I feel strongly about this, as does every single other Octatrack user I know.
I’m trying to validify this issue - so I’ve taken a pseudo-political route.
Sign this if you feel the same way!
what is the issue exactly? not sure i follow
You do get an effects tail if you assign the fader to XVOL though, right? Couldn’t you bring in elements with the XVOL as well? I’d imagine you could.
Another tip from the OT Tips thread, courtesy of dubthonic;
[i]Tired of your reverb and delay tails getting cut off when you mute a track?
Instead of muting, go to the AMP page and minimize VOL quickly by holding FUNC while tweaking it to the left. VOL will snap to -64, instantly cutting off the sample, but the tails will remain. [/i]
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Unfortunately that’s no help if you use the arranger to mute tracks or if you’re in the mixer window and you want to mute and unmute quickly using the buttons. To preserve your effect tails in this context you have to rely on thru tracks, which cuts your track count in half and obviously has greater potential for error in live performance. It’s a small thing, but it makes a big difference - I too would love, love, love sequencer mutes.
As a new user it’s a baffling omission
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Can’t you use tracks in Plays Free mode and ONE2 trig mode to effectively achieve this?
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Daisuk - there is only 1 fader… vs 8 mute buttons.
Also besides fx tails - the audio itself is cut off if your sample is playing. (Of course this would be the case if you’re using xvol as well)
So you can try to listen very carefully - and only mute/unmute when the sample is (or would be) silent, but depending on the sample that is extremely difficult if not impossible.
Standard sequencer level mute behavior would completely solve this. Muting would work the same way it works in the Machinedrum, or on the midi side of the Octatrack (And in every other sampler/sequencer I’m aware of) - where you press mute, and no sound is immediately cut off… but from that point forward no more trigs get trigged on that track until you un-mute.
natrixgli - that sounds like an interesting workaround… but you would have to press every single trig on a given track to mute it right? Unless I’m misunderstanding you?
The only workaround I’m aware of for this is creating a pattern for every single mute combination you might want. That’s nowhere near as direct as simply using the existing track mutes, it uses up tons of patterns. Pretty absurd workflow when again… there area dedicated track mute buttons on this thing.
And yes for FX tails - the only workaround I know of is to use up a track with a thru machine. That only works with max 2 fx per thru track of course, so if you have different reverbs on multiple tracks you’d effectively be reduced to a quadratrack.
All we need is 2 mute modes that could be selected. I’d personally be happy with a global setting (as opposed to per-track) - as I don’t think I would EVER use the current audio style muting behavior. That said - there’s probably no reason not to make it a per-track setting.
This has been my feeling ever since I bought this machine (a year and a half ago) - and it is also the sentiment I’ve heard over and over again from every octatrack user I’ve spoken with.
All the giant feature request lists I’ve seen are full suggestions I would consider creative tools that would be fun… but this really feels like a bugfix to me.
Does anyone prefer audio level muting behavior? Is there any reason for that?
If you want to cut a sample off in mid-stream - isn’t it much better to use a volume knob if you want it to be smooth, or paramater locks if you want it glitchy or choppy?
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Nope, it effectively decouples the track from the master transport so you can “launch” the track like you would a clip in ableton. Then conversely, you can stop the track the same way. It can be quantized however you want.
You launch / un-launch tracks using the trig buttons. There’s a video somewhere about using this method for transitions.
Signed.
While your at it, how about making the volume knob actually control the volume.!? That really stumped me.
I’ll sign, why not. When the Beatstep comes out, I plan to be first in line so that I can assign the 16 knobs to the amp volume on the audio parts and to the MIDI volume on those parts. Not sure why the level knob isnt connected to velocity at least, but i digress.
I think that audio muting is handy but I also think sequencer muting is too, on the Yamaha RS7000 you can set whichever behaviour you prefer, so it would be my preference that the Octatrack could have this preference too, perhaps in the playback setup screen so that it can be set per track.
Do you mean trig muting?
I’m thinking that the trig level mutes would have been implemented earlier if it were not for some technical limitations in the machine.
Has no one emailed them about this? No responses?
Nonetheless, I signed the petition.
Signed…
BTW the language in the petition highlights something that struck a cord with me - it’s hard to use the OT as a primary performance tool because there’s so much opportunity to make mistakes. You have to simplify and automate, the latter of which itself is difficult because the way saves are handled (see other current top thread).
Yes - I emailed support last December. I got this response:
“Hi,
Thanks for the request. I can not guarantee if this feature will be added but it would be nice.
Personally, I do not see it as a deal breaker but I understand what you are saying. For me, with all the other features in this box - I could not live without it.”
Additionally, after a 2nd follow up - He also said “Unfortunately I can not comment on future OS updates as I do not want to give you false promise.”
I believe it is somewhere in the lists and lists of features they are considering, and I think they know there is a little bit of interest - but based on all the conversations I’ve had, and all the complaints I’ve heard in person - I think this is an important issue to a lot more people than I see reflected in forums, etc.
So I thought a poll might help highlight this - if Elektron is trying to prioritize the features that have the widest user-want behind them. (Which I believe/hope they are)
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signing for justice
I should have said Neighbor rather than Thru tracks, but I think everyone knew what I meant.
Natrixgli, yes PlaysFree tracks get around that problem but if they’re decoupled from the sequencer transport then you’re giving up one of the key features, and that undermines the arrangement again.
As Darenager says, this was something Yamaha got right on the RS7000 in OS 1.2 that was not present in the original release, and it made such a difference. It’s pretty rare that you want to kill the FX tails by muting, enough that you’d be better off using a pattern with specific plocks for that; on the other hand, the OT arranger lets you record mutes on every line and not being able to take advantage of that is a terrible waste.
Anyway, signed.
Signed…
Though I suspect there were technical reasons why it wasn’t implemented from the get go, as HQ already got it right with the Monomachine & Machinedrum.