3 Each track and bus has two buttons which have important implications
4 for signal flow: <dfn>mute</dfn> and <dfn>solo</dfn>. The behaviour
5 of these buttons is configurable in Ardour, to suit different studio
9 <h2>Without a monitor bus</h2>
11 When using Ardour without a monitor bus, there is only one way
12 in which mute and solo will work:</p>
15 Mute on a track or bus will mute that track on the master bus,
16 so that it will not be heard.
19 Solo on a track or bus will solo that track or bus and mute all
20 others. Soloing a bus will also solo any tracks or
21 busses which feed that bus.
25 The Solo status indicator button in the Toolbar blinks when one or more
26 tracks are being soloed. Clicking this button disables any active explicit
27 and implicit solo on all tracks and busses.
30 <h2>With a monitor bus</h2>
32 For setups with a monitor bus, more options are available, mostly
33 governed by the setting of the
34 <kbd class="option">Solo controls are Listen controls</kbd> option
35 in <kbd class="menu">Edit > Preferences > Mixer.</kbd>
38 With <kbd class="optoff">Solo controls are Listen controls</kbd>
39 unticked, behaviour is almost exactly the same as the situation
40 without a monitor bus. Mute and solo behave the same, and the monitor
41 bus is fed from the master bus, so it sees the same thing.
44 With <kbd class="option">Solo controls are Listen controls</kbd>
45 ticked, the master and monitor busses behave differently. In this
46 mode, solo controls are more properly called <dfn>listen</dfn>
47 controls, and Ardour's solo buttons will change their legend from
48 <kbd class="menu">S</kbd> for Solo to show the listening point,
49 either <kbd class="menu">A</kbd> for After fader or
50 <kbd class="menu">P</kbd> for Pre fader.
53 Now, without any mute or listen, the monitor bus remains fed by
58 Mute will mute the track or bus, so that it will not be heard
59 anywhere (neither on the master nor monitor busses), much as before.
62 Listen will disconnect the monitor bus from the master bus, so
63 that the monitor bus now only receives things that are "listened to".
64 Listen will not perform any muting, and hence the master bus will
65 not be affected by a listened track or bus.
69 When solo controls are listen controls, the listening point can be set
70 to either After-Fade Listen (AFL) or Pre-Fade Listen (PFL). The precise
71 point to get the signal from can further be configured using the
72 <kbd class="menu">PFL signals come from</kbd> and
73 <kbd class="menu">AFL signals come from</kbd> options.
76 The solo-mute arrangement with a monitor bus is shown below:
79 <figure class="center">
80 <img src="/images/solo-mute.png" alt="mute/solo signal flow">
81 <figcaption>Mute/solo signal flow</figcaption>
85 Here we have a number of tracks or busses (in orange). Each one has an
86 output which feeds the master bus. In addition, each has PFL and AFL
87 outputs; we have a choice of which to use. PFL/AFL from each track or
88 bus are mixed. Then, whenever anything is set to AFL/PFL, the monitor out
89 becomes just those AFL/PFL feeds; the rest of the time, the monitor out is
90 fed from the master bus.
93 In this scheme Solo has no effect other than to mute other non-soloed tracks;
94 with solo (rather than listen), the monitor out is fed from the master bus.
97 <h2>Other solo options</h2>
99 <kbd class="menu">Edit > Preferences > Mixer</kbd> has some
103 <h3>Solo-in-place mute cut</h3>
105 When using solo-in-place (SiP), in other words when soloed tracks are being
106 listened to on the master bus, this fader specifies the gain that will be
107 applied to other tracks in order to mute them. Setting this level to
108 −∞ dB will mean that other tracks will not be heard at all; setting to
109 some higher value less than 0dB means that other non-soloed tracks will be heard, just
110 reduced in volume compared to the soloed tracks. Using a value
111 larger than −∞ dB is sometimes called "Solo-In-Front" by other DAWs, because
112 the listener has the sense that soloed material is "in front" of other
113 material. In Ardour, this is not a distinct mode, but instead the mute cut
114 control offers any level of "in-front-ness" that is desired.
117 <h3>Exclusive solo</h3>
119 If this is enabled, only one track or bus will ever be soloed at once; soloing
120 track B while track A is currently soloed will un-solo track A before soloing
124 <h3>Show solo muting</h3>
126 If this is enabled, the mute button of tracks and busses will be drawn
127 outlined to indicate that the track or bus is muted because something else
128 is soloed. This is enabled by default, and it is recommended to leave it
129 that way unless extremely comfortable with Ardour's mute/solo
133 <h3>Soloing overrides muting</h3>
135 If this is enabled, a track or bus that is both soloed and muted will behave
139 <h3>Mute affects…</h3>
141 These options dictate whether muting the track will affect various routes out
142 of the track; through the sends, through the control outputs (to the monitor
143 bus) and to the main outputs.