Newb Riding The Yellow "Buss"

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Sinistah

Plutonium Bundle Advocate
Not to sound like too much of a Newb, but can someone explain to me what the term "buss" is and what/why is it used.....

i know it may be something simple to you guys, but i need some clarity on this shit so i can be up to par with you audio-technicians of the performing arts......

thanks in advance and pardon my dumbness :cool:
 
In a nutshell, it's part of your effects chain. You can route different tracks through a buss to batch set effects on them.

I'll look into my stuff and try to dig out a bit more on this, to make it more clear to both of us...

brb
 
a bus or buss is just like a bus in the city you live in. Just a transportation system. A way to get something from one place to another.

You can use a buss to route your signal to effects processors, to headphones, to another channel, etc.
 
As a lowly newb, I also was once utterly baffled by the concept of the bus. Usually what helps me is a for-instance, so here goes:

Track 1 is vocals
Track 2 is guitar
Track 3 is an electric bass
Track 4 is a snare played with impeccable brush technique (hey, why not)

You want your spiffy room reverb on the vocals, guitar, and snare, but not on the bass. On the channels for tracks 1, 2, and 4, you select Bus 1 from your Send options. Put your reverb on an Aux channel and use Bus 1 as its input so that it can get the nice reverb on the acoustic instruments but not on your electric bass. Upon turning that Aux channel up, you will hear the lovely sounds of reverb on your selected instruments. You can adjust the volume of your Sends on each track so you can determine how much reverb each instrument gets.

And let's suppose you've been listening to a lot of Beck, or Ben Folds and the like, and you just can't live without some fuzz on that bass. Wellsir, on track 3, you select Bus 2 from your Send options. Put some kinda crazy distortion unit on a different Aux channel from the reverb, and use Bus 2 as its input. Upon turning that Aux channel up, suddenly your bass is the voice of Tom Waits.

Hope that helps...
 
its also great if your recording on a computer. It'll take up less processor speed (or ram?) if you route a bunch of tracks to one bus with say, compression, rather than putting a compression plug in on each individual track.
 
Pitseleh said:
its also great if your recording on a computer. It'll take up less processor speed (or ram?) if you route a bunch of tracks to one bus with say, compression, rather than putting a compression plug in on each individual track.
Click to expand...

Amen to that. CPUs hate plugins, and a bus is a great way to steer clear of that whole hornet's nest. One compressor for 3 vocals is much better than 3 compressor plugins eating your RAM at once.
 
ahh i get it i think........

so say i had a 4-track set-up like this

track 1: instrumental
track 2: vocals
track 3: double vocals
track 4: ad-libs


if i wanted to mess around with just the compression of the vocals (track's 2-4) i'd use that as a buss-track/line (ex. Buss-1)? and each plug-in or whatever application i'd want to incorperate to the specified tracks would be applied to the buss or Buss-1 in this case instead of going over each individual track and applying the settings?

if so then thanks, i never took the time to actually toy around with that function, i use AA2.0 so i've seen it, but didn't mess with it since i never knew what it was for.....

pardon my novice.......

any other thing a Buss would actually be used for beyond the grouping of tracks?
 
Pitseleh said:
its also great if your recording on a computer. It'll take up less processor speed (or ram?) if you route a bunch of tracks to one bus with say, compression, rather than putting a compression plug in on each individual track.
Click to expand...
thanks and this info is already making a bright situation from dark clouds.....

i have tons of different plug-ins and bundles, and they kinda slow down actual runtime when applying them track by track... even though i'm basically cutting and pasting the same application settings over the tracks.....

thats hot, i'll wait til i find some good headphones b4 i start recordin again from my home but all the info here was useful and i appreciate it!!!
 
any other thing a Buss would actually be used for beyond the grouping of tracks?
Click to expand...

That's all I tend to use it for, though it doesn't have to be strictly for effects. At a venue where I've run some sound recently, I bus everything to the board's RCA outs, which go to a CD recorder so the artist can have a reference of how they sounded. Board mix, but better than nothing.

When recording on a computer, memory is the A#1 reason for using busses. As you've noticed...
 
Also, if you REALLY want to cut down the memory hogging...

Once you've decided 100% on the effect settings in question for a particular set of tracks, you can do this:

We'll take for granted all of the tracks in question are being Sent through Bus 1, which is where Aux 1 is getting its input (let's say Aux 1 is a reverb). NOW you set Aux 1's output to Bus 2. Create a new audio track, Reverb 1, and set its input to Bus 2. Making sure that at least for this stage, you've bumped up the Aux 1 volume to 0db (more to work with later, and you can always turn it down), you set Reverb 1 to record, and record at the spots where your tracks have audio.

Bam, you've just eliminated the need for a plugin. You can get that sucker out of your RAM's way and mix the reverb in just as you would if it were routing it live. Of course, this only works if you're married to your settings, which sometimes you aren't until the last minute. But on things you're pretty sure of from the get-go (I always have at least a few), you can kick out some of your lag early and get on with it.

Glad your clouds are retreating...
 
Here's a practical and common example of why a buss is used that might make things easier to understand. Or maybe the proper term is a "send" I'm not sure.

Ok, you have a song with a bunch of tracks...drums, guitars, bass, and vocals.

You want to give all the tracks except vocals the same reverb settings.

Now, if you were to add the reverb onto each individual track, that would take up a lot of CPU power and take more time.

The solution to this is a buss. You can send all tracks except the vocals to a buss. Put the reverb effect on the buss. Then all tracks get that reverb effect and it's only being used once.

Hope this makes sense.
 
Sir_Matthew said:
Also, if you REALLY want to cut down the memory hogging...

Once you've decided 100% on the effect settings in question for a particular set of tracks, you can do this:

We'll take for granted all of the tracks in question are being Sent through Bus 1, which is where Aux 1 is getting its input (let's say Aux 1 is a reverb). NOW you set Aux 1's output to Bus 2. Create a new audio track, Reverb 1, and set its input to Bus 2. Making sure that at least for this stage, you've bumped up the Aux 1 volume to 0db (more to work with later, and you can always turn it down), you set Reverb 1 to record, and record at the spots where your tracks have audio.

Bam, you've just eliminated the need for a plugin. You can get that sucker out of your RAM's way and mix the reverb in just as you would if it were routing it live. Of course, this only works if you're married to your settings, which sometimes you aren't until the last minute. But on things you're pretty sure of from the get-go (I always have at least a few), you can kick out some of your lag early and get on with it.

Glad your clouds are retreating...
Click to expand...
oh ok, so your saying that by setting the reverb as an auxillary (or aux 1 in your example) track from the start and recording a new track using Aux 1's output to a new Buss track will automatically place the reverb settings in with the newly buss'd (Buss 2) vocal recording like using an analog reverb box instead of reading it as the usual digital process that will smother memory?

i hope you understand what i'm trying to say, i'm still getting familliar with the terminology so terms and idea's may not match up to the most coherent side of things, but i think i got what you were trying to say.......
 
danny.guitar said:
Here's a practical and common example of why a buss is used that might make things easier to understand. Or maybe the proper term is a "send" I'm not sure.

Ok, you have a song with a bunch of tracks...drums, guitars, bass, and vocals.

You want to give all the tracks except vocals the same reverb settings.

Now, if you were to add the reverb onto each individual track, that would take up a lot of CPU power and take more time.

The solution to this is a buss. You can send all tracks except the vocals to a buss. Put the reverb effect on the buss. Then all tracks get that reverb effect and it's only being used once.

Hope this makes sense.
Click to expand...
i get all this, one question, does the buss and Aux's count as seperate multi-tracks, or is it just assignments given to the tracks.......

just asking, i seen both of those but i havent been too familliar with my DAW (AA 2.0) since my headphones were broken and i havent been able to actually do any new recording in months.....
 
Sinistah said:
oh ok, so your saying that by setting the reverb as an auxillary (or aux 1 in your example) track from the start and recording a new track using Aux 1's output to a new Buss track will automatically place the reverb settings in with the newly buss'd (Buss 2) vocal recording like using an analog reverb box instead of reading it as the usual digital process that will smother memory?

i hope you understand what i'm trying to say, i'm still getting familliar with the terminology so terms and idea's may not match up to the most coherent side of things, but i think i got what you were trying to say.......
Click to expand...

I'm a little sleepy this morning, so I didn't get any of that...

What I'm saying with the post in question is that once you've decided that the effect is exactly the way you want it, you can record the output from that effect onto a separate track, and use that in the mix rather than the actual real-time effect, which hogs more memory. The method for doing so is outlined in my earlier post.

Mind you, I'm speaking in reference to interfaces that are set up more or less like standard mixing boards, as my ProTools interface is. Individual DAW's or programs may have different routing. On my old Roland VS-880, there were Sends for each channel, but they were directly to effects processors, there was no bussing involved, unless you rigged it up a certain way. So as always, take all advice with a dose of caution...
 
Sinistah said:
i get all this, one question, does the buss and Aux's count as seperate multi-tracks, or is it just assignments given to the tracks.......

just asking, i seen both of those but i havent been too familliar with my DAW (AA 2.0) since my headphones were broken and i havent been able to actually do any new recording in months.....
Click to expand...

I'm clueless about aux's, I don't even know what they are. :D :o

If I understand your first question correctly, the buss receives and treats all tracks as a single track. Meaning, if you send 4 tracks to the same buss, they are summed into one track (like mixing the 4 tracks together) when sent to the buss. This is why you can process like 4 tracks and only use the CPU power of one.

(I apologize in advance if you already knew this and it isn't what you were asking. :D)
 
danny.guitar said:
I'm clueless about aux's, I don't even know what they are. :D :o

If I understand your first question correctly, the buss receives and treats all tracks as a single track. Meaning, if you send 4 tracks to the same buss, they are summed into one track (like mixing the 4 tracks together) when sent to the buss. This is why you can process like 4 tracks and only use the CPU power of one.

(I apologize in advance if you already knew this and it isn't what you were asking. :D)
Click to expand...

nah i now understand that a buss actually groups the tracks to a unified context, i am clueless about aux's too, i'm just guessing it's more like a "storage" or experimental track...... like dude used in his example of his Aux-1 being a reverbed track and flippin the output of that to use as a uniformed process for his 2nd buss starting with the newly tracked "reverb 1" recording....
 
Sinistah said:
nah i now understand that a buss actually groups the tracks to a unified context, i am clueless about aux's too, i'm just guessing it's more like a "storage" or experimental track...... like dude used in his example of his Aux-1 being a reverbed track and flippin the output of that to use as a uniformed process for his 2nd buss starting with the newly tracked "reverb 1" recording....
Click to expand...

As mentioned previously, not all DAWs or programs are going to have the same routing. ProTools has Aux channels, as do many traditional mixers, but many interfaces don't. But you get the idea, which is the important thing.
 
Sir_Matthew said:
As mentioned previously, not all DAWs or programs are going to have the same routing. ProTools has Aux channels, as do many traditional mixers, but many interfaces don't. But you get the idea, which is the important thing.
Click to expand...
i'm pretty sure i seen "aux" and "buss" for AA 2.0, never knew what they was for which led me to making this thread after seeing the term "buss" tossed around......

i havent used my actual AA 2.0 DAW in about 3 or so months to accurately tell ya if the aux and buss came from being a part of the actual individual tracking process, meaning you can go to the tracked audio and click a tab to designate the tracks as part of a buss or not..... but if i recall correctly it is incorperated into the DAW, not sure if it's set-up the same as pro-tools...

but as far as the "Aux" what is it's actual purpose/function, since it has been mentioned here as well...
 
Sinistah said:
but as far as the "Aux" what is it's actual purpose/function, since it has been mentioned here as well...
Click to expand...

In the case of ProTools, it's just an empty channel where you can assign your effects or send to outboard devices and whatnot. Works that way on standalone mixers, too.
 
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