Re: Frustrated with no solo button found on aux send

ronjams · Post by **ronjams** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 10:08 am

I originally posted this on motu-mac user group but decided to post it here so I can get a quicker solution to my issue.
<<It's strange to me that I never cared about this before but suddenly I have to start tracking bands. In this case, drums, bass, guitar, sax and keys. I would like to create stereo headphone mixes for everyone. The problem is being able to solo and make volume adjustments to each individual mix assigned to their stereo outputs and then return back to my own(engineer's)mix. However there is no solo button on the aux send which is wierd to me because pro tools has this feature and so does my mixing console. Why would this feature would not be included in digital performer and what can I do to make up for not having this feature? Surely there is a workaround that someone has figured out. This should be included in an update. I should mention that I use an 828mkIII, several headphone amps that has individual and master inputs and a mixer.>>

<<<Not sure how you're making your phones mixes, but you can do it in CueMix & solo the CueMix busses. Of course, if you're doing punches or overdubs you also need to add sends from the DP mixer & then you're back to your problem. The DP mixer has no aux send master section, just one of a number of ways in which the DP mixer does not behave like a hardware mixer. Do you, as engineer, really need to hear what the performers are hearing? I've been roughing in musicians' headphone mixes with DP's limited mixer for a whole lot of years, not hearing what the performers hear, & simply asking them what they need more or less of. I also have a headphone system which gives the players control of five different submixes, so they mostly make their own balances.>>>

So I guess you're saying that you are willing to put up with this flaw, well I'm not. I'm looking for a solution. You asked: Do you, as engineer, really need to hear what the performers are hearing? the answer is yes. Hopefully someone can answer this!!!!

jbyerly1 · Post by **jbyerly1** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 10:51 am

+1 on wishing there was a solo button for Aux tracks

NazRat · Post by **NazRat** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 11:45 am

jbyerly1 wrote:+1 on wishing there was a solo button for Aux tracks

There is a solo button on Aux tracks. You uncheck Solo Exempt in the drop-down selection at the bottom of the track in the mixing board.

(or click in the Exempt column in the tracks overview)

Nibiru · Post by **Nibiru** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 12:10 pm

NazRat wrote:
jbyerly1 wrote:+1 on wishing there was a solo button for Aux tracks
There is a solo button on Aux tracks. You uncheck Solo Exempt in the drop-down selection at the bottom of the track in the mixing board.

(or click in the Exempt column in the tracks overview)

Ah hem...yep. Phew

Dan Worley · Post by **Dan Worley** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 12:34 pm

Yes, you need to turn off Solo Exempt for the Aux Track, but that doesn't help much, because when you solo the Aux it mutes the tracks that are routed to it. What you also need to do is create a Group which includes the Aux Track and the all the Tracks routed to it and enable only the Solo parameter for that group.

NazRat · Post by **NazRat** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 12:35 pm

To the OP - an interesting work around . . . add a send from your monitor Aux back to your mains and mute it. Then if you want to hear it, solo the Aux and then unmute the send - you should both be listening to the same thing. Mute the Aux send to mains before cancelling the solo. This is assuming all sends are pre-fader.

Dan Worley · Post by **Dan Worley** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 2:07 pm

Dan Worley wrote:Yes, you need to turn off Solo Exempt for the Aux Track, but that doesn't help much, because when you solo the Aux it mutes the tracks that are routed to it. What you also need to do is create a Group which includes the Aux Track and the all the Tracks routed to it and enable only the Solo parameter for that group.

I forgot to mention that once you add Solo to a Group, you cannot solo only one track in that group (even with Option clicking), which can be a hassle. Fortunately, you can suspend Track Grouping with an easy key command (Control Option Command G), and then solo the track and the Aux.

Dan Worley · Post by **Dan Worley** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 3:09 pm

Oh, sorry, I couldn't read the first post because of the text colors (so I finally copied it into TextEdit). I didn't know it was about sending cues.

Yeah, turn off solo Exempt for the Aux track and make sure the Sends are pre fader.

My information was about soloing stems quickly with groups, so I missed the point completely. Sorry about that.

ronjams · Post by **ronjams** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 4:16 pm

<Oh, sorry, I couldn't read the first post because of the text colors (so I finally copied it into TextEdit). I didn't know it was about sending cues.

Yeah, turn off solo Exempt for the Aux track and make sure the Sends are pre fader.

My information was about soloing stems quickly with groups, so I missed the point completely. Sorry about that.
Statistics: Posted by Dan Worley — Thu Jul 05, 2012 3:09 pm>

Actually you solved another problem I was having until you mentioned using track groups to hear and solo cue mixes and by the way, I'm using the sends pre fader. How would I get some global verb on these aux sends without recording them?

ronjams · Post by **ronjams** » Mon Jul 09, 2012 10:11 am

Knowing this information I thought it would be vital for being able to send out headphone cues to live musicians and monitoring their individual headphone mixes and making level adjustments for each musician through Digital Performer. Unfortunately, in the session this past Saturday, this failed for me and I was forced to put the whole band in my mix where I could make no adjustment. It was terrible for them recording the tracks but I did get it recorded. In my setup I'm using 828mkIII, several headphone amps that has individual and master inputs and a mixer which does not provide enough aux sends to run the headphone cue out to the musicians. This can work fine for prerecorded tracks which I did use to test this but for some reason I could not get it to work. As I'm writing this I wonder would it have something to do with audio patch thru in DP. Anyway I need some help. Thanks

zaratero · Post by **zaratero** » Mon Jul 09, 2012 3:28 pm

Try using dummy busses instead of the actual outputs in the channel sends, create those aux channels,route to master and mute. Now create prefader sends to the hardware outputs from those aux channels. Try solo now. If that doesn work tingle with the idea for a while and you will find a way.

Although tabbing to cuemix for a solo is not a big deal breaker and you can spare innecesary buss masters if no processing or further routing is really needed.

PD: On a side note, I have been a monitor engineer for 15 years now, and I would rather loose my cue than compromise to a single mix for every player EVERYDAY. You are better off not hearing but being able to mix.
But you can have it all with DP, or DP and Cuemix.
Good luck.

ronjams · Post by **ronjams** » Mon Jul 09, 2012 11:30 pm

Not sure if you're talking about the recording tracks in Dp or the channels routed to the aux send as a master control volume in Dp out to the analog sends. Could you say it another way so that I can understand?

NazRat · Post by **NazRat** » Tue Jul 10, 2012 4:30 am

zaratero wrote:Try using dummy busses instead of the actual outputs in the channel sends, create those aux channels,route to master and mute.

You can route the aux channels directly to the monitor outputs and use a send on the aux back to the master/mains also. That way the output to the monitors is metered and on a fader. See previous post where I assumed the OP was using a bus to aux for the monitor outputs.

zaratero · Post by **zaratero** » Fri Jul 20, 2012 1:26 am

NazRat wrote:
zaratero wrote:Try using dummy busses instead of the actual outputs in the channel sends, create those aux channels,route to master and mute.
You can route the aux channels directly to the monitor outputs and use a send on the aux back to the master/mains also. That way the output to the monitors is metered and on a fader. See previous post where I assumed the OP was using a bus to aux for the monitor outputs.

That would work too. I didn´t read your previous post.
I was looking for a one click solo method, very similar to yours indeed. This mimicks the way I set up reference tracks, prints, and others, just by muting and using solo to A/B (routed to my Control Room bus instead of mix bus).
Regards.