Quick way to mute or solo a MIDI track?

MDesigner · Post by **MDesigner** » Mon May 05, 2014 1:53 am

In Cubase, I'm used to working on a MIDI track, then hitting 'S' to solo it very quickly. Is there a way to do this in DP? Similarly, is there a way to mute a MIDI track with a keyboard command?

reedster · Post by **reedster** » Mon May 05, 2014 5:40 am

For Mute function check out the Play Enable command.

doodles · Post by **doodles** » Mon May 05, 2014 5:54 am

MDesigner wrote:In Cubase, I'm used to working on a MIDI track, then hitting 'S' to solo it very quickly. Is there a way to do this in DP? Similarly, is there a way to mute a MIDI track with a keyboard command?

Yep, that's exactly what I do. Just set it up in the commands menu.

MDesigner · Post by **MDesigner** » Mon May 05, 2014 10:00 am

I don't see a "Play Enable" command I can bind a shortcut key to, unfortunately. Am I missing something? I'm just looking for a single keystroke that will mute toggle a MIDI track.

Any of the commands with "..." will bring up a dialog, which is an extra step. I'm looking for something super quick.

Also I'm looking for a single key command to solo a MIDI track.

doodles · Post by **doodles** » Mon May 05, 2014 10:49 pm

in the commands, look for solo/toggle solo mode. assign the letter S (or whatever)

Then, in future, when you press s, you enter solo mode.

MDesigner · Post by **MDesigner** » Mon May 05, 2014 11:35 pm

Yeah, solo mode kinda does the trick. In pretty much every other sequencer, you can just click the "S" on a track and solo it. I can do that in DP in the mixing board, but I feel like there should be a way to quickly/easily solo a track in the tracks, sequence, or MIDI views. The channel strip works, I suppose, but there ought to be a way to bind a key to that solo button.

I'll put this in as a suggestion.

reedster · Post by **reedster** » Tue May 06, 2014 6:21 am

For single button push in any window you could use DP’s MIDIKeys to generate Note-On messages along with DP's Control Surface setup.

With Mackie Control protocol, for Solo, MIDIkeys needs to produce notes in the range G#-1 for Solo 1 to D#0 for Solo 8 where middle C = C4

DP/Setup/Control Surface Setup

Driver Mackie Control
Unit Mackie Control

Set Input Port to MIDIKeys

=====================
implementation chart:
http://home.comcast.net/~robbowers11/MCMap.htm

MidiKeys (note the lower case) alternative to MIDIkeys, might be useful with Quickkeys or Controllermate, cause MIDIkeys will likely impact other useful shortcuts. www.manyetas.com/creed/midikeys.html

MIDImonitor is handy when setting this up.
http://www.snoize.com/MIDIMonitor/

MDesigner · Post by **MDesigner** » Tue May 06, 2014 9:26 am

Whoa!

And in Cubase, all I have to do is hit "S" on the keyboard to solo the current track.

This is something I'll definitely be talking to MOTU about. Thank you for the tips though!

frankf · Post by **frankf** » Tue May 06, 2014 11:46 am

I don't use Cubase, but if that is how solo works, then IMO, DPs solo modes are much deeper. Search for threads here and in the manual on solo mode for info. At its simplest, in the edit windows, when you toggle solo mode the tracks that were last in the solo "group" are retained and soloed. You can then solo 1 track only by opt-clicking the track's play button. I certainly would not want to see the paradigm you describe in DP.

FMiguelez · Post by **FMiguelez** » Tue May 06, 2014 11:54 am

frankf wrote:I don't use Cubase, but if that is how solo works, then IMO, DPs solo modes are much deeper. Search for threads here on solo mode for info. At its simplest, when you toggle solo mode the tracks that were last soloed

+1

DP has essentially 4 Solo states. It is extremely powerful to be able to use any of those states with key commands at any given time. My favorite is the Solo Front-most Window mode. Also, using command or option to set the soloed tracks (all except/only this, respectively), is a total time saver!

MDesigner · Post by **MDesigner** » Tue May 06, 2014 11:56 am

Deeper is not always simpler.. I need quick/simple.

Felix: NOW you've piqued my interest.

Solo front-most window?? That's exactly what I'm looking for. So if I'm editing in the MIDI window on a particular track, I want to very quickly just solo that track. How do I do that? (besides clicking the solo button on the channel strip.. I'm more of a keystroke guy)

FMiguelez · Post by **FMiguelez** » Tue May 06, 2014 12:01 pm

That's a very cool feature.

It will work regardless of the other solo states.

To set it up, simply option-click on the Solo button in the transport. That will open the Solo Preferences, where you click that option. This way you can quickly toggle it on or off. There might even be a more direct shortcut for this.

When you set it like that, any window which happens to be the front most one, will solo the tracks that are visible in that window. Notice that you could also set it to "by percentage" to still hear only a little of the un-soloed tracks, if you wish.

The mixer works like you expect.
I edited my post above, so I don't know if you saw my last sentence (using command-click or option-click on a track's Play-enable status).

MDesigner · Post by **MDesigner** » Tue May 06, 2014 12:31 pm

Ahh, solo mode is great for the MIDI window. Thanks for the tip!

Now, the only other issue I have is soloing a folder of tracks. I often do this to check percussion by itself, etc. Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but it takes a few steps to unsolo.

To solo percussion is simple: option-click the play enable button for percussion.

To "un-solo" percussion is two steps unfortunately:
1) Command-click percussion play enable (this disables percussion but re-enables everything else)
2) Click play enable on percussion; now everything is re-enabled

Am I missing something?

MDesigner · Post by **MDesigner** » Tue May 06, 2014 12:40 pm

PS: The percentage velocity idea is pretty brilliant, but unfortunately it won't work with many sample libraries, as it's often the case that the loudness/dynamics is controlled by CC1, not note velocity.

FMiguelez · Post by **FMiguelez** » Tue May 06, 2014 12:45 pm

You can simply click the play-enable button directly in the folder (if it was enabled, this will disable it, and viceversa).

But this is a scenario where both solo states can be so useful. For instance, you can have a state to play everything (nothing muted), and then press the Solo command to hear only the percussion section, with no further tweaking. You just set it up once, and both states will be a shortcut away.

Notice that if you don't have a folder, and your tracks are contiguous, you can click on the first track's play enable button and drag down the list spanning as many tracks as you want, so there's no need to click and click and click. That works for all buttons in all editiors

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