Aux Busses and Panning

[Scottgman]

Hi all, I'm using Sonar 4 and I'm a confused about using panning and the busses.

I've got all the tracks in separate track folders and I recently started using a seperate dedicated buss for guitar, bass, vocals, and drums. So all drum tracks are in the Drum folder and they all go through the drum buss. The drum buss then goes to the Master buss. Same with the guitars etc. I thought this was how you were supposed to create submixes.

Well, when I was working with the guitars, I started noticing that the panning was all wrong. I had separate guitar tracks panned hard right and left but when I ran them through the Guitar buss (and then to the Master buss), the panning went back to center. If I make the guitar tracks go straight to the Master buss, the panning is correct.

What's the deal?

 

[Autist]

The main track pan control does not effect the panning information sent to the sub, you have to adjust that using the pan control for the sub on the track where you control the output to the sub.

 

[Scottgman]

Doh! OK, I forgot that each track has a pan fader for the buss.

Silly me. Thanks for setting me straight!

 

[Autist]

No problem!

 

[dachay2tnr]

Why would you use an Aux Bus for subgroups??

You do realize that only a portion of the track's signal is sent to the Aux Bus. You should be using a standard Bus. Standard Buses are stereo. Therefore, if you send a track to one with the track panned left, it should remain in the left spectrum of the Bus.

Also, why are using any kind of bus for Bass? I can understand for grouping purposes for drums, or multiple guitars, but do you have multiple bass tracks?

 

[Scottgman]

Why would you use an Aux Bus for subgroups??

You do realize that only a portion of the track's signal is sent to the Aux Bus. You should be using a standard Bus. Standard Buses are stereo. Therefore, if you send a track to one with the track panned left, it should remain in the left spectrum of the Bus.

Also, why are using any kind of bus for Bass? I can understand for grouping purposes for drums, or multiple guitars, but do you have multiple bass tracks?

Well... I'm not at home so I can't open up Sonar and check... but I do believe Sonar 4 only gives you options for a "Stereo Buss" or a "Mono Buss" (I'm probably wrong on that). I've been using Stereo busses. I guess that's the difference between an "Aux" buss (mono?) and a "Standard" buss (stereo?)?

Actually, I've got two bass tracks... one mic'd and one DI. I don't know if I'll end-up using both. But yeah, you are right, it would be silly to have a dedicated buss for one bass track.

 

[dachay2tnr]

Well... I'm not at home so I can't open up Sonar and check... but I do believe Sonar 4 only gives you options for a "Stereo Buss" or a "Mono Buss" (I'm probably wrong on that). I've been using Stereo busses. I guess that's the difference between an "Aux" buss (mono?) and a "Standard" buss (stereo?)?

Actually, I've got two bass tracks... one mic'd and one DI. I don't know if I'll end-up using both. But yeah, you are right, it would be silly to have a dedicated buss for one bass track.

The choices are (in Sonar 4) Stereo Bus, Surround Bus or Send (Aux Bux). The Aux Bux (send) is a completely different animal and is normally used for patching time-based effects onto a group of tracks (e.g., reverb), rather that for grouping the tracks themselves.

There is a separate pan setting on the Track for an Aux Bus - because you can choose to pan the effect differently than the dry signal. There is not separate pan setting on the Track for a standard Bus. The track pan setting handles that.

So the bottom line to all this is that IF you are using an Aux Bus to group tracks, you should stop doing that and use a (standard) Stereo Bus.

OTOH, if you are already using a standard Bus to group your tracks, then I do not know why you are having panning problems. The pan settings on the track should carry through to the Bus.

 

[Scottgman]

So the bottom line to all this is that IF you are using an Aux Bus to group tracks, you should stop doing that and use a (standard) Stereo Bus.

OTOH, if you are already using a standard Bus to group your tracks, then I do not know why you are having panning problems. The pan settings on the track should carry through to the Bus.

Ok cool... I'm pretty darn sure I've been using a Standard (Stereo) Bus to group my tracks and the panning is still wrong. That's why I'm confused.

But I need to go home and pull up the project to make sure.

Here's another related question... what's the difference between inserting a reverb plug-in on an Aux Bus versus inserting a reverb plug-in on a Standard Stereo Bus and controlling the wet mix with the reverb plug-in controls?

Is one way better/worse than the other?

 

[dachay2tnr]

Ok cool... I'm pretty darn sure I've been using a Standard (Stereo) Bus to group my tracks and the panning is still wrong. That's why I'm confused.

But I need to go home and pull up the project to make sure.

Here's another related question... what's the difference between inserting a reverb plug-in on an Aux Bus versus inserting a reverb plug-in on a Standard Stereo Bus and controlling the wet mix with the reverb plug-in controls?

Is one way better/worse than the other?

The main difference to me would be that if you are using the reverb on multiple instruments/tracks, using it on a Stereo Bus will force you to apply the same amount of reverb (wet-dry ratio) to everything. Whereas using it on an Insert allows you to vary each track's ratio individually by setting the reverb on the insert to 100% wet and then using the track send level control to adjust the degree of wetness for that individual track.

Varying the degree of reverb for different tracks will help with your placement of things within the overall mix - less reverb, the more upfront the instrument will sound. Just as panning can place things left to right, reverb can help place front to back.