Can I monitor my FX Buses without being Pre-fader?

[Nine Spine]

So let's say I was going to pull the ol' New York Compression Trick and bus my drums and bass to a compressor and squash the hell out of it, so I can mix it back in with the real tracks. Is there a way to monitor the send to hear exactly what I'm sending to the compressor without it having to be pre-fader? Obviously when I solo the Aux it mutes all the other faders so I get nothing. And if it's pre-fader and I mute the Bass it still comes through the Aux (it's the compressed sound obviously).Is there some way around this that I am missing? And, is it possible to hear my headphone mix through the monitors or do I have to plug phones into the headphone amp? I need some way to monitor something other than my Main Outs. Can I just change this on the master Fader I/O Section? Both of these questions are related so if I can get an answer to one I can use it for the other.

[CCash]

Just off the top of my head... set up another aux for monitoring the orignal signal. On the original track, bus the output to the new aux track (i.e, change it from a main out to a bus out).

Now hold down command and click on the Solo button of the original track, which will put it in "solo safe" so that the track is always playing.

You should be able to solo back and forth between the Aux Track with the original signal and the Aux with the compressed, post-fader signal.

Maybe there's a better way but I can't think of it right now.

[bassmac]

Once you get your busses lined up properly, you'll find by mixing a compressed sub-kit with the dry kit won't work to well. The comped kit will be delayed, which gives a bad comb filter effect. I'm not sure how to get around this, so when I want to use this mixing method, I'll print the comped kit to a stereo track and nudge it back in time with the dry sub-group.

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[Nine Spine]

Aha! There we go, I knew I wasn't thinking of something. I would still love to have a way to specify what I was listening to from the master fader channel, it would be a lot easier from there. Thanks for the help CCash. Let me know if you think of anything else.

[Nine Spine]

Thanks for the input Bassmac! I was really just using the NYC Comp trick as an example, all I really want to be able to do is monitor my buses without them being pre-fader. I've used the comp trick before though and never noticed anything different than when I do it on a TDM System or analog gear, does processor speed have anything do do with how much latency is involved? Ccash provided one workaround for my situation above but it doesn't help in every condition so anything else would be appreciated... even just a note that says I'm screwed and get over it. Sure would be nice to have enough tracks to try what you suggested though. I guess it's a good thing I have friends with massive TDM Systems.