Dangerous Tip – No Solo In Place?

Barring a larger philosophical discussion on the use of solo’ing inputs, I find solo-in-place is a great tool for solo’ing inputs in the PA. Unfortunately not every console or mixing situation allows it to be easily implemented. For example, the Yamaha consoles I’ve worked on seem to be missing the option altogether, and if you’re doing monitors from FOH solo-in-place has a tendency to also solo directly to those monitor mixes which musicians don’t typically appreciate.

However, if you still want to solo things through your PA during soundchecks and rehearsals, there is an option, albeit a dangerous one.

It’s pretty simple:

– Make sure your mix defaults to your monitor bus at all times.
– Re-patch your monitor bus to the console outputs that feed your PA.

Now your monitor output is feeding the PA so when you solo anything, it will solo right to the PA.

There are a couple of caveats for this:

1. This is dangerous. You need to make sure to repatch your master outputs back to the PA before your show/service/event. If you forget to re-patch and solo something to your cans during the show, the entire audience will experience your solo’ing. This will be very very bad.

2. If your subs are fed by an aux, they probably won’t follow your solo’ing. This reminds me, once again, why the more I mix, the more I really dislike aux-fed subs.

Those things aside, let me reiterate this is a dangerous thing to do because it puts you in a position where you can very easily mess your show/service/event up. BUT if you’re a detail oriented type and can remember to put/patch everything back to normal, this could be a nice tool at times.