Option to limit record armed tracks to one at a time

What is this feature about?

Bitwig currently allows multiple tracks to be record armed. The problem with this is that sometimes if you have a large session, you might have tracks that are record armed, and not realize it. Then when you are recording on another track, you accidentally record over the other tracks that are record armed.

Adding an option to limit record armed tracks to 1 at a time, unless specifically selecting that you want multiple armed tracks, would solve this problem. A qualifier key could be used when arming multiple tracks to make it clear that this is what you intended to do.

What problem(s) would this feature resolve?

It would prevent against accidentally recording over other armed tracks.

How does this feature fit in Bitwig as a product?

It would help people switching to Bitwig who are used to that type of workflow.

Is there already an alternative way to achieve this on Bitwig?

This option doesn’t exist, but if you are worried about accidentally recording over unnoticed armed tracks, you can select all tracks and hit record twice from the inspector, to make sure none of them are armed, or assign a key command to “Global arm off”

Could it be implemented using Bitwig components or APIs, without Bitwig team’s support?

no

Could it be provided by a VST or something else reasonably integrated with Bitwig?

no

Are there other products that offer this feature?

This is how it works in Ableton. For people who like the current approach though, an option in preferences would give us the best of both worlds.

Relevant links (optional)

7 posts were split to a new topic: [Draft discussion] Option to limit record armed tracks to one at a time

Or rather have it behave like this. When multiple tracks are armed and you alt+click to arm any track it’ll be the only one armed.

Yeah with option for reversing behaviour. Just like current solo buttons.

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That would work too, but for me personally, I would really like to have an option in preferences to have it default to 1 record enabled track at a time. Then, you could alt+click, or cntrl+click to select more tracks to be record enabled. I like that behavior more, because it prevents accidentally recording over tracks that you don’t realize are record enabled. If you have multiple record armed tracks as the default, but have the option to solo one of them to be armed, it still works, but it is a lot easier to accidentally record over something.

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