The sense I get from Noel is that taking it much further would require a significant redo of the mute/solo functionality, which would be quite a diversion from the current "to do" list. Also this thread has really had only three active participants despite having over 600 views, so there doesn't appear to be a sense of urgency from the community about changing the functionality. 
 
Meanwhile the most important need seems to have been addressed, which I will certainly find useful so I do think something significant has been accomplished. So thank to Silk Tone for bringing this up, and Noel for putting the time and effort into evaluating the tradeoffs involved in making these changes.

Craig, agreed. The changes Noel did is already a nice step forward. Thanks Noel. Maybe it can open the door for continued improvements on this front.
 
Craig, I also think that if there was a way to A/B the two different implementations, many people will want this change and will weigh in their opinions more in a thread like this. The closest we can get is by freezing all soft synths to get a feel for what glitch-free muting and soloing would be like.

As a non-active participant I will just add that yes, this change in soft-synth Mute behavior seems to be a very nice step forward.   Even on an older Q9300 I could make use of that MIDI data always being live - in my case probably more often for pitch-bend data that anything, though note offs and occasional CC data are appreciated.   So yup...  thanks SilkTone for bringing it up and Noel for making this change based entirely on a forum thread!
 
Speaking of which... isn't this the wrong forum?      <ducks>     
 

stevec 
Speaking of which... isn't this the wrong forum?      <ducks>     

It would be if it was started today, but it's winding down and people know where to look for it. It will fall off the front page before too long anyway.
 

Anderton
 
It would be if it was started today, but it's winding down and people know where to look for it. It will fall off the front page before too long anyway.
 

Yeah, you say that now...
 

 

Anderton

stevec 
Speaking of which... isn't this the wrong forum?      <ducks>     

It would be if it was started today, but it's winding down and people know where to look for it. It will fall off the front page before too long anyway.
 

+1

The linked solo buttons are helpful to me.
• I put all the MIDI in a separate folder so my mixing desk is cleaner and only has audio tracks.
• If I want to Solo an instrument, it is convenient that Sonar solos the MIDI track(s), too.  In the case of RealGuitar, I always have two MIDI tracks (one for notes and one for patterns) in addition to the audio track.  Also, if I hit Solo on the drum folder, Sonar conveniently solos the drum MIDI that is in the MIDI folder.
 
In the case of Mute, I understand why this is an issue with VSTs.  (I personally sometimes need to mute the MIDI and not the audio, but that is usually in the case of external synths and Sonar does not link those tracks.)

Well now that you guys bumped the thread again...
 
I read Noel's last post again and realized he meant that using unlinked MIDI and audio track mute/solo logic itself is the "corner case". I'm not sure I agree that it is a corner case, as muting and soloing during a mixing session is very central to the workflow. Maybe it makes more sense to say it is a different implementation of this feature, not a corner case?
 

konradh
The linked solo buttons are helpful to me.
• I put all the MIDI in a separate folder so my mixing desk is cleaner and only has audio tracks.

 
If one were to unlink MIDI/audio track solo logic, then this would be an interesting problem to solve since what is the folder's MSR buttons supposed to control then? Maybe for folder MSR buttons only, treat those nested MIDI and audio tracks as linked like it works today?
 

• If I want to Solo an instrument, it is convenient that Sonar solos the MIDI track(s), too.

 
In this case by not muting any MIDI tracks (internally), you will get the correct result.
 

In the case of RealGuitar, I always have two MIDI tracks (one for notes and one for patterns) in addition to the audio track.

 
I do almost the same thing with RG, but instead of the second MIDI track with chord clips, I use a VST plugin where I enter my chords and then feed that into the second RG MIDI track. This is actually a good example of where not muting the MIDI tracks internally will result in smoother mute/solo operations since RG stops playing the whole chord if its MIDI data is interrupted. Noel's mute change will come in very handy here for sure.
 

Also, if I hit Solo on the drum folder, Sonar conveniently solos the drum MIDI that is in the MIDI folder.

 
This would be the same problem as in your 1st point you mention.

Something just occurred to me...
 
What I'm talking about here is functionally identical to Dim Solo, except that the level of each non-soloed audio track is -inf dB. In Dim Solo mode, MIDI tracks are not muted AFAICT, yet all other solo logic is applied to audio tracks, but instead of muting, the level is reduced.
 
Before posting this thread I went to the Dim Solo settings hoping that I can simply enter -100dB or something for the Dim Solo Gain, but we can only go down to -18dB. If we can enter -100dB or something similar, we can have glitch-free soloing.
 
Noel, is there any chance we can get a Dim Solo Gain range that allows for any arbitrary user entered value? It seems like a really easy way to get glitch-free soloing.
 
EDIT: I played around with Dim Solo a bit, but surprisingly the MIDI still seems to glitch. So when enabling Dim Solo and soling an audio track, other VSTis temporarily get their MIDI interrupted after which they then start playing back again at the reduced level. It appears the current implementation isn't seamless.

Agreed! I'd also like a method to mute/unmute a track/channel with a simple midi message. How hard can that be? I cannot find a way to accomplish this SIMPLE TASK.