Muting voices when playing from keyboard

Elektron Gear Analog Keys/Four
1

Hi there all you good people!

I’ve not been very active around here since the move over to Elektronauts, but I’ve been using Elektron machines since about 2005 and I just received my A4. Sounds pretty fantastic so far, I think it’s going to be a lot of fun.

Anyway, I just came across something that’s bugging me a little, and I wondered if you had any tips.

I wanted to program a complex multi-layer pad using ‘Unison’ and ‘Use Track Sounds’ in the Poly menu. I expect I’m going to be doing this a lot, as I mainly bought the A4 as a pad machine. Anyway, I want to be able to quickly mute / solo individual voices in the overall sound while I’m programming, cueing it from the mini-keyboard. The mute keys only affect the sequencer, not the keyboard (which makes sense for live performance). But that means I can’t use them during sound design.

Does anyone know if there is an easy way to bring the individual voices in and out while I’m tweaking the sound? It’s a bit of a workflow killer having to use the level knobs or go into the Poly menu which is tucked away under the Kit menu just to hear how each voice is contributing to the overall sound.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions…

Cheers,
kkonkkrete

2

Hi

Maybe double tap the performance button and fade the voices in and out as needed (page 17 of the manual for future reference).

AFAIK: there is no way to HARD mute the tracks when performing on the mini keyboard

3

Thanks, man, that’s probably the best solution. I’m guessing the perf mixer doesn’t directly mess with the level parameter in the Amp page but works on top of that, right … that’s the other thing, I want to be able to change the sounds and not worry about messing up the balance every time I mute stuff. I’ll give it a try, thank for the tip!

4

In performance mode you can hit trigs 1-4 to mute/unmute the synth tracks