MUTOOLS

LYTZ · Post by **LYTZ** » Wed Apr 22, 2015 11:45 am

Hey gang,

another one I am baffled about:

I am mixing down the third full project right now with a lot of Bussing going on.
(i.e. Drumbus, Percussion Group, Vocal Bus, Synths Bus, FX Group, etc.)

Now when I solo a Bus where the tracks are routed to, I get silence.
AFAIK there is no solo defeat option in Mutools?

Is there anyway to Bus-mix without having to click all the 10000 tracks all the time when soloing a bus,
so that I can, well, solo the bus to do proper mixing?

If that's not the case then consider this:
Subgroup mixing is a *huge* thing when working on anything serious with more than a handful of tracks
and utterly important when you're not just playing around for nothing.

I would *highly* recommend looking into that ASAP.

Best,

tL.

pljones · Post by **pljones** » Wed Apr 22, 2015 5:24 pm

Go into the Session Modular area, route each set of bussed racks through a single rack instead of straight to Master, then route that new buss-rack to Master (should be by default). You can then enable/disable at buss level (though you still have to switch each buss on and off, it's better than having to do individual tracks).

LYTZ · Post by **LYTZ** » Wed Apr 22, 2015 7:38 pm

Not talking about disabling/muting stuff. Talking about solo' ing a subgroup....

But thanks anyways. Also good to know about.

Talking again of workarounds, I can fake a "solo" by muting all the other busses. Or fake a trackfolder
with nested tracks in the arrangement and solo from there. But all of this is pretty arkward.

Bussing really is super-basic. It usually is possible everywhere, because it is so essential and around
as long as there is audiorecording done with the computer and even on all mixing desks, analog or digital, doesnt matter.
50 years ago, doesnt matter.

Well, anyways, it's okay. Have already exported everything and will go from there.

Best,

tL.

(Edit: No offense guys, I know sometimes this sounds like a rant. This is a great software, still somewhat limited but with an awesome design philosophy. But when I am happy and just doing stuff, I usually don't write about that...

)

Taron · Post by **Taron** » Thu Apr 23, 2015 7:49 am

Ah, I think, I get what you're after, although I'm not 100% certain.
Seems like you're talking about soloing a "send" or rather the target of a send... like getting only the reverb (rack) of a track, roughly speaking?

Is that right?

I've noticed on more than one occasion that certain terms are a little ... truncated away in MuLab. Probably because there are generic approaches to solving routing, making it impractical to offer specific naming for certain routes, such as a "bus", for example.

If I am right by some odd chance and you speak of what I think you do, I've also noticed that there doesn't seem to be a simple way of doing that. I was actually impressed about the surprisingly "clever" thing that, if you solo a rack that has a send effect, it will automatically add the rack it sends to with it.

But, yeah, I'm not absolutely sure, if my assumption about your request is correct?

mutools · Post by **mutools** » Thu Apr 23, 2015 8:15 am

LYTZ wrote:Not talking about disabling/muting stuff. Talking about solo' ing a subgroup....

Just did this test:
Drum pattern to drum rack.
Send from drum rack to reverb rack. (reverb is 100% wet, so the send defines the amount of reverb)
Now when i solo the reverb rack i onkly hear the reverb.
If i "Export Cmposition As Audio File" i get an audio file with the reverb only.
Isn't it that what you're asking?

Edit: No offense guys, I know sometimes this sounds like a rant. This is a great software, still somewhat limited but with an awesome design philosophy. But when I am happy and just doing stuff, I usually don't write about that...

No prob LYTZ, i feel you're posting constructive feedback straight from practical studio situations, that's top! I can't promise i can handle each and every feature request as there only is a limited amount of R&D time. There are more feature requests (not only from you of course) than dev-time, that's for sure. Anyway i'll do my best to select and improve the most important things first. Keep going!

mutools · Post by **mutools** » Thu Apr 23, 2015 8:18 am

Taron wrote:I've noticed on more than one occasion that certain terms are a little ... truncated away in MuLab.

Which terms?

Probably because there are generic approaches to solving routing, making it impractical to offer specific naming for certain routes, such as a "bus", for example.

You can name your racks Bus X, Bus Y, ... Isn't that a solution?

Taron · Post by **Taron** » Thu Apr 23, 2015 8:31 am

That is what I was getting at with the names. It's not a problem with the terms, just because by default specifications have to fall by the wayside for the logical sake of universality. It's just something that happens.
The mixer is a nice an easy example for people to get confused when they look for common terms, simply because the thing is so much more flexible and designable than they've ever seen.
I've just made a little session mux augmentation, just as a rough quick try, by adding an effects "bus" rack, detaching all racks from the master and hooking the "instrument/source" racks into one input of an audio balance module and the send "bus" racks into the second input of it.
Then you can send from your source racks into the bus racks, but use the balancer to blend all the way to the effects only or do the opposite. It's actually kind of cool.

Taron · Post by **Taron** » Thu Apr 23, 2015 8:35 am

mutools wrote: Just did this test:
Drum pattern to drum rack.
Send from drum rack to reverb rack. (reverb is 100% wet, so the send defines the amount of reverb)
Now when i solo the reverb rack i onkly hear the reverb.
If i "Export Cmposition As Audio File" i get an audio file with the reverb only.
Isn't it that what you're asking?

Hmmm, if I do that, the rack that was sending the effect gets muted, stopping any signal to go into the reverb rack. That's why I made the funny audio balance thing in the session mux. If you do that, your drum rack would continue to drum away, but you'd only hear the reverb.

mutools · Post by **mutools** » Thu Apr 23, 2015 8:44 am

Attached the test project i meant. Solo the reverb rack and you only hear the reverb.

mutools · Post by **mutools** » Thu Apr 23, 2015 8:48 am

Meanwhile i understand what you guys mean: It's when, for example, you output rack A and B to rack "Bus 1", then soloing rack "Bus 1" indeed gives silence. I'll look into that.

LYTZ · Post by **LYTZ** » Thu Apr 23, 2015 8:52 am

mutools wrote:Meanwhile i understand what you guys mean: It's when, for example, you output rack A and B to rack "Bus 1", then soloing rack "Bus 1" indeed gives silence. I'll look into that.

Yeees, *thats* what I meant with Bussing.

Taron · Post by **Taron** » Thu Apr 23, 2015 9:02 am

Here's a little test project I just made for you.
Open the MODULAR. Double click on the Audio Balance module above the Master. Adjust the balance to blend between source and bus racks. Really interesting!

LYTZ · Post by **LYTZ** » Thu Apr 23, 2015 10:28 am

Thanks T', but again and again: I am not talking about interesting experiments with balancing two sources, I am talking about everyday workhorse mixing duties with multiple stem-groups and multiple tracks in a group at once, and easy soloing the whole group in itself...

If you're still confused, look up stem-mixing, bus-mix or VCA-grouping on google or in the usual major DAW forums.

Jo got it right. So lets keep it at that.

Best,

tL.

Taron · Post by **Taron** » Thu Apr 23, 2015 10:48 am

No, no, as in yes, yes, that's exactly what I thought about, too: rack groupings. If you can group racks, you may not only be able to mute or solo the whole group, but can have muting and soloing within a certain group only, leaving the other one unaffected. At the same time it still requires some level of distinction between bus and source channel to allow signals from a source to still reach the bus (being processed) without directly feeding into the master... a sort of send solo internally that may be managed by the bus rack?
(Maybe a little mode switch on a rack [bus], or so?! But it could be kind of automatic, too, detecting if there are no generators present, but only processors.)
That stuff could certainly get a little puzzling in the code, but if anyone can pull it of...gotta be Jo!

At the same time, though, L, you shouldn't dismiss the modular power as it can help you do things an ordinary mixer could only dream of! "Ordinary workhorses" became "ordinary", because people worked with their stuff and didn't ignore their powers. Heck, audio engineers soldered plucks to achieve functions such as mono jacks and such...loads of wild stuff that was "ordinary" before developers got smarter. In a few ways Jo is a little ahead of his time, but then I, too, agree that a few standard/basic functions should not require engineering skills, hehe.

mutools · Post by **mutools** » Thu Apr 23, 2015 4:20 pm

Pls check out the new M6.4.21 test version and let me know if that works fine for you.
That new M6.4.21 test version can be found here: http://www.mutools.com/forsythia

MUTOOLS

KVR Audio

Bus Behaviour. Solo Defeat anyone?