MUTING ALL VOICES IN SONG CHORDS BUT ONE

[jbg31792]

With the vArranger, in the middle of a SONG CHORD song, is there a way to mute all other voices, leaving, for example, just a pad playing for say 8 bars. And then activate all the other other voices to come back in to finish out the SONG CHORD song?

I think I used to be able to do this with SD1.

Thanks,

John

[jbg31792]

Sorry, with the SD 1 I was playing styles using the midi bass pedals, and was able to take out any of the voices while playing live. At that time, unfortunately, I  hadn't purchased the vArranger.

I've sold the SD 1 and am currently playing guitar using the vArranger with the SD 2 and controlling vArranger with the Disaster Control midi foot controller.

And I was just thinking how nice it would be while creating Song Chord Song, to be able to isolate or mute the drums, bass, and all voices of the style, except for a pad voice for an 8 bar interlude. And then pressing the HOLD button activate all the other voices to come back in.

Is anybody using the Song Chords in this way?

John

[lee]

No answer for John???
I am interested in answer too.
Lee

[jolon28]

I am interested in answer too.
It would be a great enhancement because the song chord needs more features. So the songs chord would adapt to professional and subtil arrangements.

[jbg31792]

Thanks Lee and Jolon,

I guess that the vArranger at this time doesn't have the ability to mute selected voices in the SONG CHORD mode, while allowing other voices to play.

But DAN is watching this post to see how many vArranger users, like us, think that this would be a wonderful enhancement for the SONG CHORDS.

And if a lot of people respond and agree, then maybe DAN will consider doing it.

In my opinion, DAN is already the most over worked software developer I've ever had the pleasure of knowing.

John

[jolon28]

Dan,
What do think about this idea ? Don't you think it can be a great feature for VArranger ?

[Dan]

Maybe you can select the N.C.  chord

It let playing only the drums.

You can then play your chords only with the guitar

[v.muller]

Or directly edit the style file.

[jolon28]

Maybe you can select the N.C.  chord

It let playing only the drums.

You can then play your chords only with the guitar

By the way, we can also imagine a new feature we could call N.A. (no accompaniment) for example, and with it we can stop all the accompaniments, drums and all the chords and bass. That is a full silence. This function is very used when you play in a real band. So, VArranger could offer this useful feature.

[jbg31792]

When creating a SONG CHORD, it would be just wonderful to be able to silence the drums and other voices at certain points while the SONG CHORD is playing and just leave the bass and a pad playing for so many measures. And then have the drums come back in with the other voices.
It would be like playing with a real band when I could play a solo with just the me and the bass player for 8 measures. Or be able to Sing for 16 bars with just a Hammond organ voice playing. The possibilities to create in vArranger would be endless.

Thanks,

John

[ovation99]

I agree with that Something like Band-in a-Box does.
Another great feature would be to be able to input chords from a controller keyboard, rather than using the drop down list.

Sorry Dan, just didn't want you to get bored sitting around doing nothing 

[jbg31792]

Hi Jolon,

If you had a N.A. feature in SONG CHORDS where all the accompaniment was silenced while the SONG CHORD was playing, how would you keep the tempo for those measures where you enabled N.A.?
Would you just follow the SONG CHORD AS IT PLAYS?

In my case, when i use SONG CHORDS half of my MacBook 13" screen is filled with lyrics and the other half is filled with the SONG CHORD song. So, I wouldn't be able to view the meter bar if N.A. WAS WRITTEN INTO THE SONG CHORD.

Thanks,

John

[haweneu]

Hi,
i think you can mute one or more tracks with the Controller Track On/Off.

If you then have for example a Foot Controller that can send more than one Controlchange direct in a sequence, this sequence can mute more than one track at the same time!

I will test tomorrow this send of more than one CC with Touchosc (App on Ipad for WIFI control of VA2, see other thread on this forum). With Touchosc you can send with the SYSEX Command every Hexadezimal displayed MIDI Command, then it must also work with more than one command in sequence.

[jbg31792]

Thanks Haweneu,

So, while playing a song chord song I would click on the midi foot switch that I've assigned to number 212 under the MIXER section in Controllers, which would be Track 1 DRUMS, and this would turn the drum track on/off. Then another click on that same midi foot switch would turn the drum track back on. I would then have to manually click on the midi foot switches that I've assigned to the tracks I want to control while playing live.

Now, for example, when I'm creating a song IN SONG CHORDS And I wanted to mute the drums on measure 48 to measure 56, and have just the bass playing for measure 48 to measure 56. How would I go about doing that so that these tracks would automatically be muted in SONG CHORDS when measure 48 to measure 56 would play?

Thanks,

John

[haweneu]

Hi,
automatic mute on special measures is not possible in the Moment with current version of VA2, i think ( must ask Dan!).
I think, that only manual with a controller is possible!

Like decribed in my last post i will make a test with mute of more than one track and then post my result.

[haweneu]

Hi,

my test with Touchosc for muting any combination of tracks in VA2 is working!

I made on my Iphone 16 Buttons for "Track1-16 ON/OFF" and then 1 Button, that can Switch On/OFF all 16 track with one Click (it sends 16 Controlchanges in direct sequence!).

Works perfekt.

During Play a style i touch on my Iphone on one button and all 16 Tracks of VA2 are complete muted!

It is possible to programm any MIDI command sequence on 1 button!

See the attached screenshot of my iphone.

[BjayG]

Hi All,

If I have understood correctly - then there is a sort of way of way of doing what you want (i.e. switch off instruments for a bar or few etc).      The biggest fault with vArranger for me is that its doesn't have what I call performance,  registration or total user presets modes.  It does have something similar (unpublished of course      ), but the facility does have severe limitations which  I  have contacted Dan about on several occasions over the last 18 months.

Anyway - its not published anywhere that I know of that you can have songs within songs.  To use it do the following:-

Set up a song in vArranger as normal and then save it (i.e.  the first part) as follows:-

Click 'Save' and then 'Song'.  On the Registration options in the window that opens tick 'Save All'.   In the SONG NAME box enter (say) 'Part 1'.  In the FOLDER box enter (say)
'(00)My SONGS\TEST'      NOTE: this is what should be in the boxes and it may be more sensible to use the file search to locate the directory.    Either way what we are doing is creating a sub-directory within  'My Songs' and putting the song 'TEST' within it.   Click 'SAVE' to save the song.

NOTE:  this used to work fine for me - but now for some reason I get an error message from vArranger (Error 44.1.0  ....  .PAT     Index was outside the bounds of the array) - perhaps Dan could please look at this.   However this is not a show stopper as the action is still completed.    So if you get the error message (and it may just be me) then best reload vArranger and go to My Songs as normal.   

You will now see your new song TEST created as normal  -  but if you click on its name  you will now see the sub-song  (Part 1) displayed in the left hand selection box.

Click on your song called 'Part 1'.    (As an example) Turn the accompaniment voices down to zero (so only the drum track is playing).

Now save this song as before - but now call the song 'Part 2'.  It won't give any error this time.    Song 'Part 2' will appear in the left hand selection window.

Now reset any accompaniment levels back to those in song 'Part 1'  - or make any other changes - and save this as before as a song called 'Part 3'.  This too will appear in the left hand selection window.

Now try it out...

Select 'Part 1' and start the music going   - we should have a normal song.
Want the part with just the drummer playing - so select Part 2. This rather coolly delays until the end of the bar and the same song with just the drummer carries on.
Now back to normal - hit song 'Part 3' and the band starts again.

Anyway - I hope this helps someone.    This is potentially a really useful feature - but the biggest problem for me is that saving the song doesn't save all sorts of things that I feel it should (like split point;  hold;  the levels and sounds of the Left 1-3 and Right 1-4 voices and other things - which limits is potential use.   For example:  Just think how much easier (and useful) it would all be if you could save all the settings of vArranger and have it restored back to exactly to how it was before (e.g. being able to have sounds and volume levels restored so that you didn't have to always set up and save user voices unless you wanted to) .

As I say - I may have completely misunderstood - in which case please ignore me (most people do anyway - I'm used to it!!)

Cheers
Barry
 

[ovation99]

Barry,
A good interim workaround, albeit will take a lifetime to go through all the rhythms stored.
I thought I would try out a variation on your suggestion and just used the "solo" button, rather than adjust all the volume sliders.
In case anyone else wants to try this method, IT DOES NOT WORK. Solo and Mute settings are not saved.

Al

[BjayG]

Hi Al,

Yep - the solo and mute buttons are also strangely not stored when you save a song amongst all the other things I mentioned.    I actually find it extremely odd that the levels and voices of the accompaniment/style section are stored when you save a song - yet the left and right user voices and levels are not!   

The main reason I use the song mode I described is that I was taught that style sections are often overly complicated and that they need to be thinned down a lot to be usable.   Indeed the last time I was told this was by Yamaha in a teaching session just last year.   For example - I have actually made an entire song just using a single variation (e.g. Part B) by adjusting accompaniment sounds and levels of just this one chosen style variation   (so maybe drums+bass, then drums +bass+guitar, then drums+bass+guitar+piano etc etc) .  I certainly don't want to have to anything resembling editing the style completely - but by saving each of the tweaked sections as a separate song and then calling them up one by one using the manner I described - means that I can easily do this.   If only I could do the same thing about tweaking the left and right hand voices without having to create yet another user sound combination.  BTW: If anyone knows a better way of doing this then I would appreciate knowing it.

Cheers
Barry

[ovation99]

Hi Barry,
Yes it is strange that simple button pushes and R/L voices/settings are not saved.
I am going to try using my Nanokontrol to mute and solo tracks on the fly.
But obviously this will not work when using the Song Chord input function.

Another function I would like to see, is chord input using the controller keyboard while the style is playing, rather than the manual input from drop down lists.

I hope Dan can come up with solutions for these requests from existing users.

Al

[jbg31792]

Hi Haweneu

I think you said that in the vArranger controller/track section you could mute any combination of tracks 1-16 in vArranger, or assign all 16 tracks to one controller to mute all 16 tracks at the same time.

Then you said when playing a STYLE you could press one button .......

Are you saying that the controller track muting can only be done when playing STYLES, and not during SONG CHORDS?

I won't be able to try this on my middle foot controller until Sunday as I left it where I'm playing at.

Thank you for your ideas and help,

John

And thank you Barry and Al for all your good ideas and comments. I can see that you have been looking forward to  "muting of any combination of tracks in SONG CHORDS" for a long time.

[ovation99]

As Dan suggest using the Korg Nankontrol, it would be useful to use the Solo buttons designated to each track (1-8) rather than just switching individual tracks on or off (Controller list 212-227).

Wow, will this wishlist ever stop 

[jbg31792]

I never bought the Korg Nanocontrol 2 since I'm playing guitar and in a live setting thought it might be awkward to push the buttons with my hands.

How can I use my midi foot controller to turn the solo buttons on tracks 1-8 on/off in vArranger?

And, will this work within SONG CHORDS or just while playing a style?

Thanks ,

John

[haweneu]

Hi,
today i tested track muting when playing STYLES  and also when playing SONG CHORDS!

Both works with my Touchosc on my Iphone ( remote control of VA2 over my WIFI home-network). I made a button on Iphone, that sends MIDI command "Controlchange" for each Track ON/OFF. If i push this button, it sends 16 Controlchanges in sequence and all tracks are muted! Next click on this button tuns all track sound on!

So if you have a footswitch, that can send more then one controlchange it should work!

[jbg31792]

 Thanks Haweneu,

I Can hardly wait till Sunday and try live muting of some mixer tracks with my Disaster Midi foot controller while playing SONG CHORDS.

Also, that AUTOMATIC MUTING on special measures in SONG CHORDS is not yet possible in vArranger2.   

John