VF160 BUSS recording with scene mapping

[mharr552000]

I'm trying to simplify my final mixing process by making stem mixes of my tracks. I have left and right panned rhythm guitars and center lead/solo guitar. Each one is recorded on 2-3 tracks. Guitar Left is on tracks 1,2,3. Guitar Right is on tracks 4,5,6. Lead/solo isn't recorded yet, but will probably span 3-4 tracks. My bass is also on 2 tracks. As is the stereo drum track.
What I'm trying to do is mix them down using scene mapping and BUSS record so that when it is time for final mixdown I only have to make scene maps for 2 rhythm and 1 lead/solo guitar tracks and 1 bass track. Making scenes and mapping them would be a lot easier if I only had 6-7 instrument and 1-3 vocal tracks instead of the 12-16 tracks I would normally have.
When I tried to set up scene mapping and do a stem mix using BUSS record, it didn't work. The manual doesn't mention doing this, but I'm thinking that the way BUSS record routes signals is going to make this impossible.
The only other alternative I can think of is to do an actual mixdown on each set of guitar/bass tracks separately, burn a CD then import them back into to song. Even doing this would be prefered to the torture of making those extremely complicated and time consuming scene maps that I have done in the past.
Any ideas?

[hairylarry]

Hi,

I may not be following everything you said. I don't know shit about buss recording.

If you are using 16 tracks or less total and recording 8 or less at one time I would just record everything to the 16 tracks and then mix from there.

Mix your left guitar from tracks 1, 2, and 3 using the faders, panpots, eq, etc. until you get the sound you think will work. Then punch the little green lights so they don't play while you mix the right guitar from tracks 4, 5, and 6 until you get the sound you want for that guitar.

Then you can poke the little green lights above 1, 2, and 3 and listen to both guitars together in stereo. If that seems right go on but if it needs tweaking at least you're not having to go back and do another buss recording.

Then turn off playback on 1 through 6 and work on the lead guitar, drums, or whatever.

It often happens that even though you got just the rhythm or lead sound you thought you wanted when you hear it in the final mix it could use some tweaks. Doing it this way instead of making a bunch of intermediate mixes will give you access to all your tracks all the way through the final mixdown.

Thanks,

Hairy Larry

[mharr552000]

I ended up manually switching channels during BUSS recording. It actually took a lot less time than setting up a scene map. If I messed up a switch all I had to do was back up about 5 seconds and try it again. Each instrument(rhythm guitar left, rhythm guitar right & bass) took 5-10 minutes to bounce down to a single track as oppossed to an hour or two to set up a scene map and get the switches down precisely to the pico-second. So it is a good thing that my initial plan didn't work. Saved me many hours of tedium.