How can I save a configuration of muted and/or soloed tracks? I was extremely disappointed to learn that screensets do not save mutes or solos. I have track folders for winds, strings, brass, etc., but also sometimes need to listen to just the instruments playing the melody, or the bass line, or whatever. What is the proper method of saving these sets so that I can select them quickly?

Screensets are not really intended to be snapshots of parameter settings, but window layouts. That said, I don't know of any program that lets you save sets of Mutes and Solos. However, what I do is group them - group all the drum part solo buttons, all the rhythm guitar solo buttons, etc. Enabling exclusive solo allows soloing individual groups of instruments and simultaneously mute others. Without exclusive solo, you can do additive solos of different elements. Groups are stored with projects.

Yes, I have used groups on rare occasions before, but setting up groups is comically inefficient. Do I really have to right click each Solo button individually and go through the absurd A-Z submenu to do this? Can't I select all my solos and then somehow say "Turn all these solos into a group"? 

jkoseattle
Do I really have to right click each Solo button individually and go through the absurd A-Z submenu to do this? Can't I select all my solos and then somehow say "Turn all these solos into a group"? 

Yes, use the Quick Group function. I suggest becoming familiar with this function as it's very useful for making "mass" changes within Sonar, e.g., turning all Console Emulators on and off, or flying out all ProChannel views simultaneously in console view. Here's how you would use it for your solo buttons.
 
1. Turn on the solos you want to use, then select (ctrl-click) the tracks you want to be affected by the grouped solos. 
2. While holding down ctrl, right-click on one of the solo buttons and select a group. All the solo buttons in the selected tracks will now be part of the same group.
 
Note that using this procedure allows you to have solos work in a complementary fashion - for example, if four tracks are selected but only three solo buttons are selected then when you Quick Group them, turning on the three solo buttons will turn off the remaining solo button, while turning off the three solo buttons will turn on the remaining solo button. 

Hi Jkoseattle,
Nah, you don't have to individually click each solo/mute/whatever. Just go to console view, hold down control and click each track number you want to be in a group so that each is selected. Now, while still holding Control down, right click your solo/mute/whatever button and assign a group. Each selected track button will then be in a group.
 
Dean

Razorwit
Hi Jkoseattle,
Nah, you don't have to individually click each solo/mute/whatever. Just go to console view, hold down control and click each track number you want to be in a group so that each is selected. Now, while still holding Control down, right-click your solo/mute/whatever button and assign a group. Each selected track button will then be in a group.
 
Dean

Yes, that's even simpler than what I mentioned if you don't need complementary solo functionality. The only other thing I'd add is that this works in Track view as well as Console view.

Thanks, those are helpful.
 
After playing around with this some, I realize that what I'd like instead is to be able to select a group of non-contiguous tracks at once, then I can Ctrl-Solo or whatever I want. The Solo group thing is not really usable, because I created a group called Bass Solo, which soloes the Tuba, Bass Violin, Bassoon and Timpani. But then if I go to solo just the brass, because the tuba is part of that group, the whole Bass Mute group is soloed.

If I understand you correctly, I don't know of any way you can assign a track to be part of a group, but then not be a part of that group while it's still assigned to that group.
 
What you CAN do is solo just one track out of a group. So for example, suppose you had a group called Strings which has track 1 - violin, track 3 - viola, track 6 - cello, and track 7 - contrabass, and you wanted to hear just track 6 without redoing your assignments or changing the group. The solo override function based on ctrl-clicking a solo button can do this.
 
1. I'll assume you've created a group as described above.
2. The group works normally - click once to solo or unsolo all the solo buttons in the group.
3. Suppose you want to solo only track 6. Turn off the group, then ctrl-click the solo button in track 6. Now you'll solo only track 6.
4. To return to the group, ctrl-click on the track 6 solo button to turn it off. Now all the grouped buttons are turned off, so you can click on any group button to turn the group back on. Or, ctrl-click on buttons to turn on individual solo buttons within the group.
 
If in step 4 you don't turn off the track 6 solo button, now if you click any other solo buttons in the group they'll turn on, but 6 will turn off. The grouping is complementary - in other words, clicking on any button in the group will turn off 6 but turn the others on, or turn on 6 but turn the others off. This is handy for when you want to drop something out, then hear it in isolation.
 
BTW - I removed the previous comment about assigning multiple groups because the way it was worded was misleading -  I didn't make it clear you could assign different groups to different parameters in the same track, but not to the same parameters in the same track.