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Assuming I have two tracks, Track A and Track B, where Track A is a group of tracks, how do I solo Track B if it has a Gate effect with a sidechain that targets Track A? An example of this situation is shown in the image attached to this question. The project shown in this image is also available for download (sounds awful, but shows the problem).

In the given example, if Track B is soloed, then the Gate will no longer receive a signal because Track A stops sending a signal to the group. I could duplicate the group and create a ghost group, but that would incur significant CPU overhead in my real projects. Is there an efficient way to make this work?

Example Project

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Currently the simplest solution to achieve what you want would be following. Solo the track with the side chain (Track B) and the two sub tracks of Group Track A, but mute the group track.

If you setup the mixer like that, the signals will flow to the group track (as they are also set to solo), but because the mixer is turned off, the signal doesn't get routed to the master track.

Now you can select the group track as source in the sidechain and choose post-fx as source from the track.

It's definitely not very suited for live situations, but if you just want to listen to your gated track during production it should be what you want.

Also, keep in mind that you can execute some actions for multiple tracks. So you can select all tracks you want to solo with SHIFT or CTRL and then press solo for one of the tracks. All selected tracks will use that command.

Currently I don't see any other way of achieving this without creating additional routing tracks.

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I'll have to double check, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter at which point in the routing I pull the signal, the gate will not work soloed in this configuration. –  jsumners Jul 11 '12 at 12:38
I'll have to double check too but I'm pretty sure it does. Thats the point of this dropdown. It could be that you cannot hear the gate, because you put the other track on solo (means the gate is applied, but the channel is muted, so no output is sent to the master). I'll try it out this evening and post what I've found out... If you are right and it does not work you could still try to work with an additional audio track. Routing config=> Audio from (sidechain source | pre mixer), audio to => sends only. Then you can use this track as source for the sidechain. –  tom van green Jul 11 '12 at 13:32
Ah sorry. I think I get your problem now. I was thinking that you try to use the Track B as Sidechain source. My bad, in that case you are right. I check the set out today in our studio, but can't guarantee to find an easy solution. What I don't get (and maybe you could add that as information to your original question) is what you try to achieve. Maybe I could provide a different solution if I knew what you are up to. I see what I can do, but don't expect an answer before tomorrow, as we do not have internet connection in our studio. –  tom van green Jul 11 '12 at 13:39
The main problem is that I can't solo Track B to adjust the gate settings because the Track A group stops sending a signal. I could "solo" Track B by sending Track A's audio to a track/send that doesn't output sound, but that is a good bit of extra work. I simply want to be able to solo my gated tracks so that I can adjust effects and such without other sounds in the way. –  jsumners Jul 11 '12 at 13:59
If you put Track B into Solo mode, it is the intended behavior that Track A is muted. Just so I understand you right. You only want Track B to be playing but still use the output from A as Sidechain. Currently the only way I see (without trying out) is that instead of soloing Track B you would have to mute Track A. In that case the "Post Effects" settings should work. I don't know if this is too inconvenient for your setup. The thing is, that in Solo mode, also the child tracks are muted, so no signal gets to the group track. I have to say, you have a quiet tricky question here. –  tom van green Jul 11 '12 at 14:08
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