Recording - June 2016 - 62

double-click on the plug-in you want, or you can drag the desired option to
the Insert rack. Creating Return tracks for busing is simple; once a Return
track is created, Send faders are displayed on every track and you can add
effects to Return tracks the same way.

By Bill Stunt

Welcome to the first DAW designed from
the start for Windows multitouch use
There are a lot of great well-established DAWs (Digital
Audio Workstations) on the market, each with its dedicated
users. Lumit Audio, a new player in this field, has positioned
itself wisely by offering something unique and fun.
Taking advantage of some clever coding and design,
Lumit is a DAW equally at home on a Windows desktop or
laptop as it is on a powerful tablet like the Microsoft Surface
Pro. When it's used on a tablet, your fingers can do the
walking. That makes for a remarkably efficient workflow,
and potentially an extremely compact yet powerful portable
music creation system.
Finding your way around
All of Lumit's main windows are easily opened by the simplest keyboard shortcuts-the Tab key and the numbers 1
through 3. These will serve to introduce the Lumit workflow.
The Tab key opens and toggles between Lumit's Sequence
Window, shown in the main part of Figure 1, and its Mixer
Window, shown in Figure 2.
The number 1 shows or hides the File Browser, shown at
the left side of the screen in Figures 1 and 2. Described in
the tutorial video as a "speed dial" for your favorite folders,
this is where you'll find 3 buttons that take you directly to
folders that you specify. If they contain audio files, you can
audition the sounds as you scroll down the list.
The next pane down in the File Browser is for your
installed VST plug-ins and virtual instruments. The pane
below that shows Lumit's healthy list of native processing
plug-ins (discussed below).
If you have the green "glue" icon lit up, the selected file
"sticks" to the cursor (or your finger or stylus in tablet mode)
and will be placed wherever you touch inside an appropriate track in the Sequence Window. Wow!
The number 2 key opens the Edit window; See Figure 3a
for a waveform edit and Figure 3b for an automation edit.
You can also open this window by double-clicking on what
you want to edit in Sequence view (as shown in Figure 3b).
You can edit audio, MIDI notes/ controller data, and
automation, and you can automate just about any setting,
including all the parameters of your effects.
The number 3 keystroke opens up the Insert rack for any
selected track. To insert an effect or instrument, you simply
62

RECORDING JUNE 2016

Getting started, going deeper
One of the first things you'll notice is that there's no typical menu bar
across the top of the window. All the menu items are actually embedded in
the transport bar at the bottom of the display. There is a host of menu popup
choices that, for the most part, will feel familiar. That said, you will need to
spend some time here-many of the options presented are unique to Lumit.
As you begin to explore the menu options for selecting, grouping, splitting
and merging etc. you'll begin to see how well suited this program is for creating songs from chunks of audio and MIDI. Some of these menu choices in
File and Edit make it very easy to assemble a group of sounds and performances and combine them into loops or groups that can be edited, copied,
and pasted together to create verses, choruses, and bridges.
Once I "got" this, it became very easy-and I must say a lot of fun-to
assemble songs as much as to record them. Working this way makes tons
of sense for a couple of reasons. Not only is it the way a lot of modern
music is created and produced, it's also less CPU-dependent, which helps if
you are using Lumit on a tablet. (Conserving CPU is a common Lumit
theme!)
For most operations in Lumit, there are multiple ways to accomplish tasks.
For instance, there is a menu dialog for creating different types of tracks.
There are also buttons at the top left of the Sequencer window (see Figure 1
again) that will accomplish the same thing. Along with those options, there
are keyboard shortcuts to boot.
The screen toggles-there are all sorts for any number of tasks in the various views-can be invoked with a finger or a stylus on a touch screen.
Virtually all of the major items that aid in editing and arranging are mirrored with graphic toggles in the Transport Bar (Figure 1 or 2, bottom right).
Along with the standard select cursor, there are draw and cut cursors as
well, which can be made "magnetic" by clicking them twice. This causes
the action-draw or cut-to snap to the beat resolution.
There's a drop down menu in the Transport Bar for setting this snap resolution. Again, you can see this is great for working with loops, sections of a
performance or MIDI sequences that you want to line up in time as you edit.
1

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - June 2016