Is it possible to disable an instrument track?

[marko]

Coming from Pro Tools, I'm used to simply disabling an instrument track once it's been printed to audio. Then, if I needed to go back and re-record anything, I could simply re-enable it, wait for it to load it's samples, and carry on. I have searched long and hard for a similar operation in DP but have come up empty. Am I missing something? It seems like such a no brainer for freeing up resources while not losing everything that you've done within the plug-in.

[sprout]

there's an enable/disable column in the Tracks window, also checkable menu items in SE or mixer.

cheers,
sprout

[Shooshie]

Not to give you a knee jerk answer, but on page 79 of the DP 7 manual there is a screenshot of the Tracks Overview with labeling for all the features. Track disabling is about center/bottom relative to the picture. I figured that a picture is worth a thousand words. In the other windows it is done differently, but that's at least a start. The Mixing Board has a drop down menu at the bottom with "Enable" checked or unchecked.

Shoosh

[dave pine]

thanx shooz...mixing board drop down disable.....i like it, gonna use it, i never knew that......awesome

[Shooshie]

thanx shooz...mixing board drop down disable.....i like it, gonna use it, i never knew that......awesome

Little details like that… they just come out of nowhere. You find them when you're looking for something else. Makes you wish they'd write a book about this or something. Then I realize; oh yeah, they did. It's a thousand freakin' pages. No WONDER I keep finding stuff. One of these days I'm going to get into grooves. I've used grooves exactly once. It was 19 years ago. I don't remember the first thing about it.

Shoosh

[dave pine]

and then they keep adding things, taking away things, hiding things .....

[Shooshie]

and then they keep adding things, taking away things, hiding things .....

No kidding! It was no secret that I loathed DP 6 for the first few months. It kinda leveled the playing field for a while, making old timers no more adept than beginners, at least until we figured out where everything is. I used to be able to handle all comments in this forum by memory, without opening DP. Now, I either have to write a disclaimer or just open it, because I'm never sure whether a particular feature was moved or not. And when I need that feature myself, I usually do the ritual of clicking on every menu a couple of times before I find it. I still have a mental imprint of the original locations, and only slowly are some of those getting updated in my mind. Old habits die hard.

Shoosh

[marko]

Okay, ask a stupid question............ wait, let me check......... nope, for once, I think I actually worded it right.

On page 79 the manual mentions how to disable an audio track. My question had to do with disabling an instrument track. In ProTools, once you've committed an instrument/MIDI track to audio, you can click a button and the instrument track is disabled along with it's corresponding VI. The track becomes grayed out and the text italicized. This frees up the resources used by that plug in.

Should you need to go back and re-do anything, simply click that same button, the track is re-activated, along with the VI, which loads the corresponding samples that you were using in the first place.

Everything stays the same in your I/O setup. The name of your track doesn't change. It makes quite a lot of sense, actually, which is unusual for Pro Tools.

DP does not seem to have anything like that, and believe me, I have scoured the manual. Only been using 7 for two weeks and it's already getting dog-eared.



------------passage of time...........maybe three minutes-----------



Okay, despite the fact that just on a whim, I opened a session to make triple-dog-sure, tried that, and discovered that it works on instrument tracks too (thanks Shooshie!) I'm going to leave my long-winded explanation here, because it doesn't actually SAY anything about disabling instrument tracks anywhere in the manual that I could find, which explains my confusion.

As you were.

[Shooshie]

Maybe the confusion is because of the way that DP uses instrument tracks. People often state a preference for the way Logic uses instruments. In Logic the instrument, the MIDI, and the audio are all in the same track. There is no separating them, and to many people that makes the most sense. I can see why they might think that's the best way. Thus, disabling the track would make it all go away, and enabling it would bring it all back. Fine. Not a problem, I guess.

In DP, the Instrument, MIDI, and their resulting Audio are three separate tracks. For me, that's the best way, because I have always treated instruments, MIDI, and audio as three separate entities. MIDI rack gear sits somewhere in your studio, and may or may not be turned on, even though the MIDI in your sequencer might be getting sent to it. Or, the MIDI box and the MIDI data bay both be on, but you may have the audio off, or you may have it routed in a different manner. Or it may be the MIDI track that you have disabled, but the instrument and its audio remain on for other MIDI in other tracks. That's why I like having three separate entities. It just makes more sense to me that way, because historically it's the way MIDI and MIDI instruments have always worked. It also makes possible certain operations that are not possible if the three are combined.

I don't know how many others so appreciate the way that MOTU developed and implemented their VI handling, but I thought it was brilliant when I first saw it, and have ever since. I seriously do not like the "Fisher-Price" instrument tracks in Garageband, which are actually very much like Logic's. I haven't seen how Pro Tools ended up handling VI's, but I'm gathering it's more similar to Logic's than DP's way.

Anyway, yes, all types of tracks are disabled or enabled in the same way. Grouping methods apply to them, as well.

Shooshie