Musician Archive

Don't know if this is common knowledge, but I'll assume it isn't and make a post.

You can switch instruments seemlessly while playing solo or with a band. It does not work perfectly if you switch instruments without switching songs when you are solo, but it works most of the time in this case.

For this example I will be playing solo and switch from playing Waltz with a chid horn to playing rock with a bandfill and start with the rock flourish 8. (that transition sounds really cool).

With my chid in hand and my bandfill in the F1 hotkey I begin playing Waltz. When I want to switch to bandfill I hit my macro and then after the current loop is finished I automatically begin playing flourish 8 of rock with my bandfill. The macro looks like this:

/ui action toolbarSlot00; (note the bandfill is in the F1 slot)

/startmusic rock;

/flourish 8

When I hit the macro during a loop I will see my toon switch to the bandfill automatically, but he will continue playing the loop with the sound of the Chid. When that loop is finished the rock flourish 8 starts with the bandfill sound.

If you had /startmusic waltz instead of rock then you would still switch to the bandfill on the next loop but continue playing waltz. The problem with not switching songs when doing this solo is that sometimes you will switch and play one loop, then it plays the outro and you stop...not sure why.

If you are in a band you can use the exact same macro to switch to bandfill and it will continue playing the same song as the band. It doesn't matter what song you specify after the /startmusic command because you will always join in the song the band is currently playing.

You can create macros for each instrument (except ommni and nala AFAIK) by using different /ui action toolbarSlot numbers.

So if the band is playing Jazz and you are playing Kloo, you can switch to bandfill (or any hand held instrument) and continue playing Jazz (or whatever song the band is playing)by using the above macro. I have not had the problem where you automatically go into the outro after one loop when doing this in a band.

This does work seemlessly, IE there is no silence or pause between the instrument switch.

i've seen it work beautifully, although i admit i am not great at it.

Na-ca ottaz in my band is a master of this technique.

I do something similar. The technique you describe doesn't always work well in a group... especially if you used /starband.

Something that also sounds very nice (for a small band 2-4 musicians) is this:

Start a song with the bandfill/ommni boxand let it play 2 bars before you jump in. Play 2 bars then start flourishing 8-10 then 2 bars and then switch instrument but don't play just yet. Let the bandfill/ommni box play 2 bars and then jump in. You can do this forever (I would suggest 10 minutes then switch to another song - and have musicians switch instruments... let someone else play the bandfill/ommni box.