I used to subscribe to the idea of never listening to tracks in isolation
Even though that has long been advice given by people that know what they're talking about, I've honestly never found it to make sense. For me, it's like a number of things ~ approach with caution but also sensibly. Sometimes, isolating a track has been what I've needed to do to get it sounding good or find out what a particular problem may be. Other times, working on it in isolation has just contributed to a definition~less mess. "Never" and "always" are two poles that I rarely visit in my world of nuance and paradox. I'm the denizen of "sometimes."
Until I found a site with isolated tracks of popular songs throughout the past 40 years or so
Recently, I've been coming across these deconstruction videos that break down songs. They're interesting for a listen. It's there that one can really see how little some people do in some songs, yet, take their contribution away and.....
Equally, some over the years just overplayed {in my opinion}.
I've learned A LOT through listening, studying, and analyzing those tracks in isolation. Particularly guitar tracks
I must admit, I haven't, probably because I don't study and analyse. I tend to listen out of interest and just pick things up in an offhand sort of way. It's funny because for years, whenever I've heard acoustic guitars, whether in isolation or not, they always just sound like acoustic guitars to me. I never get this sense of some kind of wonderful way they are recorded that gives them this world beating professional sound. Equally, I'm often intrigued with how thin I find electric guitars when isolated. I suppose it gives me some hope that my sounds aren't actually that bad !
I've come to the conclusion that those guitar tracks 99 percent of the time sound great isolated, just as they do in the final mixed song.
I guess it depends on what one counts as 'great.' But I do find it illogical to posit as a rule that something almost has to sound lame in isolation in order to sound great in a mix. I know no one actually says that but it's almost like a conclusion that gets reached without being said. The reality for me is that it's a sometime thing.
To each his own on how they home record. This falls under the category of "there are no rules" for me.
I've never subscribed to the idea that there are no rules in making music, just that the rule book is like Tolstoy's "War & Peace," it has so many pages and what is written on each page has its place although some will have more of a lasting and general place than others.