This guide is for the people who set up and maintain Choir Mixer — not the singers who use it to practice, but the administrators who make it available to them.
There are two distinct administrator roles, and this guide has a section for each.
The WordPress site owner installs the plugin, adds Choir Mixer to a page, and keeps the software up to date. They need access to the WordPress dashboard and some familiarity with how WordPress pages work. They do not need to know anything about music.
The Choir Mixer editor adds songs, uploads audio files, and places phrase markers so that singers can navigate the music. They work entirely within Choir Mixer itself — no WordPress access is needed. They are typically the choir director, rehearsal pianist, or someone the director trusts with the repertoire. They do not need to know anything about web development.
These two roles can be the same person, or different people. The guide covers each in a separate section.
Choir Mixer is a WordPress plugin that embeds a multi-track audio learning tool in any page or post on your site. Singers visit the page, hear the tracks for their choir's repertoire, and use the controls to practice at their own pace.
The song library — which songs are available, where their audio files are, and where the phrase markers fall — is maintained by the Choir Mixer editor through a built-in admin interface. The editor does not need to log in to WordPress to do this work; they enter a private key sequence directly in the player.
Audio files can be hosted anywhere that is publicly accessible, but using your WordPress Media Library is the most straightforward approach and avoids most common problems.
Choir Mixer is distributed as a zip file. To install it, you will need access to the WordPress dashboard with a user account that has permission to install plugins.
choirmixer.zip file.On activation, Choir Mixer automatically uploads the bundled audio files to your WordPress Media Library, and writes a default configuration file to wp-content/uploads/choirmixer/. You will see the files appear in your Media Library under the name "Keep On (Going)."
Choir Mixer is added to any page or post using a shortcode. Create or edit a page in WordPress, and place the following shortcode in the body:
[choirmixer]
Publish or update the page. Choir Mixer will appear at that position when visitors view the page.
By default, Choir Mixer is displayed at 720 pixels tall, which comfortably fits the player and its controls on a desktop screen. If you need more or less space — for example, if your page template has a narrow column, or if you expect many tracks — you can set the height explicitly:
[choirmixer height="900"]
On mobile devices, Choir Mixer expands to fill the full screen height automatically, regardless of the height setting.
Singers can click the small expand icon (⤢) in the upper right corner of the player to open Choir Mixer in a full browser tab. This is particularly useful on smaller screens or when working with loop markers that require precise placement. No configuration is needed — this works automatically.
When a new version of Choir Mixer is available, you upgrade it by uploading the new zip file — the same way you installed it.
choirmixer.zip file.Your song configuration, markers, and Media Library files are stored in wp-content/uploads/choirmixer/, not inside the plugin folder. They are not touched during an upgrade.
Understanding where Choir Mixer stores its data will help you if you ever need to troubleshoot, back up, or move the site.
Song configuration — all songs, track URLs, and markers are stored in a single file: wp-content/uploads/choirmixer/choirmixer-config.json. This file is plain text and can be opened in any text editor. It is the most important file to back up.
Audio files — if you uploaded audio through the Choir Mixer editor (by pasting URLs from your Media Library), the files are in wp-content/uploads/ alongside all other WordPress media. If you hosted audio elsewhere, it stays wherever you put it.
Singers' personal settings — volume levels, loop positions, and playlists are stored in each singer's browser, on their own device. They do not touch your server. You cannot see or reset them.
The Choir Mixer editor enters a private key sequence to access the song management interface. That sequence is the word ADMIN, typed anywhere on the Choir Mixer page while the player is open. The letters do not appear on screen; just type them and the admin interface will appear.
Share this key sequence privately with whoever will be maintaining the song library. It does not need to be changed between editors, but if you want to restrict access in the future, you would need to update the plugin.
Open the Choir Mixer page in your browser. With the player visible, type the word ADMIN on your keyboard — just the five letters, one after another, within about two seconds. The letters do not appear on screen and nothing special needs to be focused.
When admin mode activates, a purple banner appears at the top of the player reading ⬡ Admin Mode — click to exit. The song list and marker row also change to show editing controls.
To exit admin mode, click the purple banner, or type ADMIN again. If you have unsaved changes, you will be asked whether to save or discard them before exiting.
Before adding a song to Choir Mixer, you need the audio files for each vocal part, and optionally a sheet music PDF. Choir Mixer needs a direct URL to each file — a web address that, if you pasted it into a browser, would download or play the file directly.
The most reliable approach is to upload your audio files to the WordPress Media Library. Files in the Media Library are hosted on your own site, which avoids the access problems that can arise with files hosted elsewhere.
https://yoursite.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/soprano.mp3.You can use audio files hosted on any publicly accessible server. The URL must be a direct link to the file itself, not a sharing page. Google Drive, Dropbox, and similar services typically require extra steps to generate direct links — if in doubt, uploading to the Media Library is simpler.
In admin mode, click the song title at the top of the player to open the song list. At the bottom of the list, you will see an Add Song option. Click it to open the Add Song dialog.
The dialog has the following fields.
The name of the piece, as it will appear in the song list. Songs are displayed in alphabetical order.
Optional. Paste the URL of a PDF score here. When a singer clicks the sheet music link at the bottom of the player, this is what opens. Leave it blank if you do not have a score to link.
Choose how many vocal parts this song has — between 2 and 6. This sets how many track rows appear below.
Each row has two fields: the name of the part (for example, Soprano or Lead), and the URL of the audio file for that part. Paste in the URLs you copied from the Media Library.
Track names appear on the track cards in the player. Choose names that singers will recognize from their sheet music.
When all fields are filled, click Create Song. The song appears in the list immediately and the configuration is saved automatically.
In admin mode, open the song list and click the pencil icon next to any song to edit it. You can change the title, sheet music URL, number of tracks, track names, and audio URLs. Click Save Changes when done.
In admin mode, open the song list and click the trash icon next to the song you want to remove. A confirmation dialog will ask you to confirm before the song is deleted. The audio files themselves are not deleted — only the song's entry in the Choir Mixer configuration is removed.
Phrase markers are labelled positions on the timeline that help singers navigate a song. A singer can press Tab to jump to the next marker, or double-click a marker to instantly loop that phrase. Well-placed markers turn a long recording into something a singer can move through efficiently.
Markers are per-song. You set them while that song is loaded in the player. Each marker has a time position and a label.
In admin mode, play or navigate to the point in the song where you want to place a marker. Then do one of the following:
The dialog has two fields:
Time — shown in minutes, seconds, and tenths of a second (for example, 1:24.3). You can edit this field directly if you want a precise position.
Label — the name of the section, such as Verse 1, Chorus, Bridge A, or whatever naming your choir uses. This label appears on the marker triangle and in the score if singers are following along.
Press Enter or click Create to place the marker. It appears immediately on the timeline and the configuration is saved.
In admin mode, drag any marker triangle left or right along the timeline. When you release it, the marker snaps to its new position and the configuration is saved automatically. Markers always stay sorted in time order regardless of where you drag them.
In admin mode, double-click any marker triangle to open the edit dialog. Change the label or time as needed and click Save.
In admin mode, click the small ✕ that appears on a marker when you hover over it.
The most useful markers are at the start of each major section — verse, chorus, bridge, coda — and at any phrase that singers commonly need to repeat. A song with four or five well-named markers is easier to navigate than one with twenty tightly spaced ones.
Listen to the song while placing markers. The most precise approach is to play the song, pause at the exact start of a section, and then click the marker row. The time field will be pre-filled to within a tenth of a second of where you paused.
Click the purple ⬡ Admin Mode — click to exit banner at the top of the player, or type ADMIN again. If all changes have been saved, the player returns to normal immediately. If there are unsaved changes — which should be rare, since most actions save automatically — you will be asked to save or discard them.
The audio URL for one or more tracks is incorrect or the file is not publicly accessible. In admin mode, open the song and check that each audio URL is correct and returns the file directly when pasted into a browser. If you are using Google Drive or Dropbox, make sure the URL is a direct download link, not a sharing page.
Try reloading the Choir Mixer page. If the configuration was saved successfully, the updated songs and markers will appear after a reload. If problems persist, check whether the wp-content/uploads/choirmixer/ folder on your server is writable by WordPress.
This means Choir Mixer could not write the configuration to your server. The most common causes are a file permissions problem on the uploads folder, or a session that has been open long enough for the security token to expire. Try reloading the page and entering admin mode again. If the problem persists, contact your site host to confirm that WordPress can write to wp-content/uploads/choirmixer/.
Make sure the Sheet Music URL field in the song's settings contains a complete URL starting with https://. The link only appears when a valid URL is saved for the current song.