MIDI Track Mute Q?

[sjoens]

When triggered by an outboard controller thru a MIDI interface with no internal routing...

Muting a MIDI track feeding a soft synth will mute the synth.

So, shouldn't muting a MIDI track feeding an outboard synth also mute that synth?

Seems like it should since Cakewalk is routing all MIDI. Instead, Input Echo must be used to mute it.

 

[John Vere]

This sounds like correct behaviour to me. The mute will mute any data in the track from playing. Think of it as working the way the faders do. That’s really what it is A quick way to turn a track off with out having to use a fader. 
Input echo will allow the incoming data to pass through or not. incoming data is not controlled by channel faders. 

[David Baay]

15 hours ago, sjoens said:

So, shouldn't muting a MIDI track feeding an outboard synth also mute that synth?

CbB has no way of knowing that an external audio input is from the same synth that's receiving the MIDI or how MIDI inputs are related to audio outputs within a hardware synth so there's no way for it to know which audio track(s) to mute when a given MIDI track is muted. You can get this behavior by grouping the track mutes, but I generally recommend muting only audio rather than MIDI. That way when you unmute/mute the audio, the output of a MIDI-driven synth comes and goes immediately like a regular audio track without missed note-ons or pedal-ups, etc. because the synth is still rendering the MIDI.

Edited June 13, 2022 by David Baay

[sjoens]

Thanks guys. In this case there is no Audio track. I guess I was expecting a MIDI track's Mute to mute no matter what. 

From what I've read Sonar/Cakewalk is using Input Echo as a MIDI track Mute. 

Is there a MIDI track flow chart like the one for Audio? I haven't found one yet.

[User 905133]

34 minutes ago, sjoens said:

Is there a MIDI track flow chart like the one for Audio? 

Not that I have seen (and have been asking for).

34 minutes ago, sjoens said:

From what I've read Sonar/Cakewalk is using Input Echo as a MIDI track Mute. 

Historically, I have used the Input Echo Button (I used to call it the MIDI Echo Button) to turn a master keyboard on and off to various hardware sound modules. Never though of it as a Mute button--just a way to send (or not send) the master keyboard (sometimes several keyboards) to different gear.  

In combination, I used the per track record button to record the MIDI data from the keyboard(s). Just a personal workflow for layering lines on external gear to create music.

In essence MIDI Echo = on to send the MIDI Data to a specific place/device; MIDI Echo = off to not send MIDI Data to a specific place/device. So, with 1 master keyboard, for example, and 64 MIDI Channels/Devices [or any number of sound modules x channels] the MIDI Echo Buttons in effect either enable or disable incoming data going to the designated external gear.

Once a part was laid down, the recorded data would be sent to the intended device on the designated channel.  

In this workflow, the track mute buttons worked to prevent tracks that were recorded from being sent to specific hardware modules/channels they were assigned per the track control widgets. 

This is a workflow elaboration of what John said:

7 hours ago, John Vere said:

The mute will mute any data in the track from playing . . . . A quick way to turn a track off with out having to use a fader. 

Input echo will allow the incoming data to pass through or not. 

 

Edited June 13, 2022 by User 905133

[Starship Krupa]

7 hours ago, sjoens said:

I guess I was expecting a MIDI track's Mute to mute no matter what.

If I'm understanding this correctly, then I think I agree with you.

I haven't tried using an outboard MIDI sound source except briefly for the sake of trying it, but if I set up a MIDI track and route it to the interface's output port on Ch. 1, I'd expect muting that MIDI track to make it cease sending MIDI information to the interface's output port on Ch. 1.

"Mute" to me, means "stop sending data to wherever you're routed to." Whether it's audio or MIDI.

Or are we talking about the same thing?

I guess it could result in stuck notes or controllers or whatnots, but having the track transmit "notes off/zero controllers" when it's muted would fix that.

Okay, I think I did have it wrong. You're talking about the MIDI track muting incoming data to stop it from being routed to whatever sound module or virtual instrument. I think? In that case, I would expect muting the track to make the track stop transmitting whatever data it contains, which is different from muting its input.

Edited June 14, 2022 by Starship Krupa

[sjoens]

My thought was the controller is sending data thru the track and then "out" to the synth so the Mute should stop it from doing that. But that's not how it works, I guess.

[bvideo]

This MIDI failure to mute and goofy solo bothers me too, as does the lack of a midi signal flow chart.

[Starship Krupa]

On 6/14/2022 at 2:08 AM, sjoens said:

My thought was the controller is sending data thru the track and then "out" to the synth so the Mute should stop it from doing that.

I think it depends on what conceptual model Cakewalk is using for the software construct it calls a "MIDI track." If a MIDI track is analogous to an audio mixer's channel strip, then it should mute what's coming in "through" it just as an audio mixer strip would do if you punched its mute button. I initially tend to think of a Cakewalk MIDI track as such because each has a header and a Console View strip that closely resemble the ones that Audio tracks have.

However, if a MIDI track is analogous to a MIDI device (such as a synth, keyboard controller, sequencer, or sound module) then control over whether notes coming in is rightly controlled by its input echo switch. MIDI devices are supposed to default to passing MIDI data along unmolested, aren't they? Echo what they're seeing at their In jack to their Out jack unless I go into the nasty little LCD and membrane switch user interface and tell it otherwise?

My guess is that since Cakewalk hails from the days when MIDI meant "those jacks on the back panel of your keyboard," it wants to pretend that it's a hardware sequencer, which would presumably act in that fashion.

This would leave the MIDI track header/channel strip's mute button the job of stopping the MIDI track from sending the data in its clips to the rest of the system.

MIDI troubleshooting seems to work better for me when I imagine it this way, so maybe there's something to it. A MIDI track behaves like a little sequencer with both MIDI input and output jacks and a synth track behaves like a sound module with a proprietary Cakewalk input jack. You can't get MIDI to a Cakewalk synth track without going through a Cakewalk MIDI track first. Instrument tracks, on the other hand, come with their own MIDI track.

It took me a spell, it did, to sort out the differences between a MIDI track, an Instrument track, a Synth, and a Synth track when I first tried Cakewalk. As scook will tell you, a "synth" track ain't nothin' but an audio track with a synth wired to it. My previous main DAW, Mixcraft, only has one type of track for dealing with virtual instruments and the data that drives them; there's no "synth rack," therefore no way to insert a virtual instrument that's not associated with a track. So I never even open the Synth Rack view. Maybe it can do something for me that I'm missing out on, but since I seldom need to use a virtual instrument that doesn't make sound, I don't bother with it.

[User 905133]

On 6/15/2022 at 2:11 AM, bvideo said:

bothers me 

Thanks for the link to the prior discussion.  I see that I called the "Input Echo" button a midi thru button (based on my experience with hardware modules).