I’m new to Cubase coming from another DAW, where to solo an FX channel you just clicked on solo on that FX channel.
In Cubase, soloing the FX channel also solos any channels with sends going to it, so my question is; how can I solo an FX channel without also soloing the channels that are sending to it?
Or alternatively if there is a different way it has to be done, how can I hear FX channels in isolation?
The best way is to set up the Control Room (CR). Once you set up CR, you’ll get an “L” on each Channel in the MixConsole. This Listen bus will give you a true, console-style solo bus!
Open the CR mixer, though, and turn down the Listen attenuation from -20 to -∞ for it to act like a true solo.
Thanks for your reply, but can you offer any guidance on how I set up the CR in order to achieve this?
In CR setup I have a monitor channel connected to my main stereo output (in addition to my main output being set to my main stereo output), but when using listen on the FX channel I want to hear in isolation the original signal is still present.
Make sure the output is disconnected in the normal Output tab of VST Connections. Sometimes that causes weirdness.
And you turned down the Listen Bus attenuation all the way on CR Mixer?
If I disconnect my main output how am I supposed to hear the anything outwith using the listen function? I don’t want to have have to go through this setup process every time I want to solo my FX. I have tried it though, but it didn’t help, and just doubled the volume.
Where is the Listen Bus attenuation? The only volume control I can see is the under control room is the main CR level:
Or is that what you mean?
This isn’t something you’d do each time just to have your solo, this would be a permanent change over to using CR… So that Listen is always available. I made the switch for this very reason.
Disabling that “normal” VST Connection in Output tab ensures that there’s no weirdness.
I’m not in the studio, so I can’t just screenshot. In the CR mixer, you can click on the title bar where it says “Main” and expand it. You’ll see “listen dim level”. That’s what I was referring to.
Don’t know why they don’t show all this stuff by default, instead of hiding it.
Here’s someone else’s screenshot of the CR mixer within MixConsole. This shows what you’re looking for
I started watching that tutorial but can’t find some of the same controls in v8’s Control Mixer. For something that should be so simple i’m hoping someone can just tell me rather than me sit and watch a load of tutorials about stuff I don’t need.
Thanks! 
It wasn’t obvious that I had to click the grey bar saying main to access the Listen Dim volume. Mine was at +12db, so setting it to negative infinity has sorted it and now I only hear the channels with listen enabled.
Yeah, man! Now you got an honest-to-goodness solo bus!
No, it’s not obvious at all. Bad Design there.
In fact, I’m not too sure why Cubase doesn’t switch over completely to the CR model… It’s so much more powerful, and works much more intuitively like a mixing desk.
Unless I misunderstand your question, the way I solo an FX channel is by “solo defeating” it, and making all sends to it “Pre Fader”. I then solo the source channel. Works perfectly.
A bit long, but this may help with the first part: Solo Safe or Solo Defeat - YouTube
That’s a kind of workaround, but I didn’t want to have to have to change my sends to pre-fader everytime when I typically use post fader FX.
Ok. And I will try enjneer´s suggestion. Always learning something!
Can’t recommend Control Room enough. The Listen Bus is worth it alone. If you need truly Independent headphone cue mixes, it’s even better!
Because there are people with a real mixing desk. Yours truly, for example… 
Good thing CR is there though; by all means, use it!
Yeah, I guess you’re limited on outputs in CR.
What I really mean, though, is they should combine the two: make the Listen Bus the Solo Bus; dedicated cue sends; and unlimited outputs–for those of us who do need to output in multi-channel.
Just seems the CR is more evolved. I don’t get why it’s a separate engine.
There’s also a good and dead-simple workaround (works with or without control room):
Route (all) your single channels to any combination of Group-/Bus channels instead of directly to the Master channel. It could be a single “preMaster” Group-/Bus channel or one per instrument group (Drums, Bass,…), for example.
Now, you can simply use the regular solo button on the return FX-channel and hear only the wet signal.
If you want to hear the dry+wet signal, simply solo the source channel instead.
Having to route channels is much more trouble that just using the CR method mentioned earlier.
I think that’s not true, actually:
Select all channels in the mix console > right click > Add group channel to selected channels. Done.
It’s personal preference, but many people (including me) use group busses for their drums, basses, leads, etc. anyways to process 'em together. There’s no additional work involved for those (I have a template with the busses pre configured, but i was doing that forever in any DAW).
And it also works for Cubase Artist users or anybody can’t or doesn’t want to use Control Room, btw.
All I do is click listen on my FX channel. It’s clearly far easier and works exactly as one would expect it to, like it does in other DAWs.
You’re point about busses is irrelevant. Likewise I always use busses, but it’s still far simpler to use the CR setup system.
Your work around is fair enough for Artist of those that don’t want to use CR though so worth a mention.