Getting Started

Settings

Open Settings from the fMusic menu with Settings… (⌘,). It is one window: a sidebar of seven panes, opening on Import & Organize. There is no Save button anywhere: every change persists on its own the moment you make it, and the flows read the new value live, even while a wizard is open.

Settings are defaults, not questions

Anything that defines how your studio works is set once in Settings and read by the flows on every run. The placement mode is the clearest example: it is not chosen per import, because a studio does not change its routing philosophy per session, and asking every time invites accidental drift. The flows only ask questions whose answer genuinely changes per session: which files, which destination session, which prints. Everything else is a default you configured once.

Import & Organize

One pane drives both modules: an organize reads exactly the defaults an import does.

• Mode & template: Placement mode (Routing by default; Track preset and Match template require Suite), Move into routing folders (on by default), and the Pro Tools session template, with the factory template already connected. Loading a different template briefly closes and reopens your open Pro Tools session so fMusic can read it. The fPreset row imports and exports your whole Import configuration (categories, routes, colors, naming) as a portable .fbus file that never touches Pro Tools. See Routing and matching modes.
• Categories: the table that decides every recognized track's name, color, destination, and strip-silence treatment, matched from top to bottom. Each row holds a color and name, its claimed Elements (the instrument words the recognizer reads from file names), a Destination, and a Strip Silence switch with per-category tuning: Silence threshold (−90 to −20 dBFS, default −50), Minimum length (default 100 ms), and kept-before and kept-after pads. A master Strip silence for all categories switch sits above the table. See How to customize labels and Strip Silence.
• Pro Tools: Import audio (Copy & Convert by default, Copy, or Add without copying), Clip renaming (default None; set to From track name, each clip is renamed after its track), and Track height applied to the tracks fMusic creates (default Small).
• Naming & color: track names come from Forte's naming engine and colors from your category palette; Naming style sets the casing of every generated name (As typed, Title Casing by default, UPPERCASE, Capitalize, lowercase).
• Audio normalization (Suite): Normalize audio (off by default), Target level (the level you type in), and Measure (True Peak or RMS). See Gain staging.
• Stereo-to-mono: one rule per stereo verdict: a stereo file with mono content, hard-panned left, hard-panned right, and split-stereo pairs each get their own conversion; true stereo is never touched. See Stereo to mono conversion.

Export

The Export pane holds the export categories and one global choice, the Export mode. In Routing mode each category names a bus, and a print captures that bus without soloing anything. In Folder mode (Suite) a category names one or more routing folders, which are soloed together and captured from the main output. Each table row pairs a category's color and name with its Source (or Folders), and the table can never be empty; Reset categories restores the factory set. Everything else about exporting, formats, naming, bounce method, and destination, is set per job on the Export wizard's Print settings page, not here. See Print parameters.

Visualizer

The Visualizer pane configures the editor: Timeline detail (Detailed waveforms by default, or Simplified for a lighter envelope on big sessions), Grid mode (BPM or Sec, the ruler a session starts with; the editor's control bar can switch it live), Grid spacing for the seconds grid, Snap to grid, Detect BPM (fills the tempo field from the audio, never overwriting a tempo you typed), Link to session tempo (writes the editor's tempo into the Pro Tools session, musical grid only), and Preview output: the audio device for all in-app playback, so auditioning in fMusic never fights Pro Tools for your main interface.

Shortcuts

The Shortcuts pane has two halves. Export Global Shortcuts are the three system-wide print shortcuts that work while Pro Tools is in front; each can be re-recorded (click the key pill, press the new keys) and needs at least one of ⌘, ⌥, or ⌃. Below them, every editor shortcut is listed in four sections, Transport, Clip editing, Markers, and View & selection, all remappable, with Reset all shortcuts to return the editor to its defaults. See Bounce with shortcuts (Pro Tools).

General

The General pane collects the app-level switches: Launch fMusic at login, Open Pro Tools when fMusic launches, Appearance (Auto by default, Light, Dark), a Default folder pre-filled for new imported sessions and custom export folders, Use intelligent track recognition (the recognition model's switch, on by default; it applies to files analyzed after the change, and already-analyzed tracks keep their verdict), and Diagnostics with Export Debug Logs… (see Extras).

Account and About

The Account pane shows the name and email you are signed in with and a Log Out button, which returns you to the sign-in screen. The About pane shows the version you are running, the update controls (Automatically check for updates and Check for Updates…), and links to this documentation, pricing, and the Forte website.