Mute/Solo buttons (and other effects) not working on the fly

Hi, 

New to Audition but not recording. I have a decent Macbook Pro (specs below) that should easily let me -while playing- click the Solo or Mute button and have Audition just do that on the fly. But it doesn't, it just keeps playing as if I did nothing. And if I make an eq change (or any other effect) I can't hear that on the fly either. I have to press stop and then play again to hear the difference, which is SUPER slow. I'm only talking 4 vocal trax with minimal effects (just compression, eq) and a sub grouped reverb.

There's no way the program works this way on a normal basis. Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks in advance,

MacBook Pro, Mid 2015, 15-inch Retina

Mojave 10.14.6

2.5 Ghz quad core, i7

16gb DDR3 ram

1.5g Intel Iris Pro Graphics card

500 SS Drive with 240GB Free