MuTools

tomica · Post by **tomica** » Sun Mar 01, 2009 9:04 am

maybe this is not the best topic to post this but i didnt want to make a new one for this. anyway, heres the problem:

if we route rack 1 to rack 2 and than solo rack 2, shouldnt rack 1 still be heard through rack 2? what happens in mulab is that there is no output at all because if rack 2 is soloed, rack 1 be muted even though it is routed to rack 2.

or let's take an example - if i route three vocals racks to a single rack to make it a volume control for all the vocals and than solo the control rack, than there is no output at all because the 3 racks it controls are muted

now it may be a lame example but imagine that the vocals are synths playing at the same time or anything else really and you want to hear only the three of them and nothing else

i think it should be fixed and i also believe it wont be too complicated to implement, because it seems very similar to the always present situation that even if we solo a rack, the master rack always remains unmuted :]

pljones · Post by **pljones** » Sun Mar 01, 2009 10:11 pm

I actually think it's weird that "Master" isn't also muted.

I think you're after sub-mixes... they'd be nice - but they don't "fit" the way the racks currently work (i.e. independently). I think it would be potentially confusing as it stands now. You'd need a much more visual representation of what's going on.

MuTools · Post by **MuTools** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 8:21 am

pljones wrote:I actually think it's weird that "Master" isn't also muted.

Any plugins downstream the output of the solod rack are not muted as otherwise you won't hear the rack.

This means that if a rack does not go to Master (which is just a normal rack) then Master would be muted too.

I think you're after sub-mixes... they'd be nice - but they don't "fit" the way the racks currently work (i.e. independently).

Racks can work independently, but they can also work together e.g. for grouping, like tomica does.

I think it would be potentially confusing as it stands now. You'd need a much more visual representation of what's going on.

Not sure what you mean here. Can you please elaborate. Thanks.

MuTools · Post by **MuTools** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 8:30 am

tomica wrote:maybe this is not the best topic to post this but i didnt want to make a new one for this. anyway, heres the problem:

if we route rack 1 to rack 2 and than solo rack 2, shouldnt rack 1 still be heard through rack 2? what happens in mulab is that there is no output at all because if rack 2 is soloed, rack 1 be muted even though it is routed to rack 2.

or let's take an example - if i route three vocals racks to a single rack to make it a volume control for all the vocals and than solo the control rack, than there is no output at all because the 3 racks it controls are muted

now it may be a lame example but imagine that the vocals are synths playing at the same time or anything else really and you want to hear only the three of them and nothing else

i think it should be fixed and i also believe it wont be too complicated to implement, because it seems very similar to the always present situation that even if we solo a rack, the master rack always remains unmuted :]

I understand the situation.

Not yet sure what to think though.

If a solod rack would not mute any racks that send to that solod rack, then what about racks that send to the racks that send to the solod rack (and so on)?

Another question: In your example, imagine one of the vocal racks sends to an echo. Now when soloing the master rack for those voice racks, should the send to reverb then be muted or not?

I think, at first sight, there are so many situations that it may be difficult to make a general rule which racks to include in the solo.

What do others think?

robenestobenz · Post by **robenestobenz** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 12:11 pm

When I solo a rack, the things I have in mind is hearing only the audio that is coming from that rack in the current project configuration. Which includes audio coming from that rack originating in another rack.

So, in practice this means:

Say you have 2 racks, A and B. A sends into B as well as going to the master out. B is receiving audio from a track as well as the send from A and also has an effect in the rack. If I solo B, I will hear the track and the send from A but not the dry signal from A to master out. Hence only hearing the audio from rack B exactly as it would be in the mix.

MuTools · Post by **MuTools** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 12:34 pm

I agree in that situation.

But the situation tomica described is realistic too:

Voice 1 -> Rack A (with some eq/effects) -> Output to rack "All Voices"
Voice 2 -> Rack B (with some eq/effects) -> Output to rack "All Voices"
Voice 3 -> Rack C (with some eq/effects) -> Output to rack "All Voices"

Now if we solo rack "All Voices" we hear nothing

Now this still is a quite simple situation.

But thanks to MU.LAB's flexibility we can end up with more complex signal paths.

And when soloing X then what to mute?

MuTools · Post by **MuTools** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 12:38 pm

robenestobenz wrote:If I solo B, I will hear the track and the send from A ...

This depends!

If the send is Pre-Fader the we won't hear that send signal when rack B is solod as the muting is done at fader time.

robenestobenz · Post by **robenestobenz** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 12:42 pm

mutools wrote:I agree in that situation.

But the situation tomica described is realistic too:

Voice 1 -> Rack A (with some eq/effects) -> Output to rack "All Voices"
Voice 2 -> Rack B (with some eq/effects) -> Output to rack "All Voices"
Voice 3 -> Rack C (with some eq/effects) -> Output to rack "All Voices"

Now if we solo rack "All Voices" we hear nothing

Now this still is a quite simple situation.

But thanks to MU.LAB's flexibility we can end up with more complex signal paths.

And when soloing X then what to mute?

Hmm, is there no way to recursively go back up the signal chain and allow all audio? I do think the fundamental point here is that if you solo a rack, you want to hear it exactly as it would be in the mix. Otherwise, solo isn't giving you a true representation of what is coming through the rack...

MuTools · Post by **MuTools** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 1:11 pm

Sounds like a good definition!

Technically i only see this problem:

Imagine rack A sends to rack B, but the send is post fader. Rack A outputs to somewhere else, e.g. a master rack.

Now using the above definition, rack A should be muted but the send signal should go on. But that's a contradiction because muting rack A will also mute the send signal because it's post fader

robenestobenz · Post by **robenestobenz** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 6:30 pm

mutools wrote:Sounds like a good definition!

Technically i only see this problem:

Imagine rack A sends to rack B, but the send is post fader. Rack A outputs to somewhere else, e.g. a master rack.

Now using the above definition, rack A should be muted but the send signal should go on. But that's a contradiction because muting rack A will also mute the send signal because it's post fader

Argh. I see what you mean. It is an architectural contradiction, but I still think it should work this way myself if it's not internally difficult.... anybody else got any thoughts on this?

tomica · Post by **tomica** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 7:01 pm

well the "send" issue really spices this one up.

i had a few ideas on how to fix this, but they all crashed and burned.

hope someone comes up with a solution.

MuTools · Post by **MuTools** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 7:23 pm

Maybe the mute should not work at rack fader time but at rack output time.

But then this means that if we have a post fader send and we mute the rack then the send still sends signal.

What do you think about that?

tomica · Post by **tomica** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 8:22 pm

well this calls for more than one opinion, but i vote yes

it wouldnt be a problem for me.

pljones · Post by **pljones** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 8:39 pm

Muting a channel is like setting its fader level to zero, so any pre-fader sends should not be affected. That sounds logical, to me. It also provides choice of behaviour, which is a benefit.

Any downside?

MuTools · Post by **MuTools** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 8:55 pm

I agree that muting a rack should be the same as setting its volume fader to zero.

But then we got the solo rack difficulty described earlier in this topic.

And so if we do mute rack at output instead of fader, then we solve one problem, but we create some kind of inconsistency because muting a rack is not the sameanymore as setting its volume fader to zero, because a muted rack will still do post fader sends, which is not very neat

I wonder how this was on the 'big' mixing consoles...

MuTools

KVR Audio

Muting and soloing racks