Bus Question

[avieth]

I'm not sure if completely understand buses.. Are they just groups of tracks?

Anyway.. what I've done is put all my drum tracks on one bus. But I don't know if that bus should go to the master bus, and then out to the monitors... or should the drums bus just go right to the output, bypassing the master bus.

 

[Phyl]

A 'group of tracks' is a good way to describe a bus. You are grouping tracks together so you can raise/lower the volume of say drums, or guitars, etc. with one fader. It also makes it easier to apply an effect to a group of tracks.

Sometimes I'll use two busses for drums. I'll send the snare, and any other percussion needing reverb to one, and send that bus to a reverb unit. The rest of the drums go to different bus, which is where the snare bus also goes after being treated.

All my busses go to a master bus so I can raise the level of the entire mix going to the monitors.

The last part of your question is confusing; maybe your talking about mixing using your tracking software. Using SONAR, I can create a Master bus and send that out to a set of outputs on my outboard interface (MOTU in my case), or I can route things directly to the MOTU. I usually choose the Master bus option so I have a Master fader to control the level of the entire mix.

There are a million ways to structure your mixing, you'll eventually settle on the one that makes the most sense for you.

 

[Adam P]

Like Phyl said, a buss being a group of tracks is a good way of looking at it. He's right, also, that there are a million different ways that you can approach it, and you have to give us some more info before anyone can offer a truly meaningful suggestion or solution.

For starters:

Are you using busses on a hardware mixer, or in a software program?
If using an actual mixer, are you mixing through it or just using it for preamps and monitoring?
What are you recording to (reel to reel tape, DAW, hard disk recorder, portastudio, etc)?
How many busses do you have available?
How man tracks can you simultaneously record?

Also, a buss doesn't always have to have multiple tracks on it. For example, I record and mix on an Allen & Heath board with 8 busses, onto an Alesis HD24. Since my board doesn't have direct outputs on each channel, using the busses is the only way to send the sound to my recorder. What I'll do is put each of my overhead mics on its own buss, my top and bottom snare mics on one buss together, front and rear kick mics on one buss, and all of my tom mics on a pair of busses. I end up with nine mics on six busses. The master L+R buss is sent to the mixdown machine (my PC in my case). My cue mix gets taken from a pair of Aux sends, and my control room mix can be taken from the main L+R (which consists of the buss and/or tape return signals and/or individual channels routed to the L+R), the band's cue mix, or a PFL of any channel or buss. That's just one particular way of doing things, though, that works for me.

 

[LeeRosario]

I'm not sure if completely understand buses.. Are they just groups of tracks?

Anyway.. what I've done is put all my drum tracks on one bus. But I don't know if that bus should go to the master bus, and then out to the monitors... or should the drums bus just go right to the output, bypassing the master bus.

Traditionally in analog, when you think of the term "Bus" (or Buss, whatever you prefer), you would automatically think about a Summing Amp. Then maybe you would have nightmares about networks of opamps, resistors, capacitors, relay switches, transformers...the list goes on.

In the analog world, the power of processing multiple tracks into a bottleneck location falls under how good a summing amp you have. That's why large format consoles (like SSL) are still the best mediums to mix on today.

Phyl said what had to be said, a bus is a central point for all signals routed to that point. So that's about accurate.

However, if you're working digtal, then of course that changes. Instead of actual electronic components, your signals are processed via mathemics (algorhythms). The better the electornics (analog) or math (digital), the better those summed signals will sound at that buss. So we're implying preserved and optimal dynamic range, width, imaging, bandwidth, clarity, low or zero distortion, free of noise of any kind, etc.

You can subgroup (drums, string instruments, etc) things before you hit the stereo buss. This allows you to organize your tracks and also process things as a whole rather than individually. But eventually they *all* go through the stereo buss by default. That's just the way signal flow works.

On a large format console, you'd find a routing matrix that lets your transfer your signal all around the console. So if you wanted, you can actually send your input signal on track one all the way over to track 70 on the other side of the console. But ultimately, for that signal to be heard, it has to make it to the stereo buss. Also known as LF, LF Mix, mix buss, master buss, master fader, LCRS (for surround) etc.

It's really just a more sophisticated system of what you may find on a small consumer mixer. That's why if you can get a whole of and understand audio signal flow and learn to read board schematics, then it's really easy to see how that works. All boards will have a buss, whether it's a million dollar board or a 12 channel mackie.

But to keep things simple, a buss is really just a collection points for all your signals, that's it.

What you hear in your speakers is a monitor of the stereo mix. You are therefore monitoring the stereo buss. In other words, what you hear is what you get.

The only time that really changes is if you decide to route certain signals out of your board via anything except your main outs.

 

[NYMorningstar]

But what about the short bus? My friend drives one but doesn't like talking about it

Kidding aside if you look at a buss as just a vehicle to get a signal from point A to point B it keeps things simple. You can load your buss up with tracks, effects or other busses for the ride. This applies for computer busses pretty much, they too carry either electrical signals or data.