The All-Things-Audio Blog
Ignore Solo
Want to spend less time and shed less tears over mixing? Ignore the solo tracks button!
The listener will never hear your tracks in solo, so they will not care if it sounds good or bad in solo. Before I got into mixing, I was talking to an audio engineer about this. He was telling me about how he would get his drums to sound super good in solo. When he would un-solo them, they would sound terrible in the track. I had no idea what he was talking about. I thought, "if they sound good in solo, how could they not sound good when they're with everything else?"
I soon realized when I started mixing that it was mostly true. I’d get paranoid about making it sound good in solo, but it would end up making my drums, guitar, or whatever sound bad anyways when I turned solo off. Don't think that there is a right or wrong way with mixing, it's all about how it sits with your mix.
So don’t worry if something is good in solo or not. If it works with the rest of the track, GREAT! Your...