[Ardour-Users] 'mute scenes'

jonetsu at teksavvy.com jonetsu at teksavvy.com
Sun Oct 5 08:37:54 PDT 2014


Hello,

While working on a new project I had the idea that it could be very
nice to be able to mute several tracks at once, manually at a specific
time, and to be able to have several mute groups or scenes to choose
from.

For instance, when having keyboard1 (k1), keyboard2 (k2), bass (b),
guitar1 (g1), guitar2 (g2), perc1 (p1), perc2 (p2), drums(d), the 'mute
scene' menu/window would allow to have several choices of instruments
to mute.  And then when the tracks ar eplaying, it would be possible
to activate manually any of the 'mute scene' choice.

mute scene # 1: k1, g2 - most except for these two
mute scene # 2: p1, d, g1, g2, k1, k2 - perc1 and bass only
mute scene # 3: b, g1, g2, p1, p2, d - keys only

So on so forth.  This would allow to quickly try on-the-spot
combinations to see how they sound like.  At 45 seconds I press the
'mute scene # 1' radio button and the configured tracks for scene 1
are muted.  At 55 seconds I press 'no mute' radio button so all tracks
play again.  At 1:10 I press the 'mute scene 2' radio button then I
get only the percussion 1 and bass palying.  At 1:20 I press again the
'no mute' radio button and everythign plays again.  Etc.

These would be radio buttons, exclusive choices.  It would be like a
table, with track names at the left and colums with checkboxes.  At
the bottom of each column a radio button.  

The pressing of the 'mute scene' buttons could also be recorded and
replayed. 

Now, the same can be done right now by muting each track one after the
other, but that takes time as the muting does not happen right away.
Also, the muting is for the whole duration of the project, so it cannot
happen instantly and simultaneously, say, for 15 seconds, and then
back to all tracks playing.

Another way is to automate volume levels but that's time cousming and
does not allow for quick on-the-spot experiments.  Yet another way
perhaps is to assign some tracks to groups and mute one group or
another, but then, tracks assigned to a group cannot be assigned to
another group, logically so.

Well, that's a lengthy description.  Now it could be nice that someone
replies back, hey, that already exists !  You just have to ....   :)

Cheers.



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