Send MIDI messages in Pauses

[JerryK]

I'd really like this possibility.  I saw an older post on a very similar subject but it warned me that it was probably too old to add comments to.

Here's the scene:  A duo (actually two duos) using backing tracks but sometimes wanting some part of a setlist to be acoustic-only.
It would seem ideal to include a Pause which sends a Mute signal to the mixer, to switch off the backing track inputs for any selection of songs, then at another Pause, switch it on again.
It should be able to send any of my defined Midi Presets.

You might think it simple to press the Mute button at the right times but I have plenty more to do and think about, and have failed to do un/mute, more times than I can remember (pun/irony intended).

I guess I could invent some essentially empty Songs to do this job, perhaps on first or second select (is that choice an advantage?) but somehow, a Pause looks right for the job.  I suppose, what a song would give me is the flexibility to be late finishing the preceding song, unless the Pause offers the choice to action the Message at start or end of the Pause?  Actually, no, the preceding song end has already switched off vocal effects.

Any observations I haven't thought of?
Jerry.

[arlo]

Thanks for the detailed description of how you would use this. This is on my wish list and I'll add a vote for you.

[arlo]

In today's version 2024-04-13 release, you can turn on Settings > Advanced > Show Song Buttons on Breaks and Pauses. Then edit a MIDI preset and select the Pinned To All Pauses option. Then when you view any pause, that MIDI preset will be available. If you select this option for multiple presets, they will appear in alphabetical order in the pauses. The presets will not send automatically when you reach a pause, but you can send them from the MIDI button or from an app control action like Settings > App Control > Actions > Send Pinned Presets = Layout Actions > Song Selection.

[JerryK]

That sounds great. Well done and thanks very much Arlo.

[JerryK]

FYI - I'm not seeing it at this time.
I updated to v 143; 2 Midi presets are pinned to all pauses (and all breaks for test purposes).
OS 17.4.1
Re-started app again, no change.
Web site is very slow right now for Presets and Pause names (maybe more).  I thought I'd look, in case my changes were not there because of website speed reasons.  Changes are there.

No panic - I'll look again tomorrow.

[JerryK]

A-ha.  They show up if I'm displaying Presets in the layout.  I had imagined them showing up in the fairly empty Pause screen.
Fair enough.  Sorry for any panic or distress.

I don't normally display Presets in 'Gig' mode, just in 'edit-at-home' mode because the hardware more-or-less does that.  So these showing up just on Pauses/Breaks in the Lyric space would save Gig screen real-estate on the iPad.

[arlo]

Pauses and breaks will display with the same layout as songs, and normally all the song buttons are hidden but you can now turn on Settings > Advanced > Show Song Buttons on Breaks and Pauses. If you don't have Multiple MIDI Buttons in your layout, you can still send your pinned presets from the single MIDI Button, or an app control action like Song Selection or a foot switch message.

[JerryK]

How about the Tags space, since Breaks and Pauses don't have those?

[arlo]

I don't think replacing one layout element with another on pauses and breaks is a good idea. If you don't have Multiple MIDI Buttons in your layout, you can still send your pinned presets from the single MIDI Button, or an app control action like Song Selection or a foot switch message.

[JerryK]

I think the only available choice, currently, is to include one or more Presets in all Pauses/Breaks.
So that has the effect, in my case, of switching off (muting) the backing track channels at every Pause, which is not the desired effect.  For me, some pauses should mute, others should un-mute, and possibly other actions.
So for now, I'm continuing with very short songs containing Off or On events.

[arlo]

That's correct, you cannot pin different MIDI presets to different pauses.

If you are trying to do things that are specific to a particular song, I recommend doing that within the song itself rather than in a pause that comes before or after it. Then you don't have to take the extra step of keeping songs together with their adjacent pauses when you build or edit a set list.

[JerryK]

No, it's for a section of most duo gigs, where maybe 5 or 6 songs would be chosen to do *this time* without backing.  So the markers would Mute at point A and un-Mute at point B in the set.
It's not rigidly that songs A,B,C,W,X,Y are only ever acoustic and the rest are only ever backed.

So - a thing to drop into the list to Mute the track channels AND instruct me which guitar I've chosen this time (Ac or Ele)
and - another to un-do that after those songs.  It therefore works for any songs placed between those markers/pauses/...

I'm currently using Songs for this (check those beginning @@ if you wish but I'm sure you don't need to) and maybe that's good enough.  Pauses were just appealing for the task as they stand out in the list with a background colour AND don't add to the song count.

[avdb]

Hi Jerry,
As you may have noticed from the thread http://forum.arlomedia.com/index.php/topic,2855.msg15047.html#msg15047, we seem to share similar issues regarding MIDI Presets and/or Automation in Pauses.
Just like you, the only workaround I found so far is indeed to use short 'dummy' songs that only contain a short automation track to get the desired actions done.

Where Arlo is correct, it is a bit of a pain for consistency and maintaining setlists, so I for a better solution in the future.
Should you find an alternative workaround, I would be eager to learn as well!

[arlo]

It looks like I missed JerryK's last message here. That sounds like a reasonable workflow, but you cannot pin different MIDI presets to different pauses. That was a deliberate decision to provide the functionality most people were looking for without making the setup significantly more complicated.

Taking this further to support pinning different items to different pauses is still on my wish list.

[JerryK]

Thanks Arlo.  That will certainly suit me.  Currently, the same preset pinned to 'all' Pauses is not useful, as I think you've deduced from my workflow.  So I'm currently using songs for that. 
Great that BH is flexible enough for these choices and variations in use.