• Introduction
• What is Airtime Pro?
• Rights and royalties
• Using Airtime
• On air in 60 seconds!
• Getting started
• The System menu
• General
• Users
• Streams
• Status
• Listener stats
• The main menus
• Now playing
• Add media
• Library
• Calendar
• History
• Listen
• Help
• Airtime in the studio
• Preparing media for ingest
• Live shows with Mixxx
• Smartphone journalism
• About this manual

Live shows with Mixxx

Mixxx is a cross-platform Open Source application for DJs, available from http://www.mixxx.org/

Installed on a desktop or laptop computer, Mixxx complements your Airtime server to provide a complete system for both live and scheduled broadcasting. Although Mixxx has many features designed for dance music DJs that require beat matching and pitch independent time stretching, the program can be used for any kind of manually triggered broadcast playout, including live speech shows such as news or current affairs.

Mixxx supports a wide variety of popular hardware control surfaces, which can be connected to your computer using a USB cable. A control surface might replace or augment an analogue mixer in your studio, depending on your live mixing and playout requirements.

Sound cards

If your computer does not have a four-channel audio interface to provide a cue output or separate mixer outputs, you can configure Mixxx to use additional stereo sound cards or USB devices by clicking Options, Preferences, then Sound Hardware in the main Mixxx menu. Select a device other than the default for the Headphones output, or select separate devices for Deck outputs. Then click the OK button.

For performance and redundancy reasons it is advisable to cache files required for a particular show on the client machine where Mixxx is installed. For example, a nightly download of new media in the archive would guard against network problems at playout time potentially disrupting a broadcast at a remote studio.

Mixxx users can also record a show, and then upload it through the Airtime web interface for collaborative or user-generated broadcasts.

Streaming from Mixxx into Airtime

Mixxx 1.9.0 or later includes a live streaming client which, like Airtime, is compatible with the Icecast and SHOUTcast media servers. This feature can also be used to stream from Mixxx directly into Airtime, using either the Show Source or Master Source.

To configure Mixxx for streaming into Airtime, click Options, Preferences, then Live Broadcasting on the main Mixxx menu. For server Type, select the default of Icecast 2. For Host, Mount, Port, Login and Password, use the Input Stream Settings configured in the Airtime Streams page, on Airtime's System menu. See the chapter Stream settings for remote input connection details.

Airtime skins for Mixxx

Airtime-themed skins for Mixxx, designed with broadcast users in mind, are available for download from https://github.com/Airtime/MixxxSkins

These skins provide a simplified interface for live broadcasting which do away with EQ, flange effect, looping and other features required by dance music DJs. Instead, the emphasis is on a clear and uncluttered interface which does not require large mouse movements to operate the most important controls. There are versions available both with and without pitch/tempo controls for beat matching.

After downloading one of the skins, extract the zip file and copy it to the skins directory on the computer where Mixxx is installed. For example, on Debian or Ubuntu:

unzip Airtime1280x1024_skin_for_Mixxx.zip
sudo cp -r Airtime1280x1024 /usr/share/mixxx/skins/

Then, start Mixxx and select the Airtime skin by clicking Options, Preferences, then Interface in the Mixxx main menu.