Before adjusting the audio mix for your session, you should have already set your audio input levels to make sure that the audio from your own instruments and vocals are being captured in a way that will yield high quality audio that works well for you and everyone else in your session. To set your own audio inputs to proper/ideal levels, you use the controls in the Audio Inputs left column of the session screen (see below with arrow).
Once you have set your audio input levels properly (based on the meters as described in the help article on how to set your audio input levels), you should leave these audio input settings alone.
This help article explains how to adjust your personal mix in a session. This covers how to adjust the relative volume of your own instruments/vocals and the relative volume of all the other musicians in your session to get a mix/balance that sounds good to you, as well as how to adjust the overall volume of the mix of everyone to a comfortable level.
Start by getting the session volume set overall at a comfortable level. To do this, we recommend using the headphone volume knob on your audio interface (see below for an example interface with arrow).
Turn this headphone volume knob up or down as needed to get the session audio loud enough to hear comfortably, but not so loud that it hurts your ears. Once you've done this, you can move forward to individually adjust the volume for each musician in the session. You will make these individual musician volume adjustments in the "Personal Mix" center column of the session screen (see below with arrow).
Let's start with your own volume, and let's say that you have two audio inputs - one for your vocals and one for your electric guitar - and let's say that your electric guitar sounds a bit too soft. To fix this volume/mix issue, you should *not* change your electric guitar input level in the Audio Inputs section of the screen - assuming you set this input level properly - or this will mess up your guitar's input level, and it will also change what everyone else hears in the session in their own personal mix.
Instead, you should hover your mouse over the volume icon on your electric guitar track in the Personal Mix section of the screen (see below with arrow).
When you hover your mouse over this volume icon, a volume control is displayed (see below with arrow). Simply pull the slider control up or down to make your guitar louder or softer in the mix.
Now let's say that you are in a session with your friend named Neil, and that Neil is also playing an electric guitar. And let's say that the sound of Neil's guitar is too loud in the mix, so that it's overwhelming the sound of your own guitar. To fix this, you should hover your mouse over the volume icon on Neil's electric guitar track in the Personal Mix section of the screen (see below with arrow).
When you hover your mouse over this volume icon, a volume control is displayed (see below with arrow). Here again, simply pull the slider control up or down to make Neil's guitar louder or softer in the mix. The nice thing about this feature is that adjustments you make in the Personal Mix section of the session screen only affect what *you* hear in the session. These adjustments do not affect what anyone else in the session hears at all - so you can adjust things as much as you like without worrying about the other musicians in your session. Each musician in a JamKazam session gets his/her own personal mix that can be customized individually.
There is one nuance in adjusting other musicians' volume levels of which you should be aware. If another musician in your session has multiple audio tracks set up on their end (e.g. vocal + instrument or the like), you will only see a single audio track for that musician in your session - and you can only control the volume for that musician in total. In other words, you don't have the ability to individually control the volume of that musician's vocal vs instrumental audio. The reason for this is that JamKazam is sending you a single audio stream from each other musician in your session, and so you can only adjust the volume for that single audio stream. This is an intentional choice, and JamKazam does this to control/limit the amount of bandwidth required in sessions, as well as the amount of computing power required to process all of the audio streams - but it does limit your control as noted here.
Normally, you will adjust volume levels in the Personal Mix section for you and the other musicians in your session, and use the headphone volume knob on your audio interface to get your mix set so that the music sounds good to you and is playing at a comfortable level in your headphones - and you'll be done at this point and ready to play.
We'll mention one other power user feature you may want to use in the Personal Mix section. JamKazam supports a pan feature. This feature lets you move an audio track to the left or right in the stereo mix, which can create space in the mix to hear things differently and better in some cases.
Let's say you want to pan the audio from your friend Neil's guitar in the mix. To do this, you should hover your mouse over the pan icon on Neil's electric guitar track in the Personal Mix section of the screen (see below with arrow).
When you hover your mouse over this pan icon, a pan control is displayed (see below with arrow). Simply pull the slider control left or right to move Neil's guitar in the mix. For example, if you pull the slider all the way to the left, you'll hear Neil's guitar only in your left headphone. Or if you pull the slider all the way to the right, you'll hear Neil's guitar only in your right headphone. You can similarly pan your own audio tracks in the personal mix, creating a highly customized mix.
This covers the information and features you'll need to adjust your personal mix when playing in sessions with others.