Fishmed
Well-known member
Hello, my name is Fishmed and I am a Bus Whore.
Since I have gone back to MFB (Mixing From the Box), I am now an official Bus Whore. Before I stopped mixing from my PC, I never took advantage of using the Bus Feature in my software because I would just make group volume adjustments using the faders on my mixer after getting the subgroup balanced in the PC.
The problem with mixing like that is you cannot get a good recall because some of the adjustments took place outside of the software. I also used my outboard effects from the sends off the board, so those levels were not recallable either.
Seeing all the new features in Sonar 6, and all the third party plug-ins, I decided to go back to Mixing from the Box to my mixer. This time around I wanted to make everything recallable as possible. I first set up a buss as an AUX send for tracks using the same reverb. I then assigned that buss to its own set of outputs on the MOTU 2408. After getting that to work, I decided to eat the last four output channels of the 2408 to send stereo signals to my two outboard effects processors since I prefer them over most plug-in effects. This will now allow me to record the send levels. I still need to set up MIDI to those units so I can record the effect patch used for the song
Then I got into creating a stereo bus for parallel bus compression to see how well I can do with that technique. As I was mixing I started needing to raise the level of certain groups of instruments, again my old method was to just adjust the faders on the mixer, so I had to refrain myself from going back to my old ways. I decided to put those instruments on virtual tracks and assign them to a stereo buss; then I assigned that buss to the output those tracks were originally assigned to. Now I have the option to setup effects for the instrument individually on the virtual tracks, or as a group on the bus.
I know this is probably basic stuff to most of you, but it has become a new world of endless options for me.
Since I have gone back to MFB (Mixing From the Box), I am now an official Bus Whore. Before I stopped mixing from my PC, I never took advantage of using the Bus Feature in my software because I would just make group volume adjustments using the faders on my mixer after getting the subgroup balanced in the PC.
The problem with mixing like that is you cannot get a good recall because some of the adjustments took place outside of the software. I also used my outboard effects from the sends off the board, so those levels were not recallable either.
Seeing all the new features in Sonar 6, and all the third party plug-ins, I decided to go back to Mixing from the Box to my mixer. This time around I wanted to make everything recallable as possible. I first set up a buss as an AUX send for tracks using the same reverb. I then assigned that buss to its own set of outputs on the MOTU 2408. After getting that to work, I decided to eat the last four output channels of the 2408 to send stereo signals to my two outboard effects processors since I prefer them over most plug-in effects. This will now allow me to record the send levels. I still need to set up MIDI to those units so I can record the effect patch used for the song
Then I got into creating a stereo bus for parallel bus compression to see how well I can do with that technique. As I was mixing I started needing to raise the level of certain groups of instruments, again my old method was to just adjust the faders on the mixer, so I had to refrain myself from going back to my old ways. I decided to put those instruments on virtual tracks and assign them to a stereo buss; then I assigned that buss to the output those tracks were originally assigned to. Now I have the option to setup effects for the instrument individually on the virtual tracks, or as a group on the bus.
I know this is probably basic stuff to most of you, but it has become a new world of endless options for me.