bussing?

  • Thread starter Thread starter ardy77
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ardy77

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When mixing books refer to "bussing" the drums...does that mean adding an additional send from the source track to the bus (while still sending to the master output as well)?? or does that mean sending drums all just to the bus??

I see alot of terms refering to bussing instruments, compressing, then blending back in...but I'm not sure if I should still be including the original signal as well as the compressed...or simply just the compressed...

any help would be great.

Thanks
 
In general when someone says "bussing" they mean sending a group of mics through a stereo pair of busses in order to get to the main outputs.
 
i thought bussing was sending all your drums to a group bus, and then bussing the group to the master output? now that i think of it thats the same thing you saying xstatic?
 
Yes...but do you also include the original signal in the main output as well as the new bussed signal?
 
That's the main difference between auxing and bussing. With auxing(or sends, or mults, or whathaveyou), it still goes out the main output, but is also sent to a bus for processing, effects, etc. With bussing, for instance, you'd send all your drums to a stereo bus so you can control the whole kit with two faders instead of having to deal with 8+ faders, etc. You don't send to both the group/bus and the mains.

Hopefully I'm not confusing you even more.
 
You can send the signals to both the main and the buss output. Many people do that. It is much more efficient than aux sends for things like adding a buss comp to a drum buss, but also having the dry signals present. However, when most people say they "bussed" something, that means that they ONLY bussed it, and not routed it to the mains from the channels also.
 
so basically a bus is a submix? I can do a mix on my drums, send them to a bus, and then control the level of the entire kit in the context of the rest of the song?

Thanks for the info :)
 
some people call them subs, or groups, or busses. Technically I think a buss is just a pathway to and from something. Kinda like a bus that you ride through a city. It's just a trace in the circuit that follows a certain path.

but yes, a bus, sub group, group, etc.....can be all controlled with one fader that was originally mixed on separate tracks. They also can be use to route signals out different outputs, control cue sends, compress a stereo pair of drums while keeping the original signal intact........the possibilities are endless!
It all depends on which software or console you are working on.
 
Technically, aux sends are busses as well. in reality they offer more flexibility than traditional groups. However, unless you can affrod a large format high end console you typically won't have enough aux sends available to utilize them like that without dramatically affecting work flow. Also, on many cheaper consoles the aux sends use different circuitry that is not quite as nice as the actual group circuits.
 
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