What is a Buss?
- Thread starter nzausrec
- Start date
gecko zzed
Grumpy Mod
Other than something that takes you to the shopss . . . it is just a line on a circuit board that's shared by a number of things.
In your house, you can think of the earth wiring system as being the 'earth buss' (though most people just write 'bus' these days). Nearly all electricial devices plugged into power sockets connect to this earth bus, which connects somewhere to the ground.
Or, if you like, you can think of your house's water supply as a two-buss system (hot water & cold water) which is distributed around the house in pipes and from which you can tap off some water at any point.
In mixers, busses perform a similar function. You can 'send' a signal from one or more channels to a buss. All the signal sent to this buss are then routed to somewhere else (e.g. an auxilliary out, or to an effects channel).
In your house, you can think of the earth wiring system as being the 'earth buss' (though most people just write 'bus' these days). Nearly all electricial devices plugged into power sockets connect to this earth bus, which connects somewhere to the ground.
Or, if you like, you can think of your house's water supply as a two-buss system (hot water & cold water) which is distributed around the house in pipes and from which you can tap off some water at any point.
In mixers, busses perform a similar function. You can 'send' a signal from one or more channels to a buss. All the signal sent to this buss are then routed to somewhere else (e.g. an auxilliary out, or to an effects channel).
kcearl
I see deaf people
daav
Flailing up a storm.
One really simplified way to think of it is as a path. In a mixer, you have all these inputs, a simple bus might take 2 or more mono or stereo inputs and mix them together to one output bus (left and right). This would have a single output bus.
Now if you want to take the inputs and do something to each one (say add eq), you Can send the signal out to an effects bus, then add your eq (and any other effects) then send it back to the output bus and it flows to your output.
Now say you have your main output, but you want to be able to monitor the mix while you are recording via headphones (so someone is listening to the main mix through the output bus, but a singer wants to hear output into headphones in a separate room), well then you might have a second output bus for a headphone mix. With many systems you could even have a different mix for the headphone mix than the main mix- for instance, if you want the singer to hear bass and guitar and drums only, with all that lower in their personal mix, but their vocals louder to make it easier for them to monitor their performance (or quieter so they sing out more perhaps). You might only send some of the mix to that headphone bus. so even though they are all using the same inputs, the main mix and the headphone mix might sound really different.
From there, things can get complicated as you add more and more paths for audio to move through, with sends and returns and aux busses etc.
Daav
Now if you want to take the inputs and do something to each one (say add eq), you Can send the signal out to an effects bus, then add your eq (and any other effects) then send it back to the output bus and it flows to your output.
Now say you have your main output, but you want to be able to monitor the mix while you are recording via headphones (so someone is listening to the main mix through the output bus, but a singer wants to hear output into headphones in a separate room), well then you might have a second output bus for a headphone mix. With many systems you could even have a different mix for the headphone mix than the main mix- for instance, if you want the singer to hear bass and guitar and drums only, with all that lower in their personal mix, but their vocals louder to make it easier for them to monitor their performance (or quieter so they sing out more perhaps). You might only send some of the mix to that headphone bus. so even though they are all using the same inputs, the main mix and the headphone mix might sound really different.
From there, things can get complicated as you add more and more paths for audio to move through, with sends and returns and aux busses etc.
Daav
jezzicaz789
New member
dkelley
Active member
honestly, the easiest and imho most accurate description is this:
a buss is what is used when a "mixer" is actually, well, "mixing".
a recording board just takes inputs, adds eq etc, and then routes that signal someplace.
most of the time, especially in beginner and/or home use, it is default routed to the "stereo buss". so even if you input 4 mics and your bass di and synth stereo outputs to your mixer, and you pan those bits around in the stereo soundstage to sound cool, and you're listening to the results in stereo through the mixer's stereo outs, you've actually already used busses - you've bussed the outputs to the stereo bus via the panpots (and in some cases you actually have to enable the stereo output buss with a switch on each channel, at least with more professional boards you do since it's treated as just another buss, albeit a stereo one).
so you're bussing stuff already ifyou have a mixer.
the other busses are just other places where one or more (up to any number of) channel(s) can be sent, again for further mixing (or "sub-"mixing it's often called with traditional busses in certain uses).
so with my 24 track analog board, I can, in theory, take 24 inputs and "buss" them all to each of my 8 mono busses, which are then wired into the 8 inputs on my recording system (which happens to be a daw, but could be an 8 track recorder of any type). So I could take all the drums and buss them to the same tracks except maybe keep snare and kick on a separate buss, so that's 2 used. take all bg vocals and throw them into another buss with things like shakers and aux percussion as well in the same buss. put bass on it's own buss, summing DI and miced amp if desired into the one buss.
you get the idea.
cheers
a buss is what is used when a "mixer" is actually, well, "mixing".
a recording board just takes inputs, adds eq etc, and then routes that signal someplace.
most of the time, especially in beginner and/or home use, it is default routed to the "stereo buss". so even if you input 4 mics and your bass di and synth stereo outputs to your mixer, and you pan those bits around in the stereo soundstage to sound cool, and you're listening to the results in stereo through the mixer's stereo outs, you've actually already used busses - you've bussed the outputs to the stereo bus via the panpots (and in some cases you actually have to enable the stereo output buss with a switch on each channel, at least with more professional boards you do since it's treated as just another buss, albeit a stereo one).
so you're bussing stuff already ifyou have a mixer.
the other busses are just other places where one or more (up to any number of) channel(s) can be sent, again for further mixing (or "sub-"mixing it's often called with traditional busses in certain uses).
so with my 24 track analog board, I can, in theory, take 24 inputs and "buss" them all to each of my 8 mono busses, which are then wired into the 8 inputs on my recording system (which happens to be a daw, but could be an 8 track recorder of any type). So I could take all the drums and buss them to the same tracks except maybe keep snare and kick on a separate buss, so that's 2 used. take all bg vocals and throw them into another buss with things like shakers and aux percussion as well in the same buss. put bass on it's own buss, summing DI and miced amp if desired into the one buss.
you get the idea.
cheers