What's the best / easiest way to learn solos?

I haven't a clue what half the things you said are, so odds are you've tried my suggestion. I use guitar pro 5. There are quite a few tabs available for it from mysongbook.com.

It has a loop option. There I choose speed trainer. All you have to do is select the bit you want looped and choose the tempo you want. I start real slow until it's perfect and then increase the tempo by 5%, until I get to 100%.

And the new RSE technology that comes with GP5 sounds a lot better than the usual midi.

I'm not sure if the earlier versions of GP had a loop option.

I use a combination of CD player, Audition, GP5 and Transcribe!.
I run through the section of music, to see what I can easily absorb and what is going to be a hassle and reduce them to "chunks", which can be bars, blocks or phrases - essentially any easily manageable string of notes, that is small enough to learn in isolation, but not so small that it loses context and flow. I learn all the chunks and patch them together, even if it is slowed down. Once I have the whole thing learnt, I start to add phrasing and feel - and, eventually, speed.
If necessary, I'll take a section into Transcribe! and slow it all the way down, to get a feel for it and to check that the tab or music, that I am using, is correct. You may not be aware, but you can "stretch" the wave by right clicking on the slider, beneath the waveform window, holding it down and moving the cursor to the right. This give you far better control over the spectrum analysis, amongst other things.

It looks like Transcribe is the way to go.

I think two things were happening - the second solo was a bit long, and I had selected the entire thing at once.

Also, I got bored of the song, which happens when you play it a lot.

Thanks for the guideance!!

I do it a similar way as Greybeard.
I use Winamp with the free plugins/tools you can find here http://www.guitarprinciples.com/WinAmp/winamp.htm
Loop Master for loop section/parts of a wav or mp3 file and Chronotron for reducing speed without changing pitch.
In combination they are extremely good for practicing.
And selecting the part for looping carefully, you can have the "jump-back" in the right rythm and timing. This makes the playing over background very easy, it just floats continously.

You can find links to more free sw here http://www.12bar.de/download.php

I've used Guitar Vision. The downside is that they don't give you the written music to go along with it. Neither in tab nor in standard notation. You can slow it down to a note by note basis, what they call an event by event basis, and transcribe it yourself. While this will take you awhile to do it might also help you learn it better as writing something down tends to ingrain it into your memory. In that case you could make a negative into a positive.

Also with Guitar vision the songs that include the solos tend to be more expensive than the songs with just the chords and strumming. Still cheaper than live lessons. Best thing to do with the price is average it out with the tons of stuff you got off the internet for free. It will probably average out to under a penny a page that way.

Michael

Dang, I like to slow down my metronome and take it one measure at a time.
Maybe a few tabs. See which one sounds best.

Simple is cool. 8)

I just bring up a tab and keep playing it in WMP until I can do it. I feel inefficient.

I just bring up a tab and keep playing it in WMP until I can do it. I feel inefficient.
I look at the tab and listen to it, then run through it until I can play it- the old fashioned way. I also like to look at the overall pattern and then improvise off of it using the same notes as the solo.