Just updated to cubase 11.0.20 and noticed this weird behavior where it’s not possible to mute an instrument track from the arrange window. It’s not “linked” to the mute button in the mixer and has no effect. If I click the mute button in the arranger window it lights up (yellow) but the mute button in the mix window is still gray and sound is still coming from the track. If I however mute from the mix window both mute buttons turn active and sound is muted.
I have midi information coming from a separate midi track to three instrument tracks via midi sends. All three instrument tracks behave the same regarding the mute issue, i.e, it is only possible to mute tracks from the mixer.
Maybe I wasn’t clear enough or perhaps you didn’t read everything. I’m not using multi-out. It’s three separate instrument tracks with three different instruments. The only common thing is that they get their midi from the same midi track.
Create a MIDI track with its Output routing set to Not connected
Create three instrument tracks with different VSTi used on them
In the MIDI track, add three MIDI sends, one for each of the three instrument ones.
Results :
Using the Mute button in the arrange track panel of an instrument track does nothing : while playing on the MIDI track, we still receive an audio signal from it.
Contrarily, using the Mute button in the corresponding MixConsole channel does work : no more audio signal.
‘Unmuting’ in the arrange view does nothing : there is still no audio signal.
‘Unmuting’ in the MixConsole does work : the signal is hearable again when playing on the MIDI track.
Overall, it’s as if the Mute button in the arrange view track panel was no longer functional, in this MIDI data routing case : this is probably due to where it is acting on the audio/signal flow (a while ago, there were block diagrams showing the different signal flows for the available type of signal in the Operation manual , but they have disappeared from the more or less recent editions…), but it isn’t intuitive, to say the least. An explanation about it would be welcomed…
In this case, same as in the case of multi-outs, the Mute in the Project window mutes the “MIDI Track” (the MIDI data coming from the Instrument Track) of the Instrument Track. But the Mute button of the MixConsole mutes the Audio Return of the Instrument.
Beside this, it’s rather confusing : if the Mute button of the arrange track panel blocks the MIDI data coming from the MIDI track, how to explain that we still get sound of the instrument track ? It doesn’t comes from nowhere. I have tested it again, being sure that all the Instrument track has an Input Routing set to Not connected…
Imagine, the Instrument track as two “tracks” (actually it’s one track and one channel). One is a MIDI Track. You control the Mute of this MIDI Track in the Project window. Second one is Audio Return Channel and you control its Mute in the MixConsole.
For the comfortable use, if there is only Instrument track, which doesn’t receive any other MIDI data from other MIDI track(s) and if there are not multi-outs, these two Mute buttons are merged to one. Because if you have only one source and one destination, it doesn’t matter, if you mute the source or the destination. But in all other cases (multiple sources or multiple destinatinos) it does matter. So you have to distinguish, if you want to mute the source MIDI data (MIDI Track) in the Project window, or if you want to mute the Audio Return of the Instrument, yo do so in the MixConsole.
So in case of multiple sources or destinations…
If you Mute the Instrument Track in the Project window, the MIDI data of the Instrument track are not passing to the VSTi. But the audio from VSTi is still working, so you can hear the sound of other MIDI tracks routed to the Instrument.
If you Mute the Instrument Track in the MixConsole, all MIDI data of all MIDI Tracks are routed to the VSTi. But the audio output (return) of the whole instrument is Muted, so you don’t hear any sound from the Instrument (to be precise, you don’t hear any sound routed to the Main Out).
As you can see, these are 2 different use cases. You want either to mute the MIDI data of the Instrument Track or the Audio Return Channel of the Instrument track. Therefore you do one of this in the Project window and the other one in the MixConsole.
Thanks for your detailed answer, and I admit that I never thought of the Instrument track as two, which is an interesting way to see it.
But I still don’t get it, sorry. If the MIDI data is not passed to the VSTi, how comes that we get the sound played (again, with the Input routing set as Not connected in each of the Instrument tracks involved) ? There is one and only one MIDI data source in my repro, the sent one from the MIDI track.
EDIT : seeing it as you (instrument track as two ‘merged’ ones), we then should admit that the Mute button in the arrange view does not work on the MIDI track included of an instrument one…
If you mute the “midi” from the arrange view, how come there is still sound coming from the instrument if nothing should be fed to play the instrument then?
As I explained above… The MIDI data of the Instrument track are not passing to the VSTi, but the Audio Return of the VSTi is still open (not muted). So if you route MIDI data from other MIDI track to the VSTi, they are passing and playing.
Imagine, you have a HW synth. And you even use 2 tracks for 1 MIDI Channel. If you Mute one of the tracks, the other track is sending the data to the hardware synth anyway and you hear it. Because you are not muting the whole channel or the whole instrument. You are muting the track and the MIDI data from the track.
