SuperG
Hmm, to be honest...
 
I'm not fond of having multiple midi tracks for drums. I prefer to see all the percussion on one (PRV) page. A relational view seems to work better.
 
A lot of the files I run across (usually internet sourced) with drums like these seem to done on workstation keyboards - I'm not sure why though...

I'm not sure which post that's directed at...? Maybe I missed something, but I don't really see anyone advocating multiple MIDI tracks here - mainly multiple synth outputs. But even if they were, it wouldn't make any difference; you can see and edit multiple tracks in the PRV at the same time.
 
And the Solo Override strategy I mentioned works in either case, also.

As for the Track Folder method (which I also use), you can't solo a track folder in the CV, PRV or by a keyboard shortcut. As for Solo Override, as I mentioned in my first post, it gets disabled if you turn off the Control Bar's (global) Solo button. I sent in a FR to change this behavior only last week.

brundlefly

Jlien X
As for Solo Override, as I mentioned in my first post, it gets disabled if you turn off the Control Bar's (global) Solo button. I sent in a FR to change this behavior only last week.

True, but that's pretty easy to avoid if you're aware of it. Personally I've almost never had occasion to touch that global button.

So, when you're monitoring only the drums, bass and guitars, if you want to unsolo these tracks you unsolo the track folders for these instruments one by one? Isn't it faster to use the global solo button?

brundlefly
 
 
To hear a MIDI driven synth, it has always been necessary to solo both the MIDI track driving it and the audio track echoing the output. With hardware synths, it's still necessary to do that manually or by deliberately grouping the buttons or using Solo Override to keep audio outputs soloed. With soft synths, SONAR added the convenience of linking the solo buttons for you.
 
But drum maps pre-date soft synths; in fact, they pre-date support for audio; they're just MIDI translators. So when you assign the output of the MIDI track to a drum map, SONAR currently has no way if determining what audio track(s) are on the other side of the synth(s) on the other side of the port(s) specified in the drum map or what you would or wouldn't want soloed when you solo the MIDI track. Adding that capability would require writing a significant amount of new code - i.e. adding a feature.
 
And the solo buttons are working just l like they always have, limiting the output to tracks that are soloed. It just happens that it takes the output of two tracks for a soft synth to be heard. Mute isn't affected the same way, because it only takes one of the two tracks to be muted (or not soloed) to silence the synth.
 
None of this is a bug in the conventional sense of a feature that is intended and advertised to work but does not. It's a non-existent feature.

This was a great explanation.  I still hate the flaw in the design (if that is what we are calling it),  but now at least I understand it.  I've been using the workarounds posted in this thread for a long time now (usually with a bus instead of a folder).  Its a pain, but I can't live without drum maps.

Its a pain, but I can't live without drum maps.

 
Same here!

Yes. You can solo override the MIDI track(s) or the audio tracks, depending on what works best. I usually prefer solo overriding the audio tracks so that room and overhead outputs are always live. If you solo the MIDI tracks, you're going to lose OH and room outputs when you solo the audio track for a kit piece (maybe desirable with something like AD where hats and cymbals are only present in the OH signal).

I normally use just one audio track for the whole drum kit for convenience (I use the drum synth's internal mixer and effects) but I've just run a quick test in both Sonar and Studio One, creating separate audio tracks for kick, snare, etc. and, although S1's drum editor is so basic that it can't even solo/mute each drum in the editor or create a hybrid kit from multiple synths, soloing each drum in its console view worked perfectly. Of course, no workarounds such as solo override or track folders or grouping Solo buttons were needed. I wish it was this simple and easy in Sonar as well (the current implementation isn't a show stopper for me, though).

Bristol_Jonesey
Another easy workaround is to assign the solo button for all of the drums' audio tracks and midi track to a permanent group.
Soloing any one will solo the lot, but in the drum map you can now solo individual kit pieces.

 
I've just tried it and, as I expected, soloing the group doesn't work properly in the PRV Track List Pane (I hear nothing when I solo the drum map track in PRV). The same issue has been confirmed by CW: http://forum.cakewalk.com/PRV-Track-Pane-Solo-button-grouping-issue-CWBRN18282-confirmed-by-CW-m2963934.aspx (see post #3 for simplified steps)
 
(edit: The scenario in the thread I pointed to is different from the one discussed here but I believe the cause of the issue is the same)

Don't have time to wade through the referenced thread right now so I'm not sure what the exact issue is there, but I can tell you that in general PRV soloing in the drum pane works fine when using solo override on audio output tracks and soloing the MIDI track(s) driving the synth.

So, IMO there's currently no "perfect" workaround to this issue. I hope CW will either fix the PRV Track pane bug or make Solo Override unsoloable unless you Shift-click the solo button again. 

CakeAlexS
It's not a bug it's a feature ! ;)

+/-2.998768574375697785324775

Anybody from Cake here?

Well it would sure be nice to know what the schedule is on fixing these bugs (sorry features). X3E or X3F ?

Workaround is to solo in the PRV (not really a good workaround). A list of bugfixes will be supplied with the new version of sonar soon...

After fiddling around in Sonar some more, I have found that DIM solo works well enough for this. It'll lower the volume of all the other tracks (I think you can set the default DIM volume somewhere) while you solo one of your drum VSTi's audio tracks while a drum map is loaded.