I always found this annoying in my workflow. Sometimes I’m loading in and finding sounds, and am muting one channel to try a different sample on another channel, select both, hit mute to alternate the muted and non-muted channel - - but it just unifies them both to mute.
Solos however, don’t behave this way and alternate.
Edit
And yes, I realize I could make a PLE script… but I’m just wondering if I’m missing something in the core of the program that will allow me to just use the regular mute button
Mute and Solo are two totally different buttons with totally different use cases.
To solve your problem, you could place the 2nd sample to the same track and use the lanes. Then you can use the Comp tool to switch the samples.
Or, as you mentioned, you can make a PLE. I would go for this one:
Filter Target
(( Container Type is | Equal | Track | Or
Container Type is | Equal | FolderTrack | ) And
( Property | Property is set | Event is selected ))
Action Target
Track Operation | Mute | Toggle
Function
Transform
With this, you can just select the 2 tracks and hit one Key Command (assigned to the PLE preset) to toggle the Mute state of both at once.