Mindspace Professional
How the Session Mixer works
The Session Mixer blends your own session recording with a licensed Mindspace track and gives you back one finished MP3, plus the licence that covers it. It runs in your browser. Nothing is uploaded, and nothing leaves your computer.
There are nine sections, worked through in order. Each one is explained below, in the same order and with the same number you see on screen. Most of them can be left alone.
Your script recording
Choose the recording of your own voice. This is the thing being mixed; everything else is built around it, and the finished file is exactly as long as this file is.
- Formats MP3, M4A, WAV and MP4 all work. A video file is accepted and only its sound is used.
- Length There is no limit beyond your own machine. A two-hour recording is fine on a laptop.
- What happens The file is read and decoded on your computer. It is never sent anywhere.
Record at a level that sounds comfortable on its own. The mixer sets the balance afterwards, so there is nothing to get right in advance.
Your music track
Choose the music that will sit underneath your voice. There are two routes, and they behave differently.
- From the library An original Mindspace track. This is the licensed route, and the only one that produces a licence at the end.
- Or a file Music of your own, for testing or for a track you already hold rights to. No licence is issued, because Mindspace has nothing to license.
Library tracks also carry their musical key, which section 4 uses to tune the beat to the music rather than against it.
The mix
The largest section, and the one worth learning. It has five groups of controls and a playback bar at the foot, so every change can be heard before anything is rendered.
Levels
Two vertical faders, one for your voice and one for the music, each with its own reading. The readings warm from yellow to crimson as a level climbs, so a level set too high is visible without listening for it.
Fades
Four separate fades: music in, music out, voice in, voice out. Voice and music fade independently, which is what lets the music open a session before you speak and stay under you after you stop.
Effects
Reverb with room size and room shape, and a chorus. Used gently, reverb puts the voice in a room rather than against the speaker. Used heavily it makes words harder to follow, which is the opposite of what a session needs.
Tone
A seven-band equaliser with a live spectrum behind it. Fine dust falls through the display while audio plays, showing where the energy sits across the frequency range.
Delivery
Playback speed, and the transport bar: back to start, play and pause, jump to the end, and a scrubber you can drag. Playback here is a preview of the real mix, not an approximation of it.
Set the levels first, then the fades, then leave the rest alone the first time. A clean balance does more for a session than any effect on the page.
Beats
Off by default. Switched on, it adds a binaural or isochronic beat underneath the mix. Binaural beats are widely searched and commonly associated in popular wellness culture with calm, focus and deep rest.
- Binaural or isochronic A binaural beat only exists when each ear hears its own tone, so it needs headphones. An isochronic tone pulses instead, and survives a speaker.
- Hold, or descend Hold stays at one frequency for the whole session. Descend starts higher and comes down across it.
- The settle point On the descent graph, drag the handle on the line to choose when the descent finishes and the frequency holds. The time is shown as you drag.
- Carrier, and Match key The carrier is the audible tone the beat rides on. Match key tunes it to a library track's key, so it sits inside the music rather than beside it.
Headphones matter here. On a speaker, a binaural beat is not quiet, it is absent. Choose isochronic if the client will be listening in a room.
Nature sounds
Off by default. Twenty-four original Mindspace recordings: rain, distant thunder, a fireplace, woodland, water and more. Choose one or several and they are laid under the mix at your chosen level, looping for as long as the recording runs.
One is usually enough. Three become a texture the ear starts listening to instead of you.
Coloured noise
Off by default. Eight noise colours, from white through pink and brown to black. Each is generated on your machine rather than streamed, so it never loops and never repeats.
Noise is the quietest thing on the page and the most useful in a noisy room: it raises the floor slightly, which softens sounds arriving from outside the session.
Render
Where everything above is combined into one file. Choose a quality, then press Process.
- 128 kbps Smallest file. Fine for speech with music well underneath it.
- 160 and 192 kbps The sensible middle. 192 is the default for a reason.
- 320 kbps Largest file, for work you will publish.
An estimate appears before you start, and a progress bar with a time remaining while it runs. The mixing itself is quick; the encoding is the wait, and it scales with length rather than with how many sections you used.
Leave the tab open while it renders. Moving to another tab is fine; closing it is not, and the work is lost rather than paused.
Listen, then download
The finished mix, with its own playback bar so you can hear the whole thing before you keep it. Two buttons sit below.
- Download the MP3 The finished file. Its licence reference is written into the audio file itself, so a file found later can always be traced back to its licence.
- Download the licence A PDF naming you, the track and the reference. It lights up once the MP3 has been taken.
Take both. Every licence is also recorded against your account, so a lost PDF can be reissued from the reference.
Learn more about licensing
A single button, linking to the full rules. What follows is the heart of the licence, reproduced as it appears on the document itself.
Mindspace Music Licence
Extract. Your own licence names you, your track, your reference and the date it was issued.
Two ways to make a recording
Build it here in the Session Mixer, or download the track and work with it in your own software. The rules are identical either way.
What you may do
You may play this music in your practice, for as long as your subscription runs.
You may put this music underneath your own spoken voice and give or sell the result as your own work: recordings for clients, podcasts, and online courses you charge for.
You may shape the music to fit your work. Trim it, fade it, set its level, place it under your voice.
You may publish that work anywhere, including YouTube, Vimeo and SoundCloud. This permission does not expire.
Your voice has to be in it
No recording may be made or published without your spoken word in it. Your voice must account for at least a fifth of the finished recording. Most run between a third and a half.
What you may not do
You may not share the music itself with anyone: not the original file, not a copy, not a version you have altered.
You may not publish the music on its own, release it as music, or resell it in any form.
You may not monetise anything containing this music. No advertising, no channel monetisation, no paid placement. This is not about the money: Content ID would let one practitioner's upload generate copyright claims against another's, and the licence protects you from each other.
If your subscription ends
Work already published stays licensed. You may not make new recordings from the music, download further tracks, or keep playing it in session.
Mindspace · mindspace.music · composer Rob Hulford
In summary: add your recording, choose a track, set the balance, render, and take both files. Sections 4, 5 and 6 are optional and off until you turn them on. The primary focus remains your own voice, with everything else underneath it.