When the time comes to mix a newly created song things can get overwhelming in a hurry. With all of the VST effects available and thousands of presets at your fingertips it can be tempting to pull up a “mastering” plugin and select the “radio read mix” preset and export the result as your final mix. Who knows, maybe you’ll get lucky and actually have a radio ready mix, but don’t count on it. Before you go slapping compressors and limiters everywhere you take a moment to relax and then start setting your fader levels. Once you’ve gotten a basic rough mix you should open an EQ instead of the compressor. With EQ you can lower specific overbearing frequencies and boost others to bring out a more vibrant sound in each of your tracks. I’m not going to get into the depth’s of multi-track mixing but below you will find 2 frequency charts that can be used as a starting point for your mixes. On a side not, if you want to hear what a bad mix sounds like there are more than a few prime examples on my music page.

Open up your filters.php file and change

if ( arras_get_option('single_thumbs') ) {
		$postheader .= '</p><div>' . arras_get_thumbnail('featured-slideshow-thumb') . '</div><p>';
}

to

if ( arras_get_option('single_thumbs') && has_post_thumbnail($id) ) { //removes default thumbnail display when no post thumbnail is set
		$postheader .= '</p><div>' . arras_get_thumbnail('featured-slideshow-thumb') . '</div><p>';
}

if ( arras_get_option('single_thumbs') ) {
		$postheader .= '</p><div>' . arras_get_thumbnail('featured-slideshow-thumb') . '</div><p>';
}

All that is needed is the addition of && is_single() to the code. By doing so the code will now tell Arras to load the post thumbnail only if the single_thumbs(post thumbnail) option is selected in the theme’s admin and only on single posts.

if ( arras_get_option('single_thumbs') && is_single() ) { //removes thumbnail display from pages
		$postheader .= '</p><div>' . arras_get_thumbnail('featured-slideshow-thumb') . '</div><p>';
}

Arras features an in-depth set of theme options. It doesn’t have so many options that it becomes overwhelming but plenty enough to customize it to your own style and personality. Speaking of style, the developer has been nice enough to include a stylesheet named user.css that you can use to add your own styles. You can even use the user.css file to override any of the default styles. No need to select an option or even create a file. The file’s already included and all you have to do is insert your css styles.

If you use the wp-pagenavi plugin you’ll be pleased to know that a matching plugin style is already included in the theme’s stylesheet. In addition the code that calls the wp-pagenavi plugin is already built into the theme so all you have to do is activate the plugin. There is also an included template file for the “Yet another related posts” plugin. In order to use the template file just go to the plugin’s settings page in the dashboard and you will find an option to use the template. In the theme options page you will also find links to a few other plugins that are recommended by the developer. One of these is the “Sexy bookmarks” plugin that I think looks very good with this theme.

One major added plus for the Arras theme is the support available. The theme’s site has a support forum as well as many how-to’s. If you’re interested in upcoming changes to the theme you can visit the Arras project on google code. There you will be able to get a sneak peak at what’s changing in the code as well as what bugs have been found. You can also file a bug report there as well.

If your site is begging for a more professional look and you don’t have the cash to have one developed for you then you should give the Arras theme a try.

1. “Hide Pages” by Thomas Howard of Instinct Entertainment : A plugin that provides a simple way of hiding pages from the frontend menu.
2. “My Page Order” by Andrew Charlton : My Page Order allows you to set the order of pages through a drag and drop interface. The default method of setting the order page by page is extremely clumsy, especially with a large number of pages.
3. “WP-PageNavi” by Lester ‘GaMerZ’ Chan : Adds a more advanced paging navigation to your WordPress blog.
4. “Lightbox 2” by Rupert Morris : Used to overlay images on the current page.
5. “Maintenance Mode” by Michael Wöhrer : Adds a splash page to your blog that lets visitors know your blog is down for maintenance. Logged in administrators get full access to the blog including the front-end.