Odd Solo buton behavior

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SMS
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Odd Solo buton behavior

Post by SMS »

I never paid attention to the "Master" solo button in the transport controls area- I've just always used the individual solo buttons on the Mixing Board. Now, even when I've cleared all the solos on the individual tracks, the "master' solo button stays enabled and I have to clear it- I don't remember this ever happening before and don't know where to fix it...

Thanks
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Re: Odd Solo buton behavior

Post by mikehalloran »

The behavior of Solo depends on what buttons are highlighted in the toolbar at the top of the Consolidated Window plus the Solo buttons on the mixer.

It is best to look up the manual on this and play with the settings till you understand what works best for you.

I accidently clicked on the wrong one once and had to go through this.
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Re: Odd Solo buton behavior

Post by SMS »

I'll experiment more tomorrow at the studio, but what happens is that when any track solo buttons are enabled, the control panel solo button becomes enabled. When I disable the track solo, the toolbar solo stays enabled....

(edit)

OK I just checked- Enabling "Solo front-most MIDI edit window" in prefs fixes that, but why?

Thanks
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Re: Odd Solo buton behavior

Post by SMS »

OK just opened DP and tried it again, and the "Solo front-most MIDI... " pref now has no effect on this behavior- I'm going to bed- can you guys tell me how this works for you? I'm sure that I never had to deal with the control panel solo button before...

thanks
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Re: Odd Solo buton behavior

Post by mikehalloran »

Really. Open the manual. Search for Solo. The button behaves differently depending on what else is lit up. It would take a multi page tutorial with screen shots to go through it all — and then it would look a lot like the manual.

Been there, screwed it up, read the manual, fixed it.

Since anything affects everything and you don't know all the parameters, I don't know a simpler solution.

The other way is to burn up some telephone hours with MOTU support and have someone walk you through the settings till you see what is lit or dark that shouldn't be and reset things the way you need.
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Re: Odd Solo buton behavior

Post by SMS »

OK, I was just asking if yours behaves the same way.... Gotta be something I'm missing...
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Re: Odd Solo buton behavior

Post by SMS »

Figured it out. I use empty MIDI tracks as visual dividers between groups of tracks, and one of them had solo enabled. I don't view those in the mixing board so didn't see it.

'Doh...
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Re: Odd Solo buton behavior

Post by Shooshie »

SMS wrote:OK just opened DP and tried it again, and the "Solo front-most MIDI... " pref now has no effect on this behavior.
Let me give you a brief rundown on the "Solo Frontmost MIDI." It was always very useful. Many years ago, when it was just called Performer, you would observe your tracks from the Tracks Overview Window (which was appropriately named for that function), now renamed "Tracks Window." Double click any MIDI track, and it would open a window in which you could observe that track as a piano roll. If you needed to observe many tracks, you'd select them all and double-click, and Performer would open a track for each window. So, you may have 5 or 10 windows open, each containing 1 MIDI track. You could resize them and position them, and they'd remember their positions (if I recall correctly), so that you could arrange the windows to form a rudimentary score of just a few tracks. Monitors weren't large enough to do very many of them, but you could shrink the MIDI very small, so the windows didn't have to be very tall. Still, about 5 windows was all I could get on the screen at once. It was a pain to go back to the Tracks Overview Window to change a solo setup, but by soloing the frontmost window, it became a lot easier. Especially if you had 5 or 10 more windows open in the background. So, if you were observing from the Tracks Overview Window, you could set up a group of tracks — say, all the woodwinds — to solo merely by dragging the cursor over the little "play" arrows. But what if you wanted to solo out and focus on one track from those you have set up to solo in the Tracks Overview Window? Solo Frontmost Window was the answer.

You could open a track, and as long as its window was the frontmost (active) window it would solo, all by itself.
Switch to another MIDI Edit Window, and the solo would switch to that window.
Switch to the Event List, and the track that's selected would solo.
Switch to the Notation Editor (not the Quickscribe Window), and that track would solo.
Switch to the Tracks Overview, and you'd get the whole soloed ensemble. Whatever window was in front would determine what soloed.

Meanwhile, a lot of us were getting pretty tired of seeing only ONE track in a window. I drew a picture in Adobe Illustrator of a window with multiple MIDI tracks in it and color-coded MIDI notes so they wouldn't get lost among the other tracks. What I drew was very much like what we have now. I sent it to MOTU, and asked them if they would do it. I had been asking for it for years, but Les Quindipan, at MOTU, got my letter and put it through. I'm sure that many other people had sent similar requests, possibly drawing their own pictures, but I had sent it with a list of about 35 other suggestions. In December 1997, I got a call from Les who said the new release of DP was out, and that I should look at it. I did, and it had nearly all my suggestions. The one glaring omission was this new multi-track MIDI window. I called and asked about it, and he said they were going to do it, but it might be a while. That was the last release of Performer, but Digital Performer 2.7 became the primary app after that.

Just a few years later, in December of 2000, Digital Performer 3.0 was released, and it contained the new MIDI Edit Window with multiple tracks and color coded notes. We were thrilled, but we had to adjust our method of soloing tracks. The MIDI Edit Window would still be the frontmost track, but it could have many tracks visible at once. So, the method chosen by MOTU was to allow all VISIBLE tracks to solo, if the preference was chosen for "Solo Frontmost Window." All the tracks you select in the MIDI Edit Window will be soloed if it's the frontmost window.

Still, you can switch to another window, and whatever track(s) are selected elsewhere for solo will be soloed.

And still, you can turn OFF the preference for "solo frontmost window," and the soloed tracks will default to the ones chosen in the Mixing Board, or on the Tracks Overview Window.

The solo hierarchy goes something like this:
1) SOLO Button, on the Control Panel, toggles Solo on and off.
  • 2) User Selection of a track Solo button anywhere. With nothing selected to solo, the SOLO button toggles off, and you hear everything that is play enabled.
    • 3) Preferences/Solo and Patch Thru/SOLO Frontmost Window The window in front is in charge of what gets soloed.
      • 4) MIXING Board sets up the basic Solo configuration by toggling on the Solo buttons for each track
        4) Tracks Window, MIDI Edit Window, and Sequence Editor share Solo Buttons with the Mixing Board. Each window has solo buttons located somewhere in the vicinity of track controls for each individual track.
        • 5) MIDI Editor: Active Track Selector As frontmost track, this overrides all above settings except the #1 SOLO button on the Control Panel. Otherwise, it's just a window.
I may have left out some, and others can amend the list, but that's what's off the top of my head.

Shooshie
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Re: Odd Solo buton behavior

Post by SMS »

Thanks for the complete picture. This is exactly how I understood it to work, so I was puzzled at the behaviour I was seeing.

Of course it was a simple oversight on my part that was causing the issue.


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Re: Odd Solo buton behavior

Post by SMS »

Getting OT here, but BTW, do you remember Performer BEFORE piano roll MIDI editing? I used to be pretty quick with Event List editing... I started w/ Performer 1.22. Likely still have the floppies.

??
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Re: Odd Solo buton behavior

Post by Shooshie »

SMS wrote:Getting OT here, but BTW, do you remember Performer BEFORE piano roll MIDI editing? I used to be pretty quick with Event List editing... I started w/ Performer 1.22. Likely still have the floppies.

??
Oh yeah! As a performer myself, I had learned to use a number system to gauge my phrasing in concert. It's easy to get carried away and push too hard on a wind instrument, so I figured out what I was trying to do with each phrase, and used a 1 — 10 system to make sure I wasn't overdoing it when the excitement of the performance took over. You have to leave room for expression, you know.

When MIDI came along, it was very natural for me to apply the same system of numbers to that. I just expanded it from 10 to 128, and when thinking of a phrase, I could just fly through that event list, entering the phrasing that I would be doing if I were performing. OF course, some sounds stacked most of their expressivity in, say, the first 30, the middle 30, or the next 30 above the middle, so you had to know your sounds and translate as you went. I actually liked the event list.

But when graphic editing came along, I pretty much quit using the Event List, except for special purposes.

Yeah, the original Performer was a completely different beast! I can't believe all the performing I did with that. Still have many of those files, and they still open!

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Re: Odd Solo buton behavior

Post by Dave Connor »

Shooshie and co., I work almost exclusively in the MIDI window with Solo enabled and the 'solo front window' pref enabled. However, I find it very glitchy going back to DP7 in that adding a new instrument in the window will cause some or all other instruments in the window to stop sounding. In DP 7 and 8, I would option click a single instrument in the Track List and then add others into the MIDI window to get them all sounding again. In DP9 I find that selecting everything in the MIDI window get's them all sounding again. My question is if you have this issue as well and what thoughts you may have on it and solving it.

Thanks for any help.

DC
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Re: Odd Solo buton behavior

Post by Shooshie »

Dave Connor wrote:Shooshie and co., I work almost exclusively in the MIDI window with Solo enabled and the 'solo front window' pref enabled. However, I find it very glitchy going back to DP7 in that adding a new instrument in the window will cause some or all other instruments in the window to stop sounding. In DP 7 and 8, I would option click a single instrument in the Track List and then add others into the MIDI window to get them all sounding again. In DP9 I find that selecting everything in the MIDI window get's them all sounding again. My question is if you have this issue as well and what thoughts you may have on it and solving it.

Thanks for any help.

DC
Honestly, I don't know. The past couple years has been almost exclusively audio recording and mixing for me. Though MIDI was my bread & butter for half my life, I have not done a complete MIDI project in some time now. Mostly, I've used MIDI just to play for fun lately. I'll try to remember to report back here if I find that is the case (or not the case).

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Re: Odd Solo buton behavior

Post by Dave Connor »

I understand and thanks for any ideas along the way.

Anyone else experience this?

Is this the wrong place for this topic? I answered because of the thread title. Apologies James if so and of course exercise your discretion if it should be moved.
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