|
|
|
07-21-2018, 01:38 PM
|
#1
|
Human being with feelings
Join Date: Mar 2014
Posts: 5
|
"Do not process muted tracks" literally only checks mutes, ignores solos
Reaper 5.93/x64 rev 99fbc9 (Jul 17 2018)
Windows 7 x64
The "Do not process muted tracks (muted tracks take no CPU time, etc)" option in Preferences > Audio > Mute/Solo appears to only exclude tracks from processing which are themselves muted or which have a parent track muted, but does NOT exclude tracks which are "off" because some other track is soloed. While this behavior is consistent with what the option literally says (it doesn't mention solos), it is not the behavior I expected or what I suspect other users would expect, since I think of soloing as just another way to manipulate track internal mute states.
I discovered this when trying to render just one track from a large project in "Full-Speed Offline" mode, where the one track had a synth plugin which was perfectly happy to run faster than realtime, but many other tracks in the project had large VSTis which stream from the disk and are never intended to run faster than realtime. Since I wanted to just render this one track, I soloed it and rendered the project--this was very slow (dropped from about 5x realtime to below 3x and by the end the render window was itself lagging). Then I suspected that the other tracks were still being processed, googled a bit, found the "Do not process muted tracks" option (which was already enabled), tried muting all other tracks (which should have been effectively muted through soloing the one track), rendered again, and the render went much faster (12-15x).
Steps to reproduce:
1. Create a project with many (30+) tracks with large VSTis on them which stream from disk, or other resource-hogging plugins (and put MIDI or audio content in them so they actually have work to do)
2. Create one track with a simple synth plugin or other resource-light sound generator, and some MIDI notes so it plays some sound
3. Solo this track
4. Render the project in "Full-Speed Offline" mode. Note the speed and CPU usage.
5. Mute all the tracks which were already not playing because the one track was soloed
6. Render again and note that the speed is higher / CPU usage is lower.
|
|
|
07-21-2018, 02:19 PM
|
#2
|
Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: Krefeld, Germany
Posts: 14,784
|
I suppose this behavior is known.
Why do you think it's a bug, while it behaves exactly as the name suggests ?
Anyway:
Welcome to these forums, and thanks for creating a thoroughly crafted report !
-Michael
|
|
|
07-21-2018, 06:03 PM
|
#3
|
Human being with feelings
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Calgary, AB, Canada
Posts: 6,551
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sauraen
since I think of soloing as just another way to manipulate track internal mute states.
|
There's your problem.
Allow me to demonstrate why they aren't the same thing:
1. When you solo a track, anything sending to it or receiving from it stays on, so you hear the correct content. Muting every track except that one, on the other hand, will leave you with only the audio produced on that track and going straight out to the Master.
I believe that Solo (Ignore Routing) will have the same audible effect as Muting everything else - Alt+Click a track's solo button to try. It will still process the other tracks though.
2. There's an option on the same Preferences page you're looking at called Solo-In-Front. It lets you set how much Solo turns the other tracks down, rather than turning them down all the way.
You can toggle it on and off from the Action List.
|
|
|
07-22-2018, 12:48 AM
|
#4
|
Human being with feelings
Join Date: Nov 2017
Location: Heidelberg, Germany
Posts: 797
|
I have very slow computer (well, one from computers I use), where rendering is a must and its speed it significant event with several tracks...
I have noticed the only time when REAPER is not "smart" during rendering is with Solo, in case it influence what should be rendered. May be that can be submitted as a feature request, may be there is a good reason for current behavior.
But all other renderings use optimal selection, even in case there is no mutes. Including just one track in place or in "Stems" render mode and a folder with several tracks, in place on in "Stems" mode.
Also indirect mutes are working fine, so synthes included into muted folder are not consuming CPU during rendering.
|
|
|
07-22-2018, 08:00 AM
|
#5
|
Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jul 2009
Posts: 7,595
|
you know what, while rendering REAPER should probably consider a soloed track the same as all other tracks muted.
|
|
|
10-21-2021, 06:20 AM
|
#6
|
Human being with feelings
Join Date: Mar 2021
Posts: 55
|
It seems to still work against intuition, shouldn't soloing a track achieve the same end as muting all other tracks, or at least have an option to consider it the same? Workarounds seem a bit cumbersome from what I can tell, although alternative suggestions welcome
Last edited by sondust; 10-21-2021 at 08:32 AM.
|
|
|
10-21-2021, 10:43 AM
|
#7
|
Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Slovakia
Posts: 2,588
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sauraen
since I think of soloing as just another way to manipulate track internal mute states.
|
This is how Reaper works and I consider this a good thing. E.g. Studio One works as you describe - a different view of a single state - and I find it limiting.
One case would be sends - if I solo a sending track, in Reaper the receiving track (unmuted, unsoloed) also plays but only what the soloed track is sending. Also if you solo just the receiving track, it plays all unmuted tracks sending to it and you hear only the wet signal.
When I try other DAWs time to time, I find they cannot work like this as they consider only a single state for solo+mute.
|
|
|
10-21-2021, 10:59 AM
|
#8
|
Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2019
Posts: 2,875
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by EpicSounds
you know what, while rendering REAPER should probably consider a soloed track the same as all other tracks muted.
|
Please no!
|
|
|
10-23-2021, 07:07 AM
|
#9
|
Human being with feelings
Join Date: Mar 2021
Posts: 55
|
Curious what would be the use case that would make it a bad thing? It would seem that soloing a track should solo it...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Phazma
Please no!
|
Last edited by sondust; 10-23-2021 at 07:22 AM.
|
|
|
10-23-2021, 07:23 AM
|
#10
|
Human being with feelings
Join Date: Aug 2014
Posts: 11,052
|
Create a custom action to invert track selection and mute selected tracks with a single keystroke. Just as quick as soloing.
|
|
|
10-23-2021, 07:25 AM
|
#11
|
Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2019
Posts: 2,875
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by sondust
Curious what would be the use case that would make it a bad thing?
|
If I solo and render a track I want to have everything that is part of that sound included (which means also receives). If I solo a folder I want to be sure that everything that is part of the folder is included.
I always render stems via soloing tracks and adding to render queue and I don’t want to and have to remember, hunt and solo each aux. It is so convenient to know safely that soloing a track includes everything that has to do with that track.
|
|
|
10-23-2021, 11:38 AM
|
#12
|
Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jul 2009
Posts: 7,595
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by Phazma
I always render stems via soloing tracks and adding to render queue and I don’t want to and have to remember, hunt and solo each aux. It is so convenient to know safely that soloing a track includes everything that has to do with that track.
|
Since this thread was started we can now render stems via master which includes all track fx and routing as if the track was soloed.
|
|
|
10-24-2021, 03:51 AM
|
#13
|
Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2019
Posts: 2,875
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by EpicSounds
Since this thread was started we can now render stems via master which includes all track fx and routing as if the track was soloed.
|
But if I use that option, all tracks which I want to be printed onto a single stem need to go into a folder (which needs to be selected for rendering), even if don't want to create extra tracks in the project just for rendering.
In fact I think I am going to do some kind of feature request for a 'stem render queue' which allows to select a bunch of tracks and add them as single stems to a queue which is then going to be treated like a stem render. But I need to think that through a bit more thoroughly to not risk creating a confusing FR.
Ultimately however, I think soloing (or any processing) should behave the same in project playback and rendering. And in project playback solo does not work like 'mute all unselected tracks'.
|
|
|
10-24-2021, 04:16 AM
|
#14
|
Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jul 2015
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Posts: 1,344
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by Phazma
Ultimately however, I think soloing (or any processing) should behave the same in project playback and rendering.
|
Absolutely 100%.
__________________
Magnus Lindberg Productions - VRTKL Audio - Redmount Studios
magnuslindberg.com
|
|
|
10-24-2021, 07:21 AM
|
#15
|
Human being with feelings
Join Date: Mar 2021
Posts: 55
|
That works for muting, but for anyone with projects that have some tracks muted beforehand, they wouldn't want to unmute all muted tracks later.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Judders
Create a custom action to invert track selection and mute selected tracks with a single keystroke. Just as quick as soloing.
|
|
|
|
10-24-2021, 07:25 AM
|
#16
|
Human being with feelings
Join Date: Mar 2021
Posts: 55
|
Of course, however not everyone is soloing to render. Maybe have two functions, 'solo track' and 'solo track with routing'?
(pardon my ignorance if the latter function exists already)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Phazma
If I solo and render a track I want to have everything that is part of that sound included (which means also receives). If I solo a folder I want to be sure that everything that is part of the folder is included.
I always render stems via soloing tracks and adding to render queue and I don’t want to and have to remember, hunt and solo each aux. It is so convenient to know safely that soloing a track includes everything that has to do with that track.
|
|
|
|
10-24-2021, 08:01 AM
|
#17
|
Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2019
Posts: 2,875
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by sondust
Of course, however not everyone is soloing to render. Maybe have two functions, 'solo track' and 'solo track with routing'?
(pardon my ignorance if the latter function exists already)
|
When you right click the solo buttons you will get various options on how you want to solo a track (and next to the options you can see the modifier keys which trigger these solo functions so you don't have to always use the menu).
The default 'solo track' includes routing but there is a 'Solo (ignore routing)' option which does what you want. On Mac it is triggered with the cmd modifier, on Windows probably with ctrl.
I think it should stay the way it is by default but it would be nice if we had the possibility to reassign the shortcuts to our liking so that if you want solo by default to not include routing you could set that up to work without modifier and use the cmd/ctrl modifier to trigger solo with routing. I personally would probably use exclusive solo without modifier as that is what I need most often.
|
|
|
10-26-2021, 06:14 AM
|
#18
|
Human being with feelings
Join Date: Mar 2021
Posts: 55
|
@ Phazma, thanks for the info (should have known the option would exist).
Of course the original issue OP still exists as described. It seems to make sense that tracks that aren't outputting audio via either solo or mute should be removed from processing if that selection is checked.
Last edited by sondust; 10-26-2021 at 08:02 AM.
|
|
|
Thread Tools |
|
Display Modes |
Linear Mode
|
Posting Rules
|
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
HTML code is Off
|
|
|
All times are GMT -7. The time now is 06:43 PM.
|