Getting a Grip on Tracktion 2 from Mackie

In my opinion, Mackie has always demonstrated a uniquely musician-centric approach to developing its products over the years. Never the most expensive solution and never the cheapest, but always an excellent product and value, providing innovative solutions musicians and audio engineers need to do their work, be it on stage or in a pro or home studio. Over the years I’ve owned many Mackie products, from mixers, control surfaces and speakers to hard disk recorders, so when I heard they were putting out a software DAW, I expected it to follow suit with their previous standards in a product release. After all, I personally just haven’t ever bought anything with the name Mackie on it that was junk. With that said, Mackie isn’t a software company, so I wasn’t quite sure what I was getting into with Tracktion 2.

Mackie sent me a copy of Tracktion 2 and asked if I would review it for my new community site, osxrecording.com. At that point it was probably the only DAW for OS X not installed on my system, and I was frankly eager to see if something purely software from Mackie would live up to the standards I’ve come to expect from anything sporting Greg’s moniker on it.

Before I get into the review, it’s worth mentioning the systems I used for testing and reviewing the product. I am running Apple’s OS X Tiger 10.4.2, on a G5 Dual 2x2 system (first rev.), with 5GB of RAM. I have two internal drives, one SATA 200GB drive for the OS and applications, and another SATA 250GB drive used strictly for audio files, samples, loops and related data. This is a dedicated recording computer in my studio. The audio interface used for this review is the MOTU 828 MKII FireWire I/O. My control surface is the Tascam US2400, which emulates the Mackie Control. There is a UAD-1 card installed, along with the TC PowerCore FireWire suite. Additionally, since Mackie is kind enough to allow its license on two machines that you personally own, I also put it on my PowerBook G4 1.25 w/2GB RAM, using just its core audio drivers and head phones to listen Tracktion 2 recommends a G4 (or better), and requires OSX v10.3.9 (or higher) and a minimum of 256MB RAM. I was pretty safe with those requirements. And for the record, I did not pound on the PowerBook with the number of tracks, plug-ins and at the higher sample rates as I did the G5 studio system.

First up, the installation of 2.0.1.12 from the box was done, but this not the version you want to run if you have OS X Tiger on your machine. You still want to install the non-Tiger compliant version though, just don’t open and use it. The reason is that the first disk in the boxed bundle installs a number of extra plug-ins, so users should still install disc 1, and then go to setup their account at mymackie.com to get the latest build. Additionally, Mackie will soon be releasing 2.0.2, which, among other things, will include foreign language translations for French, German, and Spanish). Having quickly addressed the Tiger compatibility issue, Mackie released 2.0.1.13 and made the full install available to registered users on their website. It was a painless registration process and thanks to the wonders of cable modems, the 18.7MB download took only minutes.

Once on my desktop, I unpacked it, drug it to my applications folder and then opened it. Like any DAW, it was in search of the various plug-ins on my system to put at my disposal during the session. Tracktion’s beautiful blue opening screen filled my Apple 23’ Cinema Display and very quickly loaded well in excess of a hundred plug-ins from my system and I mean, very quickly. I’d lost track of how many plug-ins I have, but suffice it to say its well more than I actually ever use. Tracktion 2 supports VST plug-ins and VST instruments, which is a good thing, because that represents the majority of items in my magic toy box of audio processing. Tracktion 2 armed itself with my default audio settings from the OS X Audio/MIDI settings, and then in its colorful, full-screen glory was waiting for my next move.

Mackie has apparently learned a lot over the years about its customer’s habits of treating any included printed manual for a product as though it were Kryptonite. This must have been the reason that in Tracktion 2, the install default has a pop up window appear over every single function of the software when the cursor passes over it. This actually worked really well for me to use for about ten minutes or so to mouse-over each thing on the screen and find out what Mackie was calling different areas of the software, its function, and how to use it. It was a forced-learning of the system without handling the deadly 40lb manuals included with other applications on the market, and actually a cool way to quickly find my way around.

Ok, with all that said, it also turned into a big annoyance after about ten minutes, and even though I’d been using it for a quick tour, I’d overlooked its finer print on the bottom of every pop up window telling me how to turn it off, which was to simply go to the help menu and disable it there. In addition to just disabling it, they were kind enough to put another option, which is “long delay before help appears.” Excellent, Mackie! Now I get the benefit of it while learning with watching windows pop up everywhere in front of me with a sudden mouse movement. I chose that setting. OK, tour completed, instant pop-ups gone, now I’m on my own and ready to roll with a project.

Mackie doesn’t make you rely only on pop-ups to learn the program, there are PDF and printed versions of the owner’s manual with the product in addition to a really good quick start guide. PDF files of both can be launched from within the program and are installed from disc 1 and get you up and running Mackie’s traditional, folksy and often humorous style of writing these things.

Tracktion2 is divided up into only three main screens that you’ll have to get familiar with while using it. They are the Projects screen, the Settings Screen and the Edit Screen, which is where your multi-track work is done.



Tracktion 2 starts you out at the Projects setup screen. Here you will find the sample projects included in folders on the top left side of the window, with a large area on the right four-fifth of the screen showing you the content of the folders. It works like any other Finder/Explorer window managing files, so you’re instantly tuned-in to how to use it.

Below, in the bottom right, you can search your projects by keyword, selecting which project to search or all of them. Under the search box is where you can start a new project, open an existing one, use the clipboard, access the help menu or read the “about” information. You also get a project details area horizontally along the bottom where you can label and describe your project or each of the files within the project by name, purpose, project assigned to, file name, description, and more.

This is a great feature. It gives you an open, clean way to write in the details of what you are working on, a 21st century track sheet for the DAW-age. What I particularly like about it is that, if viewing the project file’s detail screen, I have the choices of clicking a button to then see the history of the work done on the project, clipboard items, and can with one simple button each either create a copy of the project, export edit, find any referenced material to it, import external files, create a new edit (version of the song), import other material or just open the one in front of me and get started.

This Properties Panel screen area is the common area on the application where anything you will manipulate or set while working will take place. If you click on something, the odds are good it will open something in that area for you to work with to decide how whatever you opened will perform next.

Again, it’s so clean and easy that your first reaction if you’ve been used to other DAW software like Digital Performer, Nuendo and Pro Tools is to think, “Uh, where’s all the menus and stuff I’m used to using for this kind of thing.” Simply put, they are not there, because Tracktion 2’s designers already thought it through and put the steps needed in other apps to do the same thing into an easier, quicker to use format. Make no mistake; this isn’t some Garage Band toy for the masses toying with an audio application. Don’t let its ease of use fool you into thinking this product isn’t set to compete with DAW software costing two or many more times the price of Tracktion 2.

The second main screen you’ll encounter using Tracktion 2 is the Settings screen. The Settings screen has only five primary areas of concern, which are:

Audio Devices: This is where you set the selection of your input and output routing, sample rate, latency, plus any MIDI devices. Thought I only tested with my own 24 bit/96k files and recordings, Tracktion 2 supports samples rates of up to 192k!

Plug-ins: Once again, a simple, easy design. It will display the standard path to your plug-in files, but you can also remove a path, add a path, or move a path up and down the list to cause one to load prior to another. Here you can also have it rescan the plug-in directories, as well as set it to always check for new plug-ins at startup and automatically start ReWire.



Key Mappings – An excellently-designed screen showing you the default short-cut commands for the application, where you can also customize your own key mapping commands. Even cooler, Mackie gives you an HTML version of this screen you can print out and keep handy when you are working. Good thinking, guys!

External Controllers – This lists the Mackie Control Universal and Mackie C4 as controllers and gives you a drop down window to set the MIDI path to connect to them. Using the Mackie Control Mode and its preset for Digital Performer, I was able to use the first eight faders, master fader and other features of my TASCAM US-2400 control surface flawlessly with the software. Because the US-2400 emulates the Mackie Control, only the first eight faders were in use, which could be scrolled through for additional tracks, but at this point the Tracktion software does not support the use of Mackie Control Extenders, which is what the US-2400 emulates to put the other fader banks to work. I am told that if there is sufficient demand from Tracktion users, this feature will be added in future revisions. While my time is split between a mouse and a fader when working in a DAW application, I always prefer to have both a control surface and a mouse available, which probably shows my age somewhat, but I still love working with a fader bank.


Miscellaneous – This is what other applications might call a “preferences” window, where you can decide the location of a temp directory, how you want to auto-save or save edits, levels of undo, cache size, where middle-C is on your keyboard, MIDI popup, track resizing, and several other preferences that are self-explanatory on review.

When I open a new DAW, I honestly avoid the manual as long as possible like most guys, but I do tend to open up the demo songs included so I can see how things work from there. I chose “Everyone Wants You,” Tracktion Tutorial by Kevin Jenkins. This 22-track project loaded up in flash on my G5 (and incidentally also on my PowerBook). It actually took only seconds to be up and ready and both machines.


After loading, you’re taken to the Edits Screen, the final of three total screens you’ll encounter in the software. Tracktion 2’s single-screen editing interface put nearly everything I needed to work with right in front of my eyes. That took a while to get used to, especially after my first natural reaction to a DAW’s setup is figuring out where and how to manipulate the windows, the cursor tools, etc.

The layout made pretty good sense right away to me. The demo project opened up to a familiar concept in DAW software, a horizontal stack of tracks for the project. Across its top was the bar markers, which you can adjust to fit your needs to frames, different times and bars/beats, which this project was set to already. The first track listed was the song title, which when double-clicked revealed a familiar Piano Roll layout for MIDI. Below it were 21 audio tracks showing up as various clips throughout the project. To the left of each track were both the Input Selection icon and the name of the track. Clicking the Input icon opened the horizontal input screen along the bottom of the screen where you can control everything related to the input signal and file format settings of the sound source you intend to record.

On the bottom left corner of the Edits Screen you get more command buttons for undo, redo, save, export, import, clipboard, timecode, click track, snapping, tracks, options, automation and help. Aside from the undo/redo buttons, each of these opens a sub-menu window showing actions you can take for each of them.

The bottom right of the screen is a familiar Transport area which give you automation read and write mode buttons, play, record, rewind to zero and rewind/fast forward functions. Below there are six buttons allowing you to set loop, punch, click, snap, end to end and scroll controls for the cursor and markers. Directly below those buttons is the CPU usage meter. For the record, mine barely moved, even with the full demo project open and my loading it up with more plug-ins. What does Mackie know about CPU usage that some other DAW companies do not?

To the right of those buttons, under the Transport, you’ll find a rectangle-shaped box with a horizontal line in it, which has a diamond-shaped marker on it. This marker, if grabbed with the mouse, controls panning. The line itself, if moved up and down, controls volume. Pretty simple, no big mixer needed. To the right of that box is a Meter for monitoring the level of the mix. Directly above it is the “Filter” box for the mix, which I’ll explain a bit in the next section.

The right side of each track is where much of the magic happens. In chevron-turned-sideways-styled icon boxes, each item shaping the sound of your track is controlled, be it effects (which are called “Filters” in Tracktion 2), volume, panning, metering, and other controls. Double-clicking most will open a new window and allow great control of the icon’s set content, and control-clicking (or right-clicking with a two-button mouse) will open a menu for additional options. (If the audio plug-in (filter) is a built in one from raw material software, or a “faceless” VST plug-in, it will open up within the properties box on the lower middle of the screen. If however, it’s a 3rd party VST plug-in with its own GUI, that will open up in a floating window since the 3rd party GUIs come in all shapes and sizes and could not fit into the properties box.

As explained in the Transport area previously, you’ll find the horizontal line in a box by default on any track, allowing volume and pan control. If you wish to add a plug-in, at the top of the screen you’ll find a button that says “new filter” which you simply grab and drag to the area next to your track where you wanted to place it. This is another really cool feature of Tracktion 2. You decide the signal flow of the plug-in when you place it on the track by where you place it. For instance, want to add a low pass filter to your guitar track, then EQ before compression? Just drag and drop them in that order. Want to change that routing? Simple. Just hold and drag and drop it to another position. It really couldn’t be any easier unless it just did it for me without my even thinking, which it comes close to already! Tracktion will also reflect the “hierarchy” of how you have organized your plug-ins. For example, if your plug-ins folder has two root level folders of “effects” and “instruments”, and within each one, a further folder that divide up the effects and instruments by type, if you add a filter in Tracktion, this detailed hierarchy is all reflected, which means you don’t have to scroll through a huge list of plug-ins.

When you drag a new filter box to the track, after you decide where it is going in the signal path, a box opens and shows your choice of plug-ins to use with it. Simply choose the one you want and it will open up on top if the edit screen for your use. Want to change the “filter” or plug-in? Control-click the box it is in and a menu will open with those options. Want to get rid of it altogether? Just click to turn it red and hit the delete key on your keyboard. This isn’t rocket-science-level stuff here. It’s kind of how things might be if you hold hostage some of the other DAW GUI designers and demand they stop making things harder than they have to be. (Please Note: OSXRecording.com does not condone the taking of any DAW’s GUI designers hostage. Please do not try this at home.)

Next to the “new filter” button up top are two yellow boxes. One lets you show/hide the inputs panel (which is where the boxes show up to the left of the track name) and the other lets you show/hide the filters panel, which is to the right of each track. Next to these buttons is one called “racks” where you can build out a custom rack of filters and make assignments of them to groups, or tracks, or the output signal or whatever you might want to assign to in the signal path.

OK, I’ve gone over how it basically works, how easy it was to get around in and how little it seems to be taxing either computer I opened the demo on, but how would it be to actually work with on a project of my own? For this, I created a new 24/96 project and imported seven mono drum tracks from one of my songs, as played by the talented Elad Fish of DrumsForYou.com, and created a stereo sub-mix track for them. I used several different “filters” on the tracks, ranging from UAD and TC plug-ins for EQ and compression to some slap-back delay and modest amounts of reverb. So far so good, CPU still maybe 15%.

I imported two previously recorded guitar tracks into the project, one acoustic track of my precious Gibson J200 and another of my dead-sexy ’59 Reissue Les Paul. For the J200, I added some compression to get some extra life and “pick” sound from it, and added an EQ filter to take away some of the nasty frequencies that just don’t belong in an acoustic guitar EQ. For the Les Paul, I decided to try the included AmpliTube LE guitar amp modeling plug-in that ships with Tracktion 2. Great tone out of that one, by the way. The Les Paul sounded great as it was, but I was able to have a lot of fun getting more sounds from AmpliTube for this project. So, with drums mixed and sub-mixed and guitars imported, filtered and panned, I was ready to record a bass track.

This was a little extra fun for me, as a friend has just moved some of his gear into my studio, including the oh-so-seductively-sweet Avalon Vt-737sp, which makes everything in my studio sound mo’better. It’s pre-patched into my MOTU 828 MKII, so all I had to do was set it for a bass guitar, plug it in, tune it up and then setup Tracktion 2 to record the signal. I chose my ’78 Fender Precision for the track, which, with its rosewood fingerboard and Quarter-Pounder Seymour Duncan pickups, is just about as sweet a bass as I’ve ever played. OK, ready for recording!

Clicking Apple and T on the keyboard added a new track, which I learned during the first walk through the program under the Key Mapping section of the settings screen. I could also have simply clicked the “Tracks” button on the screen, and then told the pop-open menu to add a track or even multiple tracks. I chose the input track I’d plugged the Avalon into, and then it was as easy as arming the track and clicking record. Since this song has a repetitive arrangement, and since I am also inherently lazy, I decided I would use the loop recording function of Tracktion 2. This made it a no-brainer. I recorded my looped part, then copied, cut and pasted it into its place in the track. As a first-time user of Tracktion 2, I found the pasting and placing part of this process the hardest, mostly because I was still learning how the software works. The seemingly simple task was more time consuming that it was in something like Soundtrack, and I found myself zooming in and correcting the placements. I’m certain there was some level of simple pilot error involved that will correct my actions as I continue to use the program.

When I finished getting the bass loops where I wanted them, I used the “Render Track” feature of Tracktion 2 in order to both avoid accidentally moving a loop later and to give me one finished bass track to work with once I was satisfied with the performance. I had the option of either replacing the looped bass track with the rendered version, or adding it to the song. For now, I am just adding it to the song and muting the looped version. I did this because it gives me some options later if I decide to do some fancy editing of the song’s arrangement, and doing this will leave the bass choices in front of me.

Now, given tasks of registering, downloading, installing, touring the program, starting a new project, importing, filtering, adjusting volume and pans on drums, creating a sub-mix for them, importing guitars and adding filters, volume and panning to them, plus the total time of setting up the Avalon for bass guitar, I’m only about six hours on a late Friday night into a project on a completely new DAW and have a finished rhythm section in the can. That’s pretty amazing given all that I had to do to get this far. Mind you, if you haven’t been slaving in front of a DAW for as long as I have, you may take longer, but even still, it shouldn’t be terribly longer.

OK, now I have seven drum tracks, a muted, looped bass track, a rendered bass track and two guitar tracks running fifteen plug-ins between them at 24/96. CPU use on the G5? Around 30% when playing, never more. Amazing. Not a hiccup, not a burp.

I’m a guitar player, a bassist, play a bit of mandolin and am a certified keyboard owner. That’s it. I don’t play keys much at all. I’m thus not really into MIDI sequencing and the Virtual Instruments that I use are recorded to audio tracks when used, by real keyboard players that I bring in for my sessions. Thus, I didn’t dive head first into checking out Tracktion 2’s MIDI features. I played with them enough to know that they flawlessly engaged the ReWire features for Reason and other ReWire apps I am running. I called some samples up through Virtual Instruments and made my feeble attempt at playing keyboards while the tracks played, but I didn’t sequence anything or even record what I was doing.

MIDI virtual instruments are added to the system the same was effects are added, which is by dragging a new filter down to the track and then assigning its settings. Calling up the VI to edit works the same as calling up any other plug-in to edit, with the exception of when it is a ReWire track, then you’ll have to manually change windows, of course. Tracktion does provide a standard and familiar piano roll on the MIDI track for detailed editing of the recorded sequence, and the standard tools one would expect to find for basic MIDI editing.

I really like Tracktion. It’s clean, easy to learn, sounds great, has enough bells and whistles to keep me satisfied and not get in my way, and the value of the package for its selling price is astounding. The CPU use, even with high sample/bit rate projects open and loads of plug-ins was exceptionally low. This one of the reasons that I will keep this application on my PowerBook (in addition to my G5 in the studio) for use when I’m traveling and get an idea I want to quickly capture.


The only minor negative thing I can say about Tracktion is that is does not use some of the “quasi-standard” concepts for audio editing that might make it even better, like a glue stick, pencil tool, etc. such as one might find in Cubase or Nuendo, or similar tools used in Digital Performer, Pro Tools LE, etc. It isn’t that you can’t do these things per say, it’s that you will have to re-learn how they are done, as with any new DAW. For instance, the learn-it-on-the-fly approach I took to figuring out using automation in the tracks in the absence of a pencil tool (where you might typically draw the automation in place,) was to arm the track for automation recording and then move the fader up and down next to the track, or the pan control, as the case may be. I later learned that you don’t actually have to move the onscreen or control surface fader to write automation data. You can view the automation for volume, pan, or any parameter of any plug-in, and manually edit the automation line, add breakpoints, etc. So you can indeed do the same kind of manual automation that a pencil tool lets you do, you are not forced to move a slider if you do not want to. That’s probably the best illustration of a big difference between editing audio in Tracktion is vs. editing it in Cubase or another application. So, these methods work, they are not “bad” ways to work, but they are not what I’ve gotten myself trained to do over the years. There is a little bit of re-learning to do with this DAW software.

Tracktion 2 is excessively feature-rich, supports VST and ReWire, comes with a whole suite of awesome plug-ins, sports an extremely low learning curve and is probably the most logically thought out GUI I’ve ever worked with in my career. It was rock-solid-stable on my PowerBook and my G5, used little CPU on each, and best of all, it sounds great, too. With a retail price of $189, and a street price averaging around $150, this is an incredible bargain for what is absolutely a professional-level audio production suite of recording tools. For the price you could pay for only one or two third-party VST plug-ins on the market you get a whole new world of them for your recording system, plus the great DAW in Mackie’s Tracktion 2, which is enough reason right there to buy it in my opinion.

I can’t possibly list all of the features of this program here, well, I could, but I’m not going to because this is the Internet and all you’ll have to do is following this link to the Mackie website where you can read all about it. More than reading about, go download the free demo of it and try it for yourself. I think once you get used to the interface, you’re going to like it, too.


About the Author: Mike Lawson is a songwriter/musician, and publisher of over 140 books and videos on recording and the music business by the bestselling authors in the field. He’s a Governor of the San Francisco Chapter of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, where he’s served as a chapter officer, a National Trustee, and has served on the National Publications Committee, National Finance Committee, the Strategic Planning Committee and the Awards and Nominations Committee for the Recording Academy’s annual Grammy Awards. When not writing music, working in the studio, developing new book titles, geeking out on PHP code or buying guitars, he also enjoys fishing, boating and good Southern BBQ. He lives with his wife Sandra, three children, a dog and horse three hours northeast of San Francisco, near Lake Shasta, CA.