I have a simple question but still have not figured out how to do it. I want to play, say, 3 choruses of a tune. On the first chorus, I would like the melody to mute so that I can play lead. On the second chorus, I would like the melody to unmute so that the recorded melody can be heard. On the third chorus, I would like the melody to mute again so I can play lead. I want to do this automatically without having to right click on the melody button to mute it during the choruses when I play lead. How do I do this?

You may easily mute and unmute tracks during specific choruses via the Bar Settings dialog (F5).

I think MartinB's solution is version specific. Which version are you using?

Bar Settings have been around for quite some time now. <right click> on any bar and change the settings. Don't forget that you have to do it again if you have muted to turn them back on!

I have version 2008.5

I tried the F5 Bar Settings dialog that MartinB suggested, and it works, but only for specific bars. What I would like to do is control the mute settings for melody for entire choruses. For example, I'm currently working with a 32 bar piece, with three choruses of the same 32 bars. I woudl like to mute the melody for all 32 bars in chorus 1, play the melody for all 32 bars in chorus 2, and mute the melody again for all 32 bars in chorus 3.

There's a Melody/ Mute Melody during Middle Choruses setting, but what I would like is to Mute Melody during any specified chorus. Is there such a setting?

At the top of the F5 screen, there is a dropdown box to apply the mute to a specified chorus. I'm not sure it is in 2008. Choose the chorus, select the instrument and mute/unmute.

If you're using a MIDI keyboard, there are ways you can control muting via the kb.

R

The BB 2008 Bar Settings dialog does provide chorus selections - works here like a charm, even with BB 2008.

Rachael, Martin, thanks for the help. I'm sorry if I'm being dense, but I still don't follow. When I do F5 the window that comes up says "Edit Settings for Bar" whatever bar number I'm on. I see the window that says "Settings apply to Chorus #" and I can select whatever chorus number I want. However, I would need to repeat that setting for each bar, by first selecting a bar from 1 through (say) 32, then selecting whether to mute or unmute the melody for that bar for each of the choruses.

I guess that would work, but what I was hoping to do is to first select the chorus, then mute or unmute the melody for all 32 bars for that selected chorus. That way I could do it in 3 steps instead of 32 steps. Am I missing something?

Hello

The bar settings "stick", until you F5 on a later bar and set them to something else. If all you do is click at bar 5 of chorus 1 and mute the melody, it will stay like that until the end of your song.

Thanks, Andrew. If you could bear with me one more time, here's what I did, and the results (didn't work). If you can tell me what I'm doing wrong, that may be the easiest way for me to understand.

I am playing "Ballad for Gloria" Bossa Melodist #136 that came as a demo with my 2008.5 version (beautiful little piece). It has 36 bars with melody arranged as three choruses. If I play it as is, it repeats three times, each time with a melody, as it should.

I now set my curser on bar #1, press F5, and in the upper window I select chorus #1 and in the volume window along the left, I select Mute in the melody window. I hit OK. I press F5 again, verify that chorus #1 is still set to Mute, then select chorus #2 in the upper window, and in the melody window I select Back to Normal. I hit OK, then F5 just to verify that chorus #1 has volume set to mute and chorus #2 has volume set to back to normal. I do nothing with chorus #3. I hit OK again.

If I have this right, this should not play the melody on chorus #1, but should play it on choruses #2 and #3.

I play it but it mutes the melody on all three choruses. What did I do wrong?

I could be wrong, but I don't know if you can actually make that setting for all three choruses on the same bar. Andrew may have the answer for that.

In the interim, I would probably do the following: Set bar 1 to mute the melody the first time through (as you did). Then go to the last bar of the chorus (bar 36) and set the melody back back to normal there for chorus 1. Not perfect, but I believe it will work.

Otherwise, you may just have to unfold the song to one big chorus (108 bars) and and make the settings then (turn melody off at bar 1, turn it back on at bar 37.

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If I have this right, this should not play the melody on chorus #1, but should play it on choruses #2 and #3.

I play it but it mutes the melody on all three choruses. What did I do wrong?

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Just double-checked here. Following your otherwise perfect description, I obtain muted melody on chorus #1 and sounding melody on chorus #2 and #3. Not sure what may have gone astray on your side. Maybe you double-check too.