Been using cubase since the atari st days. then went to mac, and now present day PC.
With that said, all these years I have had to setup interesting ways to use reference tracks. The current way is setting up a cue mix and jumping around on control panel between the two.
Just seems to me the great creators at steinberg could come up with a simple system within the control room to jump between a true reference track that is not effected by master outs. I mean using cue works, but I think it be an awesome and simple feature to ad.
There are many ways to implement a reference track already.
I simply have my references in the project and set the output to ‘no bus’. With control room on (and listen dim all the way down) I use the listen button to hear the ref track. Completely effortless.
I think the most appropriate solution is to have a “control room” output for the reference track. (Does not exist!!) With that you can use monitor switching and headphone handling. I use a extra pair on my soundcard and use a hardware monitor switch. From a daw point of view that is silly, but it is only working way for me.