I've posted several times that track names need to be revisited as to "labeling". It's great that now the instrument name displays on the tracks; however, there are still a number of features that require you to know the legacy track names to use them properly (Bass, Drums, Piano, Guitar, and Strings, plus Melody, Soloist, Thru, and Audio).

My new suggestion is (assuming a more comprehensive redo is not forthcoming) is that tracks be labeled by their existing lettered named. So wherever you see a track reference on the screen, you would see its corresponding letter.

That way, the legacy Drum track could just be labeled track "D". Piano would be "P", Bass would be "B", Strings would be "S", and Guitar would be "G". I suppose since the others don't participate in things like rests, shots, holds, stylemaker track references, etc), they could just be labeled "Mel", "Sol", "Thru", and "Audio", pretty much as they are now.

That way you would see on the screen at all times the letters associated with the tracks, and then when you wanted to "Hold" all tracks except the tenor sax soloist which happens to be on the legacy Guitar track, you would already see a "G" next to that track and would now to enter Cmaj7...G.

That makes it visible and easy to work with. Relabel the track names in StyleMaker and other places they are referenced by just the letter designation (and I don't think it matters it's not A, B, C, D, E, etc), and that completely disassociates the former track instrument name from the instrument that is actually on the track. And that would remove the confusion of why the trumpet is on the piano track.

I would suspect that this would take a little work, but I imagine most of those designations are implemented as constants anyway.

Just a thought, and again, this is a bridge until some of the other track issues are more comprehensively addressed (such as why do RealTracks need to overlay MIDI tracks - why not keep all the MIDI tracks and just include some number of RealTracks (which ultimately could get their own designations).

I have provided mockups below. I realize this is probably a stopgap, but it seems to provide a bridge until something else is done.

I hope that made sense.

Attached Files (Click to download or enlarge) (Only available when you are logged in)
Main Instrument List.jpg (10.56 KB, 91 downloads)
Mixer.jpg (88.1 KB, 91 downloads)
StyleMaker.jpg (70.46 KB, 91 downloads)
VST Selection.jpg (75.29 KB, 91 downloads)
John

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