-and-timeline approach to digital remixing rather than a replacement for popular programs like Digidesign’s Pro Tools and MOTU’s Digital Performer.
When you tire of the built-in sounds (and there are literally hundreds), you can go to the Mixman Web site and download DPlates, Mixman Studio Mix files complete with TRKs (tracks) recorded by artists such as Ice-T, Luscious Jackson, and Missy Elliot. Using DPlates, you can create your own remixes of these artists’ songs. If that’s not enough, you can visit the Web and purchase libraries containing TRK files in different styles, called Soundiscs.
The beauty of the program is its ability to change the tempo of the tracks without altering their pitch. This advanced feature is generally found only in specialized programs. Unfortunately, you can only use it with the TRK files in the Remix screen. These files differ from AIFF files in that you can speed them up or slow them down on the fly...
The Mixman Web site is a great resource for TRK files, but sooner or later every remixing DJ develops a yen for self-expression — you will want to use your own sounds in Mixman Studio, The program allows you to record audio directly into the Recording Studio. However, the audio-editing features here are severely lacking. There are basically two useful controls for importing your own audio: auto-trimming and auto-gain. It is not possible to edit your audio loops accurately in Mixman. The manual suggests using a program specifically suited for that. It is also not possible to create TRK files out of your recorded or imported AIFF files. Again, the manual specifies other programs. If Mixman Studio weren’t priced so reasonably, we would consider these limitations serious faults. Though the lack of these features poses an inconvenience, including them would hike the program’s price to an unattractive level.
Those interested in the remixing revolution will find Mixman Studio Mac a fun program to use. When you register, you have access to DPlates, which makes the remixing experience worthwhile. This program’s usefulness is definitely more than skin-deep.
Tokuda, Andrew. (April 2000). Mixman Studio Mac. MacAddict. (pg. 57).
Mixman Technologies
Applications
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Mixman_Studio_Mac.sit
Emulating this? It could probably run under: 
SheepShaver
