Take a few more things into consideration on this. Happy players perform better, so I shoot for headphone mixes that sound great to the players. When it comes to headphone mixes with sends, Its pretty standard to use Pre-fade sends(and I do), BUT(this is an important detail) if you(the engineer) wish to solo something while the band is recording a take, don't do it! Why? Because even though your players are hearing a mix done with pre-fade sends, any effects you have that are fed by POST-fade sends(like reverb or delay) will suddenly disappear in the HP mixes(because all the post-fade sends will be muted any time you hit a SOLO button). That simple change of HP mixes going "dry" can be distracting to players(all my HP mixes have some verb on drums, vocals, acoustic guitars). You have 2 options on how to deal with this:
#1-the simple option; just don't solo anything during a record pass
#2-make all your FX sends pre-fade(not how I like to work)
#3-give yourself a way to listen that doesn't affect anything else.
I used the first method for a few years(so I know it works
) but I still wanted to listen in without messing up any HP mixes so I found a good work-around. I add a pre-fade send in the last send slot on every track and named it "SoloPath". Every send is set to -0 and muted. This send feeds a separate set of outputs. Whenever I want to "SOLO" anything, I Ctrl-click this send and listen one of a few ways; switch my monitors to that output, send that output to my own headphones, or feed it thru a second set of speakers. This allows me to listen to anything without affecting HP mixes for the players, but it also has an advantage over using SOLO buttons. It actually allows me to "solo" effect returns by themselves(try that with the SOLO button
) BTW, I use a Presonus Central Station, but most any monitor/source controller should allow for this
