Plug-ins - Soloing the Output - Minus the Source

[fl]

A friend showed me a wonderful feature found in Wave Lab: the ability to audition just the output of any plug-in, with the source signal removed (nulled). With this engaged, you can hear clearly just what a particular effect is adding - it's much like having a Solo button for the plug-in's effect, making it more audible because any masking by the source signal is temporarily removed.

To do this you'd need to establish a special Solo bus that can access the signal at two points: just before and just after any particular plug-in's position in the chain (or possibly, before and after any number of successive plug-ins in a chain), phase inverting the plug-in's input and adding it to its output so that the audio of the plug-in's effect is what remains. If it's possible, an additional capability to monitor just the M or the S components of the output would be a huge bonus.

Like using a Solo button, you'd want to verify any changes by listening within the context of the full mix, but on those occasions when you're not quite sure how a particular process is affecting your audio, this function can provide great insight. Once you hear what is going on in its "raw" form, you can listen in context to determine the acceptable trade-off between sonic degradation and a perceived improvement in sound.

[klaukholm]

very neat