You know what would be really cool? A mixer that puts whatever modules are associated with it’s inputs into BYPASS mode when the track is muted or the volume is all the way down. I obviously haven’t thought that all the way through but it would help a ton if you’re doing a bigger composition and part one is taken up by the 1st 4-6 tracks and you’re already just about 100% on the cpu without getting into part 2. From the software and patch creation side I can see there would have to be some creativeness to accommodate such a thing, but from a musician / composer point of view this would be awesome.
That is an interesting idea. Mixers are a rather involved project to take on, so instead of creating yet another mixer just for this feature, perhaps you could suggest this as a feature request on the MindMeld Modular GitHub repo for their MixMaster and MixMaster Jr. modules.
The Stoermelder Strip can enable/disable contiguous modules to the left and/or right, but it cannot enable/disable an arbitrary collection of modules.
Having a module with CV control that can enable/disable a collection of modules is definitely needed. However I don’t think there is an effective solution for automatically deciding what to enable/disable based on cable connections - where do you stop? Just imagine a master clock that drives the entire patch. If you mute one channel, then automatic disable would trace back to the clock and shut down the entire patch. I think no matter what tracing rules you try, you are always going to run into unwanted connections.
I think a dedicated module that can map to an arbitrary collection of modules would be great. A module with say 10 buttons, as well as CV output - each button could have its own mapped collection, and the CV output could issue a high gate to mute a mixer channel, or whatever you want.
I suppose the mapping functionality can be built into a mixer - it sure would be convenient. But a mixer like MindMeld Mixer is already complicated enough. For me it just feels wrong to jam module mapping and disable/enable into an already complex module like that.
Besides - if you disable a collection of modules that represents a voice, then the output should most likely be 0V, so there would be no need to mute a mixer channel anyway.
2 Likes
True but say you have a composition with the first 4 tracks playing something you want and it needs to fade out as other sections fade in - after the first section fades out you’d like it to go into Bypass then. But I do see your points and yes, the Mindmeld Mixer is CPU heavy enough and does an awful lot already.
but there are so many modules that take 10X the CPU that they need to. Why not use use modules that don’t waste all that CPU?
Yes this is part of the learning process. I will frequently turn on the performance meter to see what is eating up the CPU gummy bears and then play around with similar modules to see if i can get the results I want.
1 Like