Getting Started

Altough making Paks is pretty straightforward, you will need a few tools, depending on what you plan to do.

Tools You May Need

  • Mixtikl Desktop (Win or Mac version): to create mixtikl files, test Paks and play your mixes!
  • Textpad, Notepad (or whatever): to tweak your pak.xml files (these define the tempo & key).
  • Winzip (7Zip or whatever): to package-up your Tiklpaks into self-contained zip files.
  • Wavelab (or Audacity etc.): to create your loops and ogg files.
  • Awave or Microsoft DLS Producer: if you need to create any DLS 1 wavetables for something or other.
  • Noatikl: to create any generative pieces.
  • Partikl (one of the apps included in Mixtikl): to bind-up any MIDI or Noatikl files to ogg/dls sounds, and/or to attach to modular synth sounds. These are saved as .partikl files.
    • Note: .partikl files can be used either as content for Pak cells... or for creating generative pieces with their own attached sounds, that you can then share with people who want to play your pieces in a (geneative!) playlist under the Mixtkl player. NB: the Mixtikl player will be freely available for everybody to use... no purchase required. So a great way to distribute generative content.

Important considerations

  • If your Pak is to include audio loops we recommend you create 2 different variants:
    • Smartphone/Pocket PC/PDA: use loops at 22 Khz Mono Ogg
    • Desktop: use loops at 44 Khz Mono Ogg
    • Tip: Identify the quality in the Pak name (e.g. trance_intermorphic_tiklpak_22k.zip and trance_intermorphic_tiklpak_44k.zip)
    • Tip: Even if at different qualities, don't change the name of the loops - mix files can then just pick up the loop that's available
    • Let users choose which suits them best. Aside from performance & footprint issues, stereo loops require twice the RAM and more processing power. We recommend being consistent, so recommend opting for mono. If you have or keep the WAV masters at 44KHz stereo, then you can always use them in years to come.
  • The Pak sizes to aim for are:
    • Smartphone/Pocket PC/PDA: <500Kb-800Kb
    • Desktop: Whatever you like!
  • Try to work with high quality "master" audio samples which you then edit and resample.
  • For song related Paks, content will generally be 1 to 4 bars loops from the various chorus elements of a song/track (e.g. beat1, beat2, bass, keys, synth, vox1, vox2 etc) and can also include "sting" samples for "one shot" playback.
  • Tempo and the content size are closely interrelated: a 1 bar 60bpm audio clip is 4 seconds in length (each beat is 1 second in length and there are 4 of them in a bar), and a 1 bar 120bpm audio clip a 2 seconds in length (each beat is 1/2 second and there are 4 of them). Therefore Paks with a slow tempo will generally be larger than those with a fast tempo!

Your first step...

Run Mixtikl and save a Mix File from one of the included Tiklpaks, this will create the relevant folder on your computer. If we assume the name of the Tiklpak was "IM Trance Test" (you can use spaces), then on Win XP it would be here, e.g.:

C:\Documents and Settings\yourname\My Documents\intermorphic\mixtikl\paks\IM Trance Test

... Then create your Pak folder (MyName_MyPak)

  1. Create a new folder in parallel with the one above
    • e.g. C:\Documents and Settings\yourname\My Documents\intermorphic\mixtikl\paks\MyName_MyPak
    • Pak folder names must be unique and should a naming convention like "Artist Track Label" (or where they are just loops then "Company LoopDescription").
    • Spaces may be used in path names
    • This folder is displayed in the content list, so we recommend keeping it short and you may wish to use abbreviations and spaces.
  2. Put (or save) all of the elements that you require into this folder.
  3. You can work with and test your Pak in this folder before you create your final Pak file.
    • More experienced Pak creators may wish to create a dev folder under the "paks" folder, and then put all Pak content development in a folder "intermorphic/mixtikl/paks/" under this. You then create your zips, using batch files, from these folders and never inadvertently overwrite or alter your master content.
  4. You are ready to go!