MPC X, MPC Live, MPC One & MPC Key 61 Forum: Support and discussion for the MPC X, MPC Live, MPC Live II, MPC One & MPC Key 61; Akai's current generation of standalone MPCs.
By Lumi Sun May 24, 2020 7:10 pm
With Instant track mute enabled, the samples should play silenced on background and start playing as you unmute the track, any position of the playhead on the sequence.
It was working like that until 2.6.
With 2.8 is not working like that anymore.
Let's talk about a sample that gets triggered with a note at the beginning of the sequence and plays for all sequence since it has the same length of the sequence.
On 2.8 When you unmute the track, if you are in the middle of the sequence, the samples start playing only at the beginning of the next cycle.
Until 2.6, the sample was working as it should, starting at the middle of the sequence, any time the track is unmuted.
So for me it's definitely a bug and for me is very uncomfortable that I don't have the chance to unmute my samples wherever I want.
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By NearTao Sun May 24, 2020 8:06 pm
I am on MPC X on firmware 2.8, in standalone mode, with instant track mute on, and I am able to tap out track mutes on and off on a long running sample and hear it working as you described.

Not sure why this is not working for you. Are you sure you have instant track mutes on? If you do, I'd try toggling it on and off again to see if it works as you want it to.

EDIT: Sorry, I misunderstood how you were doing this...

yes, if the track starts muted, then the note appears to never start while the track is muted and then you cannot unmute the note... because it apparently never starts playing.
By Lumi Sun May 24, 2020 8:17 pm
NearTao wrote:I am on MPC X on firmware 2.8, in standalone mode, with instant track mute on, and I am able to tap out track mutes on and off on a long running sample and hear it working as you described.

Not sure why this is not working for you. Are you sure you have instant track mutes on? If you do, I'd try toggling it on and off again to see if it works as you want it to.

EDIT: Sorry, I misunderstood how you were doing this...

yes, if the track starts muted, then the note appears to never start while the track is muted and then you cannot unmute the note... because it apparently never starts playing.

What do you mean exactly with never starts playing?
For me, when I unmute the track, the samples starts playing at the beginning of the next cycle.
You mean for you it doesn't even starts anymore? That's weird.
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By NearTao Sun May 24, 2020 8:32 pm
Here is what I setup...

Track 01 has a sample in A01 that is the same length to match the tempo/bars of the project. In this case, it is 96bpm, and loops over 2 bars.

If Track 01 is track muted, and I press "Play Start", then no matter how much I mute/unmute the track, it will not play until I loop back around with the track unmuted.

If Track 01 is track unmuted, and I press "Play Start", then I can mute/unmute the track properly through that play through.

If Track 01 is track unmuted, and I press "Play Start", and I track mute before it loops over, when I attempt to unmute during the second play through the track remains muted.

I am assuming that this is because if the track is muted when a note event happens, then the note event is not triggered, resulting in no mutes/unmutes happening.
By Lumi Sun May 24, 2020 8:38 pm
NearTao wrote:Here is what I setup...

Track 01 has a sample in A01 that is the same length to match the tempo/bars of the project. In this case, it is 96bpm, and loops over 2 bars.

If Track 01 is track muted, and I press "Play Start", then no matter how much I mute/unmute the track, it will not play until I loop back around with the track unmuted.

If Track 01 is track unmuted, and I press "Play Start", then I can mute/unmute the track properly through that play through.

If Track 01 is track unmuted, and I press "Play Start", and I track mute before it loops over, when I attempt to unmute during the second play through the track remains muted.

I am assuming that this is because if the track is muted when a note event happens, then the note event is not triggered, resulting in no mutes/unmutes happening.

Yeah I think you are right.
But it should not be like this.
The sample, if instant track mute is enabled, should play but silenced and as you unmute the tracks, it should play immediately, anywhere your playhead is.
This is how it was working until 2.6.
For me there is a bug, my projects don't play as before because of this.
So you confirm also there is a bug for you?
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By NearTao Sun May 24, 2020 8:46 pm
I downgraded to 2.6, and regardless of track mute status, you can mute and unmute the track because the audio is clearly playing from the note being triggered regardless if the track mute is on or not when the note triggers.
By Lumi Sun May 24, 2020 8:53 pm
NearTao wrote:I downgraded to 2.6, and regardless of track mute status, you can mute and unmute the track because the audio is clearly playing from the note being triggered regardless if the track mute is on or not when the note triggers.

Oh perfect.
So I am right.
So we can confirm they messed up something with track mute.
Thanks a lot, much appreciated.
By Lumi Sun May 24, 2020 9:17 pm
NearTao wrote:I checked, and it works the same in 2.7.2 as well.

So we come to the conclusion is definitely a 2.8 bug.
I guess it's a side effect of the new midi protocol, not sure but it might be.
Now I try to send the module to Akai and hope they read it.
Thanks again.
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By NearTao Sun May 24, 2020 9:42 pm
I setup one other test...

I have a note that plays for about a second or two of audio time, and it is setup to have a note polyphony of 1, so that if I play it again it will choke the first note and only play the second note.

I turned on 16 levels for this pad, and then recorded each semitone playing over a 2 bar loop.

When you use track mute, it is possible to sustain the one note on and off, and not have it be choked by another note playing by rhythmically playing with the track mute in such a way that it does not trigger a second note being played. When you do this you can just hear the first note ring out, and it will only be choked by another note when you happen to have track mute off when the next note would trigger.

So I'm sticking with my hypothesis that track mute is choking the note from playing in the first place when you have instant track mute enabled, which is a regression of behavior seen in at least 2.6 and 2.7.2 where the notes would clearly play even if they were muted.
By Lumi Sun May 24, 2020 11:01 pm
NearTao wrote:I setup one other test...

I have a note that plays for about a second or two of audio time, and it is setup to have a note polyphony of 1, so that if I play it again it will choke the first note and only play the second note.

I turned on 16 levels for this pad, and then recorded each semitone playing over a 2 bar loop.

When you use track mute, it is possible to sustain the one note on and off, and not have it be choked by another note playing by rhythmically playing with the track mute in such a way that it does not trigger a second note being played. When you do this you can just hear the first note ring out, and it will only be choked by another note when you happen to have track mute off when the next note would trigger.

So I'm sticking with my hypothesis that track mute is choking the note from playing in the first place when you have instant track mute enabled, which is a regression of behavior seen in at least 2.6 and 2.7.2 where the notes would clearly play even if they were muted.

Ahah great, power user.
Yeah I also think that the note is not triggered and silenced when muted, but it is triggered only when you unmute the track, which means that if you unmute the track in the middle and the note is at the beginning of the sequence, it will be played at the beggining and not in the middle of the sequence.
This is actually how a classic sampler works.
But instant track mute should work differently and it has always worked differently. The note is triggered anyway, muted or unmuted, but it is silenced when muted. So if you unmute the track, anywhere you are in the playhead, the sample plays at its position on the sequence.
That is instant track mute.
And that's not working on 2.8 anymore.
By Lumi Mon May 25, 2020 4:17 pm
NearTao wrote:Not going to go back to 2.6/2.7 to test, but the muting behavior is the same on Pad Mutes as well as Track Mutes... although I believe for pad mutes it is correct.

I don't know, I never use pad mute, I always spread the program in different tracks so I can just use track mute since its settings are recorded per sequence.
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By NearTao Mon May 25, 2020 7:53 pm
One (possibly) last point of interest regarding track mute...

If you've got the pads set to respond to triggers to light up or whatever... even with track mute on they light up... but of course nothings plays when you unmute... so it seems that the LED engine is responding differently than the sampler engine to the track notes.
By Lumi Mon May 25, 2020 7:57 pm
NearTao wrote:One (possibly) last point of interest regarding track mute...

If you've got the pads set to respond to triggers to light up or whatever... even with track mute on they light up... but of course nothings plays when you unmute... so it seems that the LED engine is responding differently than the sampler engine to the track notes.

So the led are working as before but the audio bus has been changed and works differently.
That confirms my idea that the new multimidi protocol has changed the internal midi routing of audio busses and nobody thought about it or checked.
Thanks mate.