Question

Please do this! Keyboard players often change sounds (via patch changes ) and use different VIs (mute/unmute VIs) within the same song! <<  Critial

Answer 1

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Answer 2

This is another feature I assumed was part of the "patches" unveiling, and I was wrong again. Patch changes over time and parameter automation/control is a HUGE deal. Here's a couple ways this would be used in Live or MainStage:

1. Many "set lists" could exist in one Concert file in MainStage. Sometimes players would create a set list for one song, and use patches within that set to change instruments over time in a song, using program change signals over MIDI control. As patches changed, the previous patch's audio would "spill over" into the next, and eventually be terminated to save CPU resources, so transitions were seamless.
2. Many virtual instruments can use the same input in Live, and mutes can be automated in the arrangement view just like the DAW that it is. Meaning that a singular input could control different VIs at different times. And, given that Studio One's Show page is time-based, there's a very clear avenue for implementing patch changes as an event in time.
3. Again in MainStage, you could configure elements of the Concert to be constant at given levels: at the Concert level, whatever you configured would remain constant no matter the Set or Patch you have active. At the Set level, You could override Concert level settings, but whatever you configured would only apply to that Set, and would remain constant no matter the Patch you have active. At the Patch level, you could override Concert and Set level settings, but those settings and whatever else you configured would only apply to that Patch. All that meaning, you could conceive hierarchical setups in which certain things always applied to given "states," like a keyboard that is always a piano in one Set, except for one Patch, in which it's a mono lead, and all other Patches only change a second keyboard's VIs or MIDI destination, in addition to some fader assignments or text on-screen.

In comparison, the Show page has a lot to learn from pros that use other programs to run their performances. There's so, so, so, so much room to improve configurability without making it unfriendly to amateurs or beginners.