What is the problem?
Sometimes you want more gradual changes while playing, but all the effects are applied instantly.
What do you want to achieve?
Allow the possibility to smoothly fade tracks out instead of turning them off instantly with just one press of a button. This way user won’t need to pre-select tracks and use knobs. Also, it will allow effortless cascading fading for multiple tracks.
Possible/desirable features and implementations:
- Alternate mute button function for the perform mode
- Shift + mute (muting in the perform mode and fading in the basic view or vice versa as a global/project option)
- Adjustable transition time (global/project option, per track)
Are there any workarounds?
Using live rec to automate knobs, but it’s not about playing live.
Any links to related discussions?
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Any references to other products?
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3 Likes
thanks. it could be a workflow gamechanger, imo. fingers crossed.
1 Like
Can you explain this wish a bit further, please?
The mute button affects an entire track, so this Shift Mute is to fine tune effects to tracks, correct?
Is this for the sequencer mode, the perform mode or both?
When the user selects Shift Mute on a track, what do they see and what do they do?
- The mute button triggers a function which is turning the track off, instantly. The main reason of muting is fast and accessible way to add dynamics to your composition, live.
- It could trigger other functions that serve the same purpose: optionally, if user want so.
- It also could do the same function, but not instantly: adding a transition time
- The suggestion is to make it optionally affect the tweaks besides volume itself
- Having both “mute” and “mute+shift” as pads with custom options is desirable
I guess, it doesn’t matter if it should work this way in the perform mode or both. If we go that deep, it could require another wishes. It’s up to Polyend Team to decide. The best thing maybe leaving such options for user, whether he/she wants alternate functions per different views or not.
When user presses the mute button with, let’s say, bound filter to it, its led fires up the regular way or with another color if it matters. So, user has a visual indication that he applied some temporary effect to the track. The track in this moment is having a transition from the default state of its filter to the new state (A > B; even though it could be instant as it is now). When he presses it again, the led turns off and the transition begins in other way, to it’s default state (B > A). Such options like the effect type and how long are these transitions should be optional (globally or per project).
Profit: let’s say the transition time is 5 sec. User could just press 5 “mute” pads with such alternate functions in a row, making a delay of one second between each other, and these effects could be applied automatically the cascade way. It’s 100% impossible to do this kind of stuff this easy without pre-made automations for now.
All in all, user could have all the favorite things he likes to apply fast and avoid using a selection of a track and twisting the knobs by hand.
I have edited the description. What do you think?
Volume fade in & out i.e./ using Shift + Mute is a clear use case, and maybe this wish should focus on it.
A transition time via settings in Perform mode is also a clear use case, but I suspect this is a different wish.
You have other suggestions involving knobs and/or further settings that I personally think it is better to leave in the comments because they make the wish way more complicated to understand and complex to implement.
@icaria36 I see, you made some edits, thanks again. It seems, the current version we have became a little vaguer. The wish may be declined because not every effect type implies any transition time. Also, it was basically about the mute button and the additional features it could have. After all the edits, it starts to seem like another perform mode related wish.
If you ask me, I’d like it to stay purely the mute button wish, at least because the thread name would be self-explanotory. Also, I guess, I need to create another wish for alternate effects for this button, if we decide to divide it in two. May I? 
I agree that this last version is crisper and therefore more suitable for a wish.
Before creating other wishes related to Shift + Mute, I suggest you wait to see what is the resolution and feedback from the Polyend team about this one.
Alright, but it won’t be directly related with this wish per se. Now this one is about the transition time that may function two different ways (perform/shift) and the other one would be like “Mapping different effects to mute buttons”, putting the transition time and possible implementations aside. Like a project option or something.
I’ll wait, of course. However, probably it may be easier to implement these features altogether rather than rewrite the mute button code later. May be not!
I just mean to wait until this draft is either accepted to the #wishlist or moved to #wishlist:archive.
@here thanks for contributing! The wish is open for voting
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My use case is that I can’t keep the beat too well, so I would love to be able to “queue” Mute so that a track is muted or unmuted at the end of its loop.
Meaning, if the track is 64 steps and is currently muted, the Play still goes through each step, even though the notes are not played. I could queue “unmute” for that track at anytime and it would only be unmuted at the end of its 64 steps, thus cleanly resuming playing notes at the beginning of its track.
Unless I’m missing something, I don’t think Shift + Mute can work, because it is already used to switch to the 1 to 16, 16 to 32, 32 to 48, or 48 to 64 step slice. However, how about a long press, a gesture that is already available in other parts of the Play, for copy/pasting a single step for example.
In other words, you would long press Mute to queue a mute (or queue unmute if it was already muted), and it would be acknowledged by blinking the Mute pad for an instant (same way it is when copy/pasting).
Thanks
I would love to have this for Solo as well.
@sebastien.barre
hey. I guess, what you describe here is the another wish material In order to queue mute there’s a widely covered workaround – just switch to an empty variation. The track will be effectively muted in the the end of a sequence.
Agreed, I can create another wish.
I did not know that workaround, thanks! Now when you say “widely covered”, where would that be? I’d be curious to know where these tips are discussed. Thanks.
@sebastien.barre you’re welcome! there was an official youtube vid that covers that kind of usage, so you can start from there. I always leave the first variations row empty, so it would be easier to mute multiple tracks at once.
the second most awaited UI feature. not so popular, sadly. along with this wish («Possibility to select and remember different tracks and variations in patterns view») it could greatly improve workflow playing live and allow us fade out tracks without any unnecessary selections/deselections.
for now, if you have an active set of tracks to play in the performance mode, you should deactivate them all, then select the one you need, fade it with volume or filter, then select that set again, back and forth… just to fade out one track, think about the efficiency!