Busing your drums

[Chris Jahn]

I finally messed around with the frightning world of busing and i had some interesting, good, and awful resaults.

I took the advice of some books and some people and bused the drums all to the same reverb to give them an over all more live effect, i no this is a big "no duh" to experiened people, but hearing it in action was a real eye opener.

Now, i also bused the drums to an over all compression, the kick, snare, and bottom snare ROCKED, but the rest was kinda wack.

Basically, im wondering what some usful applications of this are for all intruments, and what some pointless ones are. Mabye some suggestions to experiment with.

Secondly, if im busing to an over all compresion but some of the tracks are already compressed is this pointless?

 

[ecktronic]

Using a compressor bus for the kick and snare is something I do alot, but I am now at the point I think its best to set up a seperate bus for the kick and snare (top and bottom). This gives more control and Im sure, better results.
You could also just use an aux send rather than setting up a bus, and then send the amount you want of the kick and snare to each compressor aux channel.

Eck

 

[Chris Jahn]

Ok, but if thats the case, why bus them, if they are going to be seperate anyway? Why not just applie the compression on a track by track basis?

 

[MCI2424]

I finally messed around with the frightning world of busing and i had some interesting, good, and awful resaults.

I took the advice of some books and some people and bused the drums all to the same reverb to give them an over all more live effect, i no this is a big "no duh" to experiened people, but hearing it in action was a real eye opener.

Now, i also bused the drums to an over all compression, the kick, snare, and bottom snare ROCKED, but the rest was kinda wack.

Basically, im wondering what some usful applications of this are for all intruments, and what some pointless ones are. Mabye some suggestions to experiment with.

Secondly, if im busing to an over all compresion but some of the tracks are already compressed is this pointless?

Long story short:
Parallel compression is used for ,say, a rack of toms. You leave the unporcessed toms on the 2 buss and send the rack to another 2 channels and compress. Then, you combine the compressed AND the unprocessed toms back to the 2 buss and mix to taste. The processed gets you the big, wide sound and the unprocessed toms give you the total dynamic range and take away the "muddiness" that compression can give you. This is an old technique used by pro AEs. Bussing has many uses and it is all up to you and your experimentation.

 

[mixsit]

The first thing bussing is good for is simply having a master for that section of your mix.
As far as compression IMHO, like all comp/limiter situations it is 'What is the goal, and 'What will it be hitting and Why? (what's 'sticking out' may be simply volume, or it may be shape vs. time, depending on the attack).
For shaping', effect' or heavy taming peaks- the big chunks- generally stick with it back at the track level.

On the kits for example, if the snare/kick are in good shape or not too wild (or hot?), at the buss might be fine. Sometimes just a light moderately fast low ratio comp on a kit with a peak stop catching strays is the ticket.
Bottom line; Don't try to do cross purposes with the comp/limiters.

 

[ecktronic]

Ok, but if thats the case, why bus them, if they are going to be seperate anyway? Why not just applie the compression on a track by track basis?

Becuase you can compress the original kick a bit to keep the more natural dynamics then also have the bussed kick heavily compressed to back up the original kick. Just gives more control and you can get a good amount fo compreesion without the kick sounding that over compressed way.

Eck

 

[Chris Jahn]

Got it to an extent, would i want to send more than one track to the same buss? So that all or some of the drums would have the same over all compression? is there a benifit to this? And waht about what i said about reverb, does the same concept apply?

I know that a lot of people buss to help with processor speed etc... i dont have that problem with my set up, so what are the other benifits?

Also when i bus in Logic, the origanal track appears with a knob not unlike a pan pot, when you turn the knob it of course applies more or less of the bussed signal. Now am i hearing a seperate signal in the mix on top of the original, or am i hearing a blended signal, basically do i have control of both?
and on the same note, the buss chanel has its own level slider, does this icrease the effect, or the volume or both?

 

[ecktronic]

Got it to an extent, would i want to send more than one track to the same buss? So that all or some of the drums would have the same over all compression? is there a benifit to this? And waht about what i said about reverb, does the same concept apply?

I know that a lot of people buss to help with processor speed etc... i dont have that problem with my set up, so what are the other benifits?

Also when i bus in Logic, the origanal track appears with a knob not unlike a pan pot, when you turn the knob it of course applies more or less of the bussed signal. Now am i hearing a seperate signal in the mix on top of the original, or am i hearing a blended signal, basically do i have control of both?
and on the same note, the buss chanel has its own level slider, does this icrease the effect, or the volume or both?

Seems like youa re using aux sends rather than bus sends.
On the track (1) you want to bus to another track (2) make sure the output of the track (1) is set to track (2). Then all of the signal is sent to track (2).

Eck

 

[xstatic]

Ok, but if thats the case, why bus them, if they are going to be seperate anyway? Why not just applie the compression on a track by track basis?

For example, compressing a kick track and a snare track seperately does not sound the same as compressing the sum of the kick and the snare with a mono comp. If for example the drummer were to hit the kick and the snare simultaneously... With individual comps the kick my get compressed while the snare does not. With a bussed kick and snare the kick may trigger the comp which in turn will also compress the snare. Sometimes this type of effect is desirable, sometimes not. Assuming no drastic dynamic changes with an individual track in a group of tracks, comping them all together may yield a more consistent, tighter and fuller sound. A more unified sound if you will.

 

[Chris Jahn]

thanks, thats kinda what i was getting when i was playing with it. Now if i also for instance want to bus the drums to a reverb, would i do that on a seperate bus.

And waht about other instruments? would sending all the guitars to a bus of comp, or reverb be desireable?

 

[mixsit]

thanks, thats kinda what i was getting when i was playing with it. Now if i also for instance want to bus the drums to a reverb, would i do that on a seperate bus.

And waht about other instruments? would sending all the guitars to a bus of comp, or reverb be desireable?

First of all let's clear up a few things (already touched on above)
A 'serial' path is one that feeds everything to a second thing.
'Parallel' is where a path is split off to a second destination.
A 'bus' is any point where several paths join. Generally it has it's own set of secondary controls, but it doesn't matter how they got there. (It's sometimes called a sub-group -when it's serial.)
A 'send' (or aux send) typically is also a parallel split -to a buss, or maybe just one dedicated thing, but adds it's own volume (and/or pan) control.

So begins the confusion. A 'reverb buss': a place where a bunch of signals combine to an effect.
Then the effect is blended back in -parallel.
A verb inserted into a single track is 'serial' style. But then the verb has a 'wet/dry mix' and does it's own parallel split within. (vs a comp or eq in the same track where you'd want it to stay stay serial.)

If you want to control all of the group- a serial buss.
If you want to mix them -parallel.

Even if you have only one 'buss' -it would be called 'The Master', or the 'Two Track Output'..
At this point in the game, your signal flow diagram is your friend.

 

[MCI2424]

First of all let's clear up a few things (already touched on above)
A 'serial' path is one that feeds everything to a second thing.
'Parallel' is where a path is split off to a second destination.
A 'bus' is any point where several paths join. Generally it has it's own set of secondary controls, but it doesn't matter how they got there. (It's sometimes called a sub-group -when it's serial.)
A 'send' (or aux send) typically is also a parallel split -to a buss, or maybe just one dedicated thing, but adds it's own volume (and/or pan) control.

So begins the confusion. A 'reverb buss': a place where a bunch of signals combine to an effect.
Then the effect is blended back in -parallel.
A verb inserted into a single track is 'serial' style. But then the verb has a 'wet/dry mix' and does it's own parallel split within. (vs a comp or eq in the same track where you'd want it to stay stay serial.)

If you want to control all of the group- a serial buss.
If you want to mix them -parallel.

Even if you have only one 'buss' -it would be called 'The Master', or the 'Two Track Output'..
At this point in the game, your signal flow diagram is your friend.

Yeah, but, who's on first?

 

[emergencyexit]

Logic autimatically sets up tracks named "bus1" through what ever depending on your version. If you use one of the sends on a recorded track for that bus it sends the signal to that bus while also playing straight in the master track. Under all the effects inserts and sends there are inputs and outputs. Set all of the outputs to one of these assigned buses for one section of a mix (like all the drums) if you want to give them a general EQ boost or cut, set a reverb or just controll all the drums together rather than the individual tracks.