Play, Mute or Solo Track

There are a variety of occasions where you might want to listen to only certain tracks of a song while other tracks are muted (silenced). For example, if a song has a melody track played by some instrument, but you want to sing the melody by yourself, then you can mute the melody track. Or, you might want to study the composition and arrangement of a song and focus on how a particular instrument part is written by "soloing" that instrument part, thus muting all of the other tracks. If you have a MIDI keyboard, you can temporarily mute a track and perform the part yourself; Composer will assign the instrument sound of the track to the notes you play.

Composer enables you to play any combination of tracks while muting other tracks. You can even do this while the song is playing back. If the track controls are visible, you can tell that a track is muted if the top-left button is not pressed down and has a dull light instead of the normal bright green light:

       track playback is active

       track is muted

Note that you can also mute tracks using the Track Setup command in the Track menu.

If you save the song as a MIDI file, then any muted track will be restored as an audible track in the MIDI file; the track will not be deleted.

To toggle the mute status of a track:

     If the track controls are not already visible, choose the Show Track Controls option in the View menu. Note that the Show Track Controls option is not available in Page View.

     In the group of four track controls, toggle the play/mute button between and .

-- OR --

     If the track controls are not visible, and you do not wish to display them, then while holding down the 'T' key, click anywhere in a staff belonging to that track. Composer will display a pop-up menu offering choices for Select Track, Mute Track, Solo Track, and Instrument Sound. In the pop-up menu, choose the Mute Track command.

Another option allows you to mute all tracks except one (or a few) track(s) that you wish to temporarily "solo". The play/mute status of the other tracks are only temporarily changed. Once you remove the solo status of all tracks, any track that was previously playing will continue to play, and any track that was previously muted will continue to be silent.

To temporarily solo one track so that no other tracks are heard:

     Toggle the solo button from the up position to the down position:

-- OR --

     While holding down the 'T' key, click anywhere in a staff belonging to that track. Composer will offer a pop-up menu. Choose the Solo Track command.

To temporarily solo multiple tracks so that only they are heard:

1.      Click the solo button for one track.

2.      While holding down the SHIFT key, click the solo button for additional tracks.

To remove a track from the list of solo tracks:

     While holding down the SHIFT key, toggle the solo button from the down position to the up position .

Yet another option lets you temporarily mute a track and assign the sound of that track to any notes you play at your music keyboard. This option is useful when you want to play one of the instrument parts of a song instead of having Composer play it. Composer will still play the other parts as accompaniment.

To temporarily mute a track and assign its instrument sound to notes that you play on your music keyboard:

     Double-click the solo button for the track.

-- OR --

While holding down the "R" key (for "record", although you will not actually be recording), click anywhere in the staff of the track.

Composer indicates that this track has been muted by changing the track play button to the up position:

At the same time, Composer indicates that this track has been selected to provide the instrument sound for your music keyboard by changing the solo button to a red face:

In addition, Composer indicates that this track has been so selected by drawing a red arrow right before the beginning of the first staff shown in the window for this track:

To return the track to normal playback:

     Just click the track's solo button again.

If the part you want to play has two staves, such as a piano or keyboard part, then you will find the following procedure useful.

To temporarily mute more than one track and assign the instrument sound of one of the tracks to notes that you play on your music keyboard:

1.      Double-click the solo button for the track whose instrument sound you want to assign to your music keyboard.

-- OR --

While holding down the "R" key (for "record", although you will not actually be recording), click anywhere in the staff for that track.

2.      For the other track(s) that you want to play instead of Composer, toggle the playback button to the up position:      

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