A free Pro Tools video tutorial continuing this series on Folder Tracks, brought to you with the support of Avid, Julian Rodgers demonstrates the key difference between how muting Basic and Routing Folders affect the tracks contained in the Folder Track.

Solo Logic

Prior to Pro Tools 2020.3 when submixing using Aux Inputs it was necessary to Solo Safe the Aux Input if the source tracks were able to be heard. The alternative approach of making the source tracks Solo Safe meant that they would pass audio if the Aux Input was soloed but this approach is inconvenient so workarounds such as selecting the Source tracks Alt+Shift clicking on the Solo button or creating a group and using a VCA master’s Solo button were all more effective. The implementation of Solo in Folder Tracks makes these choices redundant, it now works much more sensibly.

Muting Folder Tracks

While Routing and Basic Folder Tracks respond the same when Soloing, there is an important difference between how they respond to muting. The video demonstrates very clearly how the Mute button on a Basic Folder Track mutes the source tracks, effectively acting as a master remote control for the Mute buttons of the tracks in the folder. A Routing Folder’s Mute button behaves exactly the same as the mute button on an Aux Input being used in the same place would, muting the summed output of the bus it is receiving but not muting the member tracks at source. This has important consequences on sends and parallel routing, for example cue sends, effects routing and side chains.

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