Routing and Solo issues

[bblue]

Am I missing something?

Part I, routing issues

Let's say you have session with a bunch of audio tracks containing instruments and drums, two folder tracks, and three audio tracks containing related vocals in each of the folders. Everything is set for a Master/Parent relationship. In this scenario routing works as described (folder tracks are masters for the tracks they contain), and all the various solo modes work exactly as described in documentation.

Now you add three sub-master tracks, Vocals, Drums, Instruments, redirecting all instrument tracks to the Instruments sub-master, Drum tracks to the Drums sub-master, and the two vocal folders to the Vocals sub-master. Guess what? The master/parent relationship no longer exists and the vocal folders now have no idea of what tracks they contain (no auto-routing) despite their indents in TCP and beginning-end folder markers in TCP and MCP. You have to explicitly route a send from each contained vocal track to its respective parent folder (by either dragging the i/o button from each track to the appropriate folder or using the routing matrix). Subsequent additions or subtractions to the folder 'group' of tracks does not make any routing changes, you have to do that manually.

So the minute you start using sub-masters all the advanced folder features cease to exist. WTF? Wouldn't it make more sense for the folders always to be in 'smart' mode, I.E., knowing what tracks they contain? This could be accomplished as when the master/parent relationship is broken on folders and their contents, for Reaper to automatically add routing entries from the contained tracks to their folder. When tracks are dropped in or removed from their folder the routing table is automatically updated. That keeps everything operationally consistent with and without traditional sub-master tracks.

Why not do everything with folders and not use sub-masters, you ask? Mostly because you cannot physically move them together in one place, next to the master fader. On very large sessions you'd still be stuck with sub-master/folders all over the place, and other than hiding tracks inside of folders in MCP there appears to be no way around it. Hiding is convenient at times, but for this it's just so much busy work that shouldn't be necessary.

Part II, solo issues

Now suppose that you are using traditional sub-master tracks as described above. NONE of the standard solo options work. Neither Solo (ignore routing) or (in place) will work on any track. If you were to use Solo Defeat on the sub-masters (ala ProTools) the solos work but nothing mutes, so it's not really a solo. If you used Solo Defeat on just one of the sub-masters, say vocals (which is the sub for two folders with three tracks each) it will mute the tracks and drums sub-masters, but not any other track in the vocals! So in this mode there is no single channel solo operation that I can find.

Why does a solo darken all non-solo'd tracks? Can this be disabled? It's very distracting.

--Bill

[Analogy]

Click the question mark on the master fader and uncheck "auto arrange mixer tracks."

You can now drag tracks around the mixer window and order them however you want.

[bblue]

Originally Posted by Analogy

Click the question mark on the master fader and uncheck "auto arrange mixer tracks."

You can now drag tracks around the mixer window and order them however you want.

Yeah, I do that. But you then lose visual grouping.

Ideally, it would be great to be able to use the conventional folders grouping capabilities in conjunction with true submasters. Folders would then be sub-submasters. I've needed this functionality often.

Of course, PT doesn't have the folders concept, but all sorts of sub-capabilities exist with it already, and solos all work as expected.

--Bill

[EricM]

Originally Posted by bblue

Now you add three sub-master tracks, Vocals, Drums, Instruments, redirecting all instrument tracks to the Instruments sub-master, Drum tracks to the Drums sub-master, and the two vocal folders to the Vocals sub-master. Guess what? The master/parent relationship no longer exists and the vocal folders now have no idea of what tracks they contain (no auto-routing) despite their indents in TCP and beginning-end folder markers in TCP and MCP. You have to explicitly route a send from each contained vocal track to its respective parent folder (by either dragging the i/o button from each track to the appropriate folder or using the routing matrix). Subsequent additions or subtractions to the folder 'group' of tracks does not make any routing changes, you have to do that manually.

Can you post a pic or a project with the issue, because
this does not happen here. Creating another parent
folder which contains a set of subfolder with children
works exactly as it should.

Originally Posted by bblue

Why not do everything with folders and not use sub-masters, you ask?

I am not aware of any "sub master" track type in Reaper,
which routing type are you describing with that term?

Originally Posted by bblue

On very large sessions you'd still be stuck with sub-master/folders all over the place, and other than hiding tracks inside of folders in MCP there appears to be no way around it. Hiding is convenient at times, but for this it's just so much busy work that shouldn't be necessary.

One solution can be right clicking the mixer and choosing
"group folders to left".

Originally Posted by bblue

Why does a solo darken all non-solo'd tracks? Can this be disabled?

No option for that yet, sorry.

e

[bblue]

Originally Posted by EricM

Can you post a pic or a project with the issue, because this does not happen here. Creating another parent
folder which contains a set of subfolder with children works exactly as it should.
...
I am not aware of any "sub master" track type in Reaper,
which routing type are you describing with that term?

Any track which receives from a group of others can be considered a sub-master. In the normal Reaper configuration a folder with tracks in it is really a sub-master for those tracks, and that signal is then automatically routed to the master as part of the internal "Master/Parent" relationship.

But when you designate your own track(s) as a sub-master (not one defined as a folder) it breaks all the implied routing that is part of the "Master/Parent" mechanism, at which point you have to manually define the route between source tracks and their sub-master *and* from those sub-masters to the Master (or any other) output.

If a folder is routed to a sub-master and is no longer part of a Master/Parent configuration, it loses all track of its content tracks. Those tracks have to also be manually routed in the table (or dragging i/o's) to their folder, and that folder has to be routed to the sub-master.

What I was suggesting was that the premise of a folder be smartened up such that the tracks it contains will be automatically routed to it in the routing table, even when it is not in a Master/Parent configuration. It's always a folder when you designate the starting and ending tracks accordingly.

And, when you're not configured in an all-Master/Parent manner, solo's no longer work as expected.

If you still don't follow my description I'll post some routing table snaps.

One solution can be right clicking the mixer and choosing
"group folders to left".

Right, but that's not the same thing. I don't want folders on the left, and I don't want folders of groups of tracks to be manually arranged away from the group. I want the folders to be just like they are, AND be able to feed a sub-master track instead of just the master track or another folder. It seems to me that this part of the configuration is just plain broken, or at the very least, incomplete.

--Bill

[bblue]

Bump.

No one else with insight to these issues?

--Bill

[EricM]

Sorry, didn't see the reply earlier.

Originally Posted by bblue

Any track which receives from a group of others can be considered a sub-master. In the normal Reaper configuration a folder with tracks in it is really a sub-master for those tracks, and that signal is then automatically routed to the master as part of the internal "Master/Parent" relationship.

But when you designate your own track(s) as a sub-master (not one defined as a folder) it breaks all the implied routing that is part of the "Master/Parent" mechanism, at which point you have to manually define the route between source tracks and their sub-master *and* from those sub-masters to the Master (or any other) output.

So you are creating one track which receives from all the others. Fine,
but in that case you must disable "Master/parent send" checkbox on all
tracks that you manually send to the "sub-master", so they are not routed
directly to master track at the same time.

Folder's child tracks should still have that checked, as the folder is their
master (parent), this is where I think you have the problem.

Originally Posted by bblue

Right, but that's not the same thing. I don't want folders on the left, and I don't want folders of groups of tracks to be manually arranged away from the group. I want the folders to be just like they are, AND be able to feed a sub-master track instead of just the master track or another folder. It seems to me that this part of the configuration is just plain broken, or at the very least, incomplete.

--Bill

I agree it would be a nice feature to "elevate" any selected track to be "pinned"
next to the MASTER. But for now there are a ton of solutions doable using
SWS extensions, what I like to use is the feature to define a few terms that I
write in track's names, and crate a macro to show only these on the mixer
by pressing one key. So you could effectively name your tracks with word
"master", and when pressing your shortcut only these would show up in mixer.

I'm sure people came up with lots of different ways, but I don't know any
forum threads on this by heart.

e

[bblue]

Originally Posted by EricM

So you are creating one track which receives from all the others. Fine, but in that case you must disable "Master/parent send" checkbox on all tracks that you manually send to the "sub-master", so they are not routed directly to master track at the same time.

Right, I was doing that.

Folder's child tracks should still have that checked, as the folder is their master (parent), this is where I think you have the problem.

I think you're right! Thanks. I had childs of folders unchecked thinking that it was also referencing THE master, not the folder. That part now works as it should. Now I need to go back to my original configuration and test it. I seem to recall that tracks that were not in a folder group, and whose master/parent switch was off, but was routed to another track acting as a submaster, which was in turn master/parent to THE master -- none of those individual tracks would solo. I'll test that part again.

I agree it would be a nice feature to "elevate" any selected track to be "pinned" next to the MASTER. But for now there are a ton of solutions doable using SWS extensions, what I like to use is the feature to define a few terms that I write in track's names, and crate a macro to show only these on the mixer by pressing one key. So you could effectively name your tracks with word "master", and when pressing your shortcut only these would show up in mixer.

I use that approach for basic track coloring, but haven't used the filtering capability yet as I like to have all tracks visible most of the time. That's one reason I *really* don't like the solo dimming of tracks.

--Bill