Uses for Busses???

  • Thread starter Thread starter Nate74
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Nate74

Nate74

HR4FREBR
I'm a little confused about busses. I've used them in the past to mic up 2 or more instruments on different channels, then send them to the same track on a multi. I did it a lot more when I was using a 8-track 1/2" system. But now I have 24 tracks and a 24 channel 8 buss board, so I can't even dream of filling all 24 tracks... at least not yet.

So what other uses are there for busses?

Another Question: I have the Mackie 24*8 board, and it has 3 channels assigned to each of the 8 busses. Does that limit me to only being able to track 8 channels at once, or am I totally missing something?
 
Tons. Here's a few for starters. Use one fader to control all drums (once you have them mixed properly, send them to a bus). OR use one effects processor for several instruments.
 
Cool Thanks pdadda,

If I sent all the drum channels to a bus, would I loose the ability to have them panned in stereo (hihat to the right, ride to the left, etc.)

I dig teh effect idea, but again, no stereo panning huh?
 
Try using your busses in "stereo pairs" if you want to maintain your stereo image. For tracking, try using the direct outs instead of the busses, unless you need to have more than one mic recorded to the same track. Busses are great for being able to have 1 or 2 faders (mono or stereo) control the OUTPUT volume of a group of channels. Remeber though, when you mute or pull down the buss faders, any reverbs and stuff on the individual channels will still run at whatever they were set at, unless you have put your reverb returns in the same buss. Another function that makes busses nice, is the ability to insert a piece of outboard gear (like a compressor) on a group of channels at the same time. Basically, you could take a set of 4 backing vox, put them in a stereo image in busses 5&6, and then put a stereo compressor (or a 2 channel comp) directly on that buss and all four vocals would then compress at the same time with the same settings. Often times this really helps to unify a group of tracks. Not to mention that without busses you would have to use 4 channels of compression instead of two to get each backing vocal compressed.
 
Someone explained busses to me like this. Think of it like a grid. All your channels, input and output are vertical lines. Busses are horizontal lines. You can choose (via a switch or knob on your mixer) if a vertical input/output channel connects to a bus where the two lines cross. That's why mixers are often characterized as "AxB", where A is the number of channels, and B is the number of busses.
So if you draw out the grid for your mixer, you can figure out really easily how to route audio from one channel to another (whether it's input, output, aux in/outs, fx sends/returns, etc).
Hope this helps visualize it better.
 
They are great for taking the kids to school, for people needing to get around who don't own cars and fro people who are afraid to fly too :D :D :D

(sorry, I couldn't resist) :p
 
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