I find myself favoring instrument tracks over MIDI tracks more and more. However, I often want to mute an instrument track (i.e. temporarily muting playback of all MIDI events on that track) and then play that VST instrument live from my MIDI keyboard. Basically trying out new ideas during playback. This works fine on MIDI tracks (with MIDI monitor for record-enabled MIDI tracks enabled). But muting an instrument track mutes the instrument track’s audio (channel).
Is there any way to get the MIDI track mute behavior on instrument tracks?
Muting and unmuting individual MIDI events on a selected track, just because you want to play along with the project without hearing the MIDI that is already on the track, is too unpractical and cumbersome.
If only one output of the Instrument track is enabled then the Mute from the Project window and MixConsole work the same.
If you enable multiple outs of the Instrument track:
The Mute in the Project window Mutes the MIDI source but the Instrument’s output is not muted. So you can route another MIDI track to the Instrument and play it back.
The Mute in the MixConsole window Mutes the Instruments Audio Return. So all signal, which is routed to the given Audio Return is muted. So you can route any MIDI data to other output in the instrument and you can hear the sound again.
Agree, but its cousin Track Versions is much easier to work with. Create a new blank Track Version (as opposed to a copy of the existing Version) on the Track. Now you can switch back & forth between Versions to hear or not hear the recorded MIDI while the VSTi will always be playable realtime.
Great insight, Martin. Maybe I will activate a dummy VST output channel for every instrument track, just so I get the instrument track mute behavior I want. But I guess I should first try out Raino’s Track Versions suggestion. Thanks to both of you.
Lastly, I do think we should be able to set instrument track mute behavior in the Preferences.