Quick Start

Get up and running with mtrack quickly

Quick Start Guide

This guide will help you get mtrack running with a basic setup in just a few minutes.

Step 1: Check Your Devices

First, let’s see what audio devices mtrack can detect:

1

mtrack devices

You should see output like:

Devices:
- UltraLite-mk5 (Channels=22) (Alsa)
- bcm2835 Headphones (Channels=8) (Alsa)

Note the device name you want to use (e.g., UltraLite-mk5).

Check your MIDI devices:

1

mtrack midi-devices

Step 2: Create a Song Repository

Create a directory for your songs:

1
2

mkdir -p ~/mtrack-songs
cd ~/mtrack-songs

Step 3: Create Your First Song

Create a subdirectory for your first song:

1
2

mkdir my-first-song
cd my-first-song

Place your audio files in this directory (WAV format recommended). Then generate a default song configuration:

1

mtrack songs --init ~/mtrack-songs

This creates a song.yaml file in each subdirectory. Edit my-first-song/song.yaml to configure your tracks.

Step 4: Create a Playlist

Create a playlist file:

1
2
3
4

cat > ~/playlist.yaml << EOF
songs:
- my-first-song
EOF

Step 5: Create Player Configuration

Create a basic player configuration:

 1
 2
 3
 4
 5
 6
 7
 8
 9
10
11
12
13
14

cat > ~/mtrack.yaml << EOF
songs: ~/mtrack-songs
playlist: ~/playlist.yaml

audio:
  device: UltraLite-mk5  # Use your device name from step 1

midi:
  device: UltraLite-mk5  # Optional, use your MIDI device

track_mappings:
  # Map your track names to output channels
  # Adjust based on your song configuration
EOF

Step 6: Test a Song

Test playing a song directly:

1

mtrack play-direct -d your-audio-device click=1,cue=2 ~/mtrack-songs "my-first-song"

Step 7: Start the Player

Start mtrack as a player process:

1

mtrack start ~/mtrack.yaml

Next Steps