[quote author="SSLtech"]I've never seen one. Ours never had them, in fact I don't know of one.
According to our paperwork, the idea is that you are supposed to hook it up to an external computer (which in those days usually meant an ATARI MEGA-4 in the UK, also known as an 'ATARI Falcon' in the US) running an external sequencing package.
-You then slaved the sequencer to tape using a SMPTE-to-MIDI slave box, and you recorded mutes on a MIDI track.
To update the mutes (i.e. to add or subtract mute instructions), you played back the first track, and 'overdubbed' mutes on a second track. Further mute "overdubs" were performed on additional tracks. -After a while, you could of course 'merge' tracks to prevent the sequencer from running out (which happened easily in those days!) and continue from there. Offline editing of mutes was pretty simple, since they showed up as note on/note off commands, IIRC.
Here's a caveat though: Your software had to be set to transmit in "status running" or "status update" mode... in other words, if you started the song AFTER the beginning, the mutes wouldn't normally be applied...
Let me try and explain: for example, Imagine that your MIDI sequencer is recording a MIDI piano part. Now imagine that you have a block chord which hits on the downbeat of bar two, and sustains for eight measures, slowly decaying down to silence. -If you start the song at measure one, as you play through the downbeat of measure two, the note instructions are sent for the piano chord to play.
-If however, you play from bar four, the piano SHOULD be sustaining at that point, and if you were playing tape, that's what you'd hear... but we're not playing tape, and MIDI has no way of telling a sound to play from anywhere other than the beginning, and since there are no notes which BEGIN their sound at bar four, no note instruction is sent... This is 'sort of' okay for music, but NOT okay for automation, since it's the difference between mute on and mute off, for a probably continuous sound underneath.
Most MIDI sequencers of the day (and I presume that this is a feature which should have been retained into later sequencers) allowed the user to select "status running" mode (I think it was called that anyhow... this is almost 20 years ago) which means that wherever and whenever you start the sequencer, it 'plays' all the notes which are currently active, even if they ware simply 'hanging-over' from the last measure. -If you do this with music, the first beat is invariably a complete cacophony ( :grin: ) but it's important for the automation, otherwise some things just don't come in when they should, or play when they should be muted.
Because of the 'cacophony' issue, it was usual to use a SEPARATE and redundant MIDI sequencer for the automation, as distinct from any musical sequencing.
Is that the kind of information that you were hoping for, Chance?
Keith[/quote]
LOL sorry you had to do so much typing just to educate me. Now I don't think its worth the trouble trying to get the auto-mutes up and running. A&H in the UK told me that the reason my mutes (manual) don't work is because the processor was missing and is needed to mute the channels, even manually (mute button on ch strip). Fortunately, I use this board with a Radar and/or Mackie HDR and I can mute on the GUI.
Thanks again