Help with understanding aux channels?

[frankf]

When you assign the output of your audio track to an Aux Bus, all volume automation is retained. The key to understanding DP signal flow is understanding how analog mixer bussing works.

Exactly. This was the key for me to the understanding DPs bundles, including Virtual Instrument output routing using auxes. Some posters here have lamented at the complexity of DP's routing. I look at is as flexibility and depth.


Frank Ferrucci

[Topo]

Great...thanks for all that....now I just have to sort out why all the MOTU plugins don't show up in DP8. I've booted into 64 bit on my iMac, and DP8 is set to run in 64, but I only see a fraction of plugins in DP8. Weirdly, *all* the plugins show up in DP7..even the new ones that were introduced with DP8.

[crduval]

There is a mono/stereo dependency in displaying DP plugs - I recently was scratching my head looking for a plugin that I knew I had used in 8 and then realized it was stereo only.


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[Topo]

There is a mono/stereo dependency in displaying DP plugs - I recently was scratching my head looking for a plugin that I knew I had used in 8 and then realized it was stereo only.

That's true, but, as DP8 or DP7 launches, you can see the plugins loading in the splash screen. DP7 shows all of them scrolling thru the launch, whereas, DP8 shows only the few that I end up with when the app opens. There's something more serious going on, but I have not received a reply from Dave at MOTU...don't know what to do...would really like to bump up to DP8..but..

[reedster]

When DP uses Apply plug-ins, it's not a destructive process, in that the original sound bite is preserved and plug is applied to a copy of the original that DP makes automatically.

Duplicating an audio track or take does not make automatically make a copy of the audio file. One way to make a copy is to select the bite and Audio/Merge Soundbites.

[Dan Worley]

When DP uses Apply plug-ins, it's not a destructive process, in that the original sound bite is preserved and plug is applied to a copy of the original that DP makes automatically.

Duplicating an audio track or take does not make automatically make a copy of the audio file. One way to make a copy is to select the bite and Audio/Merge Soundbites.

The new soundbite is created when the plug-in is applied.

Here's the reasoning behind duplicating the take/track:

We'll use "duplicate take" for an example.

1. Duplicate the take.
2. Apply the plug-in to the soundbite in the new take (a new soundbite is created and replaces the soundbite in the current take, but it does not replace the soundbite in the old take, so the old take with the old soundbite is always there to go back to until you delete it).

[reedster]

so the old take with the old soundbite is always there to go back to until you delete it).

that's a good system.

[Babz]

One way to think of Aux channels is to think of them as kind of junior master faders -- or sub master faders. All your channels end up going to the master fader, but you can take a subset of them and send them to a subordinate (or "Auxiliary" -- get it?) fader. And you can insert plugin effects on that fader.

So, do this.

Create an Aux track (in fact, lets not call it a "track" -- it's really a mixer *channel*, even though MOTU uses the term "track"), so create an aux *channel* and put a Proverb in one of its inserts w/ Proverb's mix set to 100%.

Now, in the Mixing Board screen, right above the Name of this aux track (which is named "Aux-1" by default), you see little pulldowns for input and output. The output is going to the your main outs.

Set the Input to a Bus (bus 1-2, for example).

Now you've got all the routing set up for your reverb aux channel.

To send individual mixer channels to your reverb, choose Bus 1-2 on one of its send slots and use the little rotary knobs to turn up your send amount -- i.e., the amount of reverb effect.

Thus, you have little sub mixes sending different amounts to the aux channel that has the reverb inserted one it, and then ultimately the whole thing is passed along to your main outs. The sends control the amount of reverb, and the aux's fader is the master fader for the overall reverb level.

The dry signal is going direct to the master fader, a separate signal is "bussed via sends" to the aux channel, where reverb is added. And everything blends together at the main outs.

Thus, the Aux channel here is like a sub master fader.

Hope this helps,
Babz

[Shooshie]

in fact, lets not call it a "track" -- it's really a mixer *channel*, even though MOTU uses the term "track"

Babz is one of our more astute observers, so I'd never say she was wrong about something, but let me add one little thing in support of MOTU's terminology of "Track." An Aux track is certainly a mixer channel, but since the advent of automation, it does indeed have a track accompanying it. The automation in an Aux track give it more capabilities than a mere channel. These include time-based events such as effects (with unlimited controls), mutes, volume, pan, sends (and their controls), plug-in bypasses, and whatever I may have missed.

In an age when sometimes half the performance is in the FX, Aux channels really do become tracks.

Sooshie

[Babz]

Good points, Shooshie. I guess my head is stuck in too many years of tracks of tape rolling by. Probably need to demagnetize it!



Babz

[Prime Mover]

I also agree that Auxes shouldn't be considered channels, for another reason: a channel needs to refer to a SINGLE audio signal. Thus, stereo tracks have two channels. Most aux tracks are stereo, therefore they have two channels. I just spent a long time yesterday explaining to a novice employee how to operate the audio controls on a pro video camera. It had input adjustments (mic inputs) and channel adjustments (L/R channels in this case), I wanted to cement into her mind that a "channel" always referred, specifically, to one signal or waveform, and she could take that to her grave.

What really are channels are buses. Many times they are pairs of channels, but I think that's what is really more applicable to the term. I think of channels as stemming directly from physical or virtual patch cables, and buses really are patch cables... maybe they're actually closer to hardwired internal matrixes, but to me they're patch cables. If I go into the bundles window, I'm grabbing and organizing patch cables, labeling them so I know what they're used for.

One way to think of Aux channels is to think of them as kind of junior master faders -- or sub master faders. All your channels end up going to the master fader, but you can take a subset of them and send them to a subordinate (or "Auxiliary" -- get it?) fader. And you can insert plugin effects on that fader.

I commonly hear this called a "submix" fader. I also hear the term "sub master" as well, but I don't particularly care for that term, since it seems like sort of an oxymoron. I guess if you have a 4-level hierarchy want to distinguish the lower levels from the higher ones, you could call, for instance, a collection of tom tracks a "submix", and your entire drum mix a "sub master".

Hell, most engineers just wind up calling them "subs" in the end anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter.

[Dan Worley]

It's funny, when I'm looking at the SE or TO, I think tracks, but when I look at the mixer, I think channels. Can't help myself. No matter, as long as we know what they do.

[Babz]

It's funny, when I'm looking at the SE or TO, I think tracks, but when I look at the mixer, I think channels. Can't help myself. No matter, as long as we know what they do.

Yes, exactly!

I was simply trying to shift the mindset to the mixing board metaphor.

And I find Auxes easier to grok when I'm looking at the mixer window. In fact, I find signal flow in general easier to understand when I am staring at a picture of a mixer.

It's all just pretty pixels, I guess, but tracks, channels, faders -- they all make sense because I see the connections based on experience with hardware.

Having said that, why is CueMix so confusing?

Babz.

[Shooshie]

Having said that, why is CueMix so confusing?

Babz.

Dang, I'm glad you said it. I've used CueMix since it came out, and at every point I have considered myself competent in its use, which has changed subtly over the years. (and it's changed radically in recent years)

So, I open CueMix thinking I just need to make an adjustment...
An hour later I decide to live with whatever prompted me to do that. Well, that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but every time I open it, I feel like I'm starting over.

I like its most recent implementation. It reminds me more and more of a mixing board with FX areas. And it's very cool that you can do M/S recording and monitoring using the M/S setup switch right there in CueMix. In fact, everything about it is cool, except that I still feel like a novice at it. And that's coming from someone who has explained to countless people how to use CueMix. Weird, eh?

Shoosh