noob query regarding aux and bus!

B

Brohnis

New member
Hello all!

Apologies in advance for the noobtastic nature of this thread.

I'm an experienced musician that's just setup a home recording space, so have limited mixing knowledge!
I am running a tc electronic konnekt 6 into an imac with logic 9. I have no other hardware, so what are the advantages of using bussing and aux channels?

Am I missing out on amazing things? Or am I right in thinking that bus channels are only relevant when used with other racks/processors/compressors not built into my DAW?

Or am I completely mis-guided about the whole thing??

Thanks a lot!
 
I'd almost not know what to do without them. Any time you need to group a set of channels together you need to buss them. Just for ease of use (among so many other things), I can't imagine not mixing without bussing the drums, guitars, vocals, effects returns.

Any time you want to add an effect to a sound (reverb, for example) you need to use an aux send.

Okay, I know a person or two who use reverb as an insert... But I think they don't understand how it's supposed to work...
 
OK well that certainly answers my question about the importance of them!

From what you said, I can send say two seperate channels to the same aux channel and assign exactly the same setting to both simultaneously? That does sound fantastic if thats the case! I have doubled guitar tracks that I obviously want to have the same levels/effects on them, but its proving a pain in the ass to do them seperately!

So, (as I said...NOOB here) assume I have an acoustic guitar, bass guitar, piano and two vocals...what should I be doing in terms of bussing what to where and then doing what with it?

Seriously apologise for the stupidity on display here!
 
bunt said:
...just my curiosity
if you doubled your guitars, why do you want exactly the same settings on them?
Click to expand...

Let me start by saying I don't know exactly what I'm doing?

Secondly...I'm GUESSING that with a doubled guitar track, you can have one allll the way to left and the other alllll the way to the right...and then assign them the same reverb/EQ/compression via the aux channel?

Or am I wrong? I'm probably wrong!

Educate me!:confused::)
 
Massive Master said:
I'd almost not know what to do without them. Any time you need to group a set of channels together you need to buss them. Just for ease of use (among so many other things), I can't imagine not mixing without bussing the drums, guitars, vocals, effects returns.

Any time you want to add an effect to a sound (reverb, for example) you need to use an aux send.

Okay, I know a person or two who use reverb as an insert... But I think they don't understand how it's supposed to work...
Click to expand...


I just started to read this thread. I do put reverb on an insert. Can you explain the benefit using in an aux send instead?
 
legionserial said:
Holy crap...I'd have quit recording music a long time ago if there was no such thing as bussing or grouping. Screw that! :laughings:
Click to expand...

I was mixing for awhile with out knowing what they did! I mean I seen them, but ignored that fact I should learn what they did because I didn't fully understand the importance of their use. I was doing so much more work. I'm glad I got at least a simple knowledge on them now.
 
Brohnis said:
Let me start by saying I don't know exactly what I'm doing?

Secondly...I'm GUESSING that with a doubled guitar track, you can have one allll the way to left and the other alllll the way to the right...and then assign them the same reverb/EQ/compression via the aux channel?

Or am I wrong? I'm probably wrong!

Educate me!:confused::)
Click to expand...


Sounds like you trying to Pan the guitar to get a fuller sound? That's how I would do it. Pan them then send to a buss!......unless someone knows a different way and we are doing it wrong. But that's what I do with vocals some time
 
On an aux, you can send various levels of various tracks to the same reverb. You can then tailor that one reverb, mute it, change it, whatever you want - in one place. That's the obvious advantage. There are others...
 
Massive Master said:
On an aux, you can send various levels of various tracks to the same reverb. You can then tailor that one reverb, mute it, change it, whatever you want - in one place. That's the obvious advantage. There are others...
Click to expand...

Oh. Well I should of worded my question better. Say I want a specific reverb on one channel and no others. Thenis it ok to put reverb on just that insert or still buss it?
 
Massive Master said:
On an aux, you can send various levels of various tracks to the same reverb. You can then tailor that one reverb, mute it, change it, whatever you want - in one place. That's the obvious advantage. There are others...
Click to expand...

OK just been having a play. I get that now...does make life much easier. And I might be imagining it...but it sounds better with everything getting its effects from one source, instead of each strip having its own assigned reverb etc...am I right??

Here's something that confused me...I sent my left guitar and right guitar both to the same aux channel, but then suddenly, because the aux channel was centered, both those channels became centered...regardless of the setting on their actual channels. Is there a way around this or is the correct way to set up two aux channels...one for left and one for right, and then set those aux channels to left and right aswell?

Hope that makes sense!:confused:



apologies for over-use of the word 'channel'
 
BLP said:
Oh. Well I should of worded my question better. Say I want a specific reverb on one channel and no others. Thenis it ok to put reverb on just that insert or still buss it?
Click to expand...
I would still use an aux send. It's very (VERY) rare that I leave a reverb send alone... Among so many other things -- Up to and including assigning all aux returns to a common buss so I can ditch all effects with one click (and I do that - often - very often). It's a simple rule of thumb - If I want to add something to a signal, I'm using an auxiliary copy of the original signal. If I'm trying to affect the original signal completely (EQ, for example), it's on the insert chain.
Brohnis said:
Here's something that confused me...I sent my left guitar and right guitar both to the same aux channel, but then suddenly, because the aux channel was centered, both those channels became centered...regardless of the setting on their actual channels. Is there a way around this or is the correct way to set up two aux channels...one for left and one for right, and then set those aux channels to left and right aswell?

Hope that makes sense!:confused:
Click to expand...
What was on the aux...? Whatever you're sending to will most likely be 100% wet signal. You shouldn't hear *any* of the source signal. Or are you using an aux where you should be bussing...?
 
Massive Master said:
What was on the aux...? Whatever you're sending to will most likely be 100% wet signal. You shouldn't hear *any* of the source signal. Or are you using an aux where you should be bussing...?
Click to expand...

Basically...there's a left guitar part and a right guitar part being sent to one aux channel that has a compressor and reverb on it.

When you say 'using an aux where you should be bussing'...:cool: what exactly is the difference?

Forgive me but I thought bussing was the act of sending a channel to an auxilliary!?

My brain :(
 
Massive Master said:
The two are totally and wholly different (read my first reply).
Click to expand...

Ah OK...so in order to achieve the left and right guitars staying in their stereo positions, I'd have to bus them as opposed to aux them?

Sorry for the confusion...on logic, when you click send, it comes up with a list of bus 1, bus 2, bus 3 etc...when you choose one, it creates an aux channel. I can then send other channels to that aux.

So once I've done that, say added some reverb...what would I do differently to be 'bussing' as opposed to just using an aux channel? Sorry about this...I just really want to understand!
 
Brohnis said:
When you say 'using an aux where you should be bussing'...:cool: what exactly is the difference?

Forgive me but I thought bussing was the act of sending a channel to an auxilliary!?
Click to expand...

Back up a bit and look at the history of analog mixing.

It would be impractical to insert a separate hardware reverb in series on every channel so auxiliary sends were provided so you could use one reverb and send different amounts of each instrument to it. The fully wet output of the reverb would be returned to a channel or auxiliary return to complete a parallel effects loop.

Analog mixers are often equipped with submix group buses. These let the user group like inputs for common control or serial processing. For example, in theater you may have a bunch of headset microphones that all need the same eq to prevent feedback, so you assign all of them to a submix group (or subgroup) bus and insert the eq there instead of doing it on every channel strip. All of those microphones go through the subgroup bus to get to the main mix bus. Analog mixers generally have only switches to assign channels to a submix bus while DAWs often have a level control as well, which blurs the line between them and aux buses.

Note that a "bus" is any point in the mixing architecture where signals are mixed. That includes subgroup mix buses, aux send buses and the main mix bus. Many DAWs use don't do a very good job naming their functions.
 
Brohnis said:
with a doubled guitar track, you can have one allll the way to left and the other alllll the way to the right...
Or am I wrong? I'm probably wrong!

Educate me!:confused::)
Click to expand...

Nothing wrong with that at all. Try it with some subtle variation on the FX & eq just for grins...
 
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Brohnis said:
So once I've done that, say added some reverb...what would I do differently to be 'bussing' as opposed to just using an aux channel? Sorry about this...I just really want to understand!
Click to expand...
I'm not familiar with how Logic (maybe illogically) is creating busses...

Let's get one thing clear -- In an aux send, you'd have (for example) a reverb, set to 100% "wet" and you'd be sending a portion of the original signal(s) to that aux buss. Some of the snare, some of the toms, some of the guitar, maybe some of the vocal, a bit of the overheads perhaps, etc., etc., etc. All you'd hear if you solo that track is the reverb - No original signal.

A buss on its own is simply a group of signals together. You'd hear the *sum* of those grouped signals. You could send the kick, snare, toms, overheads (etc.) to the drum buss. You could send the guitars and bass to a guitar buss. You could send guitar solos and vocals to a vocal buss. You could send your verb, flange, chorus, delays, etc. to the effects master buss. On those busses, you could do whatever you want - Add compression to the drum buss. Compress the vocal buss in a leveling fashion (where the individual tracks that make up that group may be compressed in a more "peak management" fashion). You could even send a summed buss to an aux (if you'd want all the drums to momentarily have a large reverb wash applied a'la Zepplin).
 
bouldersoundguy said:
Note that a "bus" is any point in the mixing architecture where signals are mixed. That includes subgroup mix buses, aux send buses and the main mix bus. Many DAWs use don't do a very good job naming their functions.
Click to expand...

That makes perfect sense.

So...an aux is a seperate channel used for assigning the same effects to different channels...bussing is having the dry and wet signals mixed via the aux channel...

Yes?!

I think I understand!:eek:

And agreed on the DAW not explaining itself to me:confused:
 
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