Muting a track does not mute its MIDI output

[xbitz]

"You want to mute the snares. Then its not possible and i can see this as annoying like hell."

don't get it, why don't u simply solo the affected audio out of the multiout VSTi ?

that would mean you would have to open up the mixer. Its disrupts the work flow get it i get it:) would be easier just to mute the track if you want to mute.. but alt+a on the clip works also but still people will be annoyed

Also, the output could well being used for other sounds. This is particularly the case with hardware instruments. I often run 8 or 10 sounds from a module that only has two stereo outs.

And in a live situation muting the audio cuts of any tails that might be playing. Not acceptable.

an empty instrument layer can break the chain without killing the tails, its power on/off button can be assigned to a macro (audio receivers pre/post can be used for futher routing)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3R_-SYMn0AM

[slackhead]

Thanks for that - i'll have closer look at what's happening there.

But .... i'm not so much worried about fx tails (I can use sends for those) but long release on sounds (pads or other long sounds for instance).
With MIDI muting you can hit the mute immediately after the sound plays - you don't have to wait for the sound to end as it wont effect anything until the next MIDI event. With an audio mute you have to wait until the right point to press the button, which may be tricky when doing complex changes live and definitely reduces your options.

[tooneba]

I tried this in fl studio and it behaves like bitwig It still sending notes. I tried both using the midi as plugin sending to sylenth muted channel. Still sound. Same with with using layer in fl. i mute layer still sound from sylenth1.
I dont understand why this is annoying? sure u are used to something else. but if u use bitwig regualare u should develope new habits.
Still alt+a works great, saves cpu also

Muting MIDI Out stops sending midi. Muting Layer stops sending notes. I just tried in FL. What version are you using?

[takaii]

I tried this in fl studio and it behaves like bitwig It still sending notes. I tried both using the midi as plugin sending to sylenth muted channel. Still sound. Same with with using layer in fl. i mute layer still sound from sylenth1.
I dont understand why this is annoying? sure u are used to something else. but if u use bitwig regualare u should develope new habits.
Still alt+a works great, saves cpu also

Muting MIDI Out stops sending midi. Muting Layer stops sending notes. I just tried in FL. What version are you using?

You have right, i might have been to not concentrated and done something wrong. i tried again and it stops midi... Wow sometimes i just don't do thing right hehe

[moss]

I ran into this problem last week too when recording stuff from my modular synth. It took me a while to figure out why the recorded result sounded so weird. Actually it was ok but the instrument track with the external instrument was muted but still playing.

I vote for changing this and also do not have an idea what could be the benefit of the current behaviour.

[slackhead]

I raised this as a bug.

Dom has got back to me and has confirmed that it is meant to work this way.

In response I asked if I could make a feature request that an option is added on a track (a toggle in the inspector perhaps) that allows the mute and solo buttons to operate on MIDI as well as audio. This way we can have the best of both worlds (although I struggle to see why you wouldn't want it to work the way I'm asking).

If others can also put in a FR for this we may (hopefully) get something in place.

[Notecrusher]

WOW do I hate this! I mute and solo MIDI tracks in Sonar all day long, and it works as expected. A DAW is an abstraction of a recording studio. When I'm mixing I care not a whit whether my drum tracks contain MIDI or audio data. I want to treat them the same and I expect the DAW to abstract away the differences whenever possible.

This is so basic. It's muting and soloing tracks ffs. Things should be moving in the other direction, e.g mapping the volume slider to CC7 (as suggested), not making the differences between MIDI and audio tracks MORE evident.

[ThomasHelzle]

Yeah, I had long discussions about this at the Bitwig HQ.
The idea behind the current behaviour seems to be, that if you use the hardware output and return the resulting audio into the track, then it "works as intended", since the audio is muted. I argued that not everybody is using it this way and not every external instrument (when played multitimbral) has enough outputs to return every midi channel separately (so you need to stop the midi instead) and that there isn't a real way to stop midi output at all (this was quite a while ago, in the meantime there are at least workarounds)...
To no avail.
It also is thought that if you don't return your resulting audio into the same track, you are probably using external mixing and are supposed to mute there...
Well...

So yeah, this is a case where only lots of user FRs may change the current behaviour to something usable...

Cheers,

Tom

[slackhead]

I'm trying to get into the swing of using alt-A to deactivate MIDI tracks (which essentially does the same job), but this is SO much more inconvenient as you need to select the track (with the mouse) and then (use the keyboard to) deactivate / reactivate.

What a faff

And it doesn't help at all when you want to solo something.

I really can't believe anybody would want it to work this way.

Come on guys, lets get lots of request in for this to change.....please!

[Which reminds me of another thing - there is no key command for the mute button or for muting clips?]

[goatgirl]

There is one instance that would break should it be changed to mute MIDI with the track mute/solo. That is where you have a multi-timbre hardware device with shared audio, such that you route the audio to a dedicated track. In this case the solo function would be nerfed. As you can not singularly solo one of the MIDI tracks. You would have to solo the midi track and the audio return track... which defeats the notion of a solo button.

As such, perhaps rather than requesting that the track mute/solo work with MIDI, it may be better to request that the external instrument device be expanded. I would much prefer if the external device acted more like other multi channel instruments, such as the drum machine, where individual channels can be expanded in the mix view and control the mute/solo there. It could also keep all the devices MIDI tracks together.

This may be better all around as it does not need to break what currently exists and gives a more cohesion between similar design elements.

[slackhead]

In this case the solo function would be nerfed.

Soloing certainly creates it's own set of problems, particularly when you have 'hybrid' tracks.
Having 'Solo Safe' for individual tracks is one solution, or linking of solos between tracks but this adds to the complexity of the program...
Other DAWs seem to manage this, particularly Samplitude which has had 'hybrid' style tracks for years.

I would much prefer if the external device acted more like other multi channel instruments, such as the drum machine, where individual channels can be expanded in the mix view and control the mute/solo there. It could also keep all the devices MIDI tracks together.

This seems like a good approach. However, the problem still remains with VSTi's.
For instance, in Geist I have many kits set up which have many sounds on a single channel. I'd like to be able to trigger these from different tracks, but keep them coming back on a single audio return.

This may be better all around as it does not need to break what currently exists and gives a more cohesion between similar design elements.

Having a switch on a track, accessible in the Inspector, which offers "Mute/Solo effects MIDI" or some such, would allow the default behaviour to remain as it is now (thus not break anything), but give everyone the choice without adding too much complexity. Although that still leaves the soloing issue, I'd be happy to have to solo two channels together rather than the current situation.

[Notecrusher]

I'd be happy to have to solo two channels together

I wouldn't. No other DAW that I know of makes you do that. This just works in Sonar and has since the 90's. Talk about a giant leap backwards.

[Notecrusher]

"You want to mute the snares. Then its not possible and i can see this as annoying like hell."

......

don't get it, why don't u simply solo the affected audio out subtrack/layer of the multiout VSTi ?

That's not my workflow. I record each percussion part to its own MIDI track for discrete editing. And I often do my processing on-board in Battery and route all audio to a single track.

[goatgirl]

However, the problem still remains with VSTi's.
For instance, in Geist I have many kits set up which have many sounds on a single channel. I'd like to be able to trigger these from different tracks, but keep them coming back on a single audio return.

This is not quite the same issue. As mentioned in another thread it currently works with external instruments. Perhaps the note routing could be looked at to make it behave similar to external instruments. Though that does have its own issues where channels share the same note instances.

Having a switch on a track, accessible in the Inspector, which offers "Mute/Solo effects MIDI" or some such, would allow the default behaviour to remain as it is now (thus not break anything), but give everyone the choice without adding too much complexity. Although that still leaves the soloing issue, I'd be happy to have to solo two channels together rather than the current situation.

This is not really any different to the way that the drum machine works at present. You can not use the inspector to mute/sole individual pads. This has to be done in the device chain or in the mix view instead. Extending the hardware device to show additional channels in the device chain would just make it fall in line with other current multi channel devices.

Allowing the solo buttons to break would be silly, as you just move a problem from one area to another. Frustration would still remain one way or the other.

This approach may have its own issues. It is more of an idea, to give better functionality but in a Bitwig way.

[donkong]

I totally agree with the original author. Here's why.

For me Solo and Mute are functions to track single channels. Which means, you have your song playing and want to tweak something on one channel and maybe don't want to be distracted by the others. Then you use solo and/or mute to hear what you want for that moment.
If you want a channel to be silent all the time, then delete it or in case the channel is sth like a sidechain turn down the fader OR change the output to "nothing". That works fine in Bitwig and audio is not the problem.

But - to come back to the problem - when using MultiOut Vsts you have to go somewhere else (to the mixer, or devicechain of the vst) to temporarily solo or mute individual outputs, instead of just killing what is sending to them and is available on the front plate of the DAW (the solo/mute button on the midi channel). For me that sounds like a work around and not a work flow.

If you are using mute and solo buttons for "more" than temporarily monitoring of individual tracks, than you haven't understood the concept of them. You don't need to mute a sidechain audio signal, but if you want to it's possible. Otherwise turn the fader down. But why shouldn't I have the possibility to "mute" midi notes if I want to, so I can temporarily listen to the other channels of the multi vst. There's no reason for it.

To the sidechain-input on solo-ing track argument - which is the only one brought up yet - If you have the sidechain Input Pre-Fader everything would work as supposed to, also with "our" way of solo/mute. And I guess also that this is the reason why you have the choice to select pre or post fader.