Advice on bus usage

[insch]

I am at the mix stage of a long project and I have a few questions about buses and returns:

1) How can I route a group of tracks to more than one bus? I want to treat the same group of tracks in two different ways through two parallel busses.

2) How can I solo aux busses? There seems to be no solo option on aux tracks.

3) How do 'returns' work in a track when routing to a dedicated reverb bus? I have created reverb buses in my pieces and sent track busses to them. Is 'return' the amount of the effect return that ultimately gets sent to the output of the reverb aux bus?

Thank you.

[insch]

Pix of my setup:

https://cdn-data.motu.com/django_prod/t ... .01.06.jpg

https://cdn-data.motu.com/django_prod/t ... .58.42.jpg

https://cdn-data.motu.com/django_prod/t ... .58.53.jpg

[HCMarkus]

I am at the mix stage of a long project and I have a few questions about buses and returns:

Thank you.

1) How can I route a group of tracks to more than one bus? I want to treat the same group of tracks in two different ways through two parallel busses.

Use Sends routed to the desired buses. You could also route the group of tracks to one of the desired buses, and use a send for the second bus, but it is likely advantageous to use a send for each bus; that way you could use the source track faders to control overall level (using post-fader sends) and would only have to use the little send pots to set relative level of the sends. Once you set a single source track up with the required sends, Option-Drag the send assignments to the other source tracks to save setup time. To pass signal, I think you will need to assign the source track main output to a dead-end somewhere, i..e a bus aux track with its fader fully off.

2) How can I solo aux busses? There seems to be no solo option on aux tracks.

Using approach noted above, Solo the source group of tracks and mute the sends whose buses you don't want to hear.

3) How do 'returns' work in a track when routing to a dedicated reverb bus? I have created reverb buses in my pieces and sent track busses to them. Is 'return' the amount of the effect return that ultimately gets sent to the output of the reverb aux bus?

"Send" is the amount of signal that is sent to the FX Aux Track on which you have inserted any FX plugin, like reverb, (100% wet) with level controlled by channel sends on the source tracks.

"Return" is the the FX Aux Track fader, routed to your mix bus. You can set the overall return level using that Aux Bus fader.

[insch]

Use Sends routed to the desired buses. You could also route the group of tracks to one of the desired buses, and use a send for the second bus, but it is likely advantageous to use a send for each bus; that way you could use the source track faders to control overall level (using post-fader sends) and would only have to use the little send pots to set relative level of the sends. Once you set a single source track up with the required sends, Option-Drag the send assignments to the other source tracks to save setup time. To pass signal, I think you will need to assign the source track main output to a dead-end somewhere, i..e a bus aux track with its fader fully off.

Thank you - that's really helpful. If I use sends to route a number of individual tracks to two different aux busses, would I then set those track audio ouputs to 'none' since the aux buses they are already sent to would ultimtely route to the master channel. Otherwsie there would be doubling up.

Using approach noted above, Solo the source group of tracks and mute the sends whose buses you don't want to hear.

Thanks

"Send" is the amount of signal that is sent to the FX Aux Track on which you have inserted any FX plugin, like reverb, (100% wet) with level controlled by channel sends on the source tracks.

"Return" is the the FX Aux Track fader, routed to your mix bus. You can set the overall return level using that Aux Bus fader.

Thanks - I'll have a play to fully undersatnd this.

[HCMarkus]

I’m in a session at the moment, but I believe that if you set the track output to None it may not pass audio to the sends. That’s why I suggested the “dead end” audio assignment.

Try it and see!

[insch]

Thank you.

And my issue about fader send return levels was a misunderstanding about the second small knob in the send insert - I now know it is pan and not return level!

[bayswater]

You can always send the audio out to another audio track that itself has an alternate output.

Now you're wondering why you'd want to do that. You'd do it in cases where you might want to render the output of the bus to an audio file. When things all sound the way you want, you can put the aforementioned audio tracks in record mode, and do a pass to get audio files.

The other reason this was useful in the past is that you can save CPU in complex projects by rendering the audio and playing that back and turning off (rather than muting) the source signal path. That may not be much of an issue with reasonably up to date computers.

[insch]

Thank you

That’s helpful.

[JSmith1234567]

Bringing up one related thing, not necessarily a point but more of a poll?

Adding sub-group busses, for me, has always bogged my projects WAY down.

I'd love to have everything routed to sub-groups and stems, but it seems every time I've tried to set up that kind of more complex routing, it adds a way outsized hit on CPU performance fo me in DP.

This is not scientific, just what I have observed for myself.

Having a ton of tracks, and plugins, doesn't seem so bad, though mixing a really huge project I have to go to a higher latency to avoid dropouts, which is not a problem when mixing.

But busses/stems/sub-groups for some reason almost make it impossible to work for me.

A much exagerrated outsized hit compared to just adding audio tracks.

Do other people have this experience?

[HCMarkus]

Bringing up one related thing, not necessarily a point but more of a poll?

Adding sub-group busses, for me, has always bogged my projects WAY down.

Do other people have this experience?

I did when working on my 5,1 12 core Cheesegrater. Now, on my M1 Mac Studio, I can bus away to my heart's content and the Mac just purrs along.

I was bitten by DP VCA issues a while back, so have been just bussing; really handy when mixing and creating stems. I currently run all FX Returns to their own bus, but am planning to break out returns on a per-bus level to make stemming more accurate/simpler/quicker.

[bayswater]

Adding sub-group busses, for me, has always bogged my projects WAY down.

I'd love to have everything routed to sub-groups and stems, but it seems every time I've tried to set up that kind of more complex routing, it adds a way outsized hit on CPU performance fo me in DP.

Do other people have this experience?

No doubt busses tax CPU more than other objects in DP. Quite a few here have noticed that. My "do everything" template has a few dozen busses connecting VI outs to Audio tracks, and tracks to subgroups, and a lot of busses from tracks to effects, and while I've noticed the load on CPU, it hasn't been a big problem. I noticed Logic has the same characteristic, and IIRC Cubase did too (haven't used it for many years).

I always figured this is routine: if you have a bus, the front end has to have some sort of basic mixer to accommodate any number of signals that might be routed to it. If you have a lot of busses, maybe that's a lot of mixers. (whole lotta summin')

[JSmith1234567]

Bringing up one related thing, not necessarily a point but more of a poll?

Adding sub-group busses, for me, has always bogged my projects WAY down.

Do other people have this experience?

I did when working on my 5,1 12 core Cheesegrater. Now, on my M1 Mac Studio, I can bus away to my heart's content and the Mac just purrs along.

I was bitten by DP VCA issues a while back, so have been just bussing; really handy when mixing and creating stems. I currently run all FX Returns to their own bus, but am planning to break out returns on a per-bus level to make stemming more accurate/simpler/quicker.

I think it might be time for me to look at a new Mac Studio.

I realize that my "trashcan" Mac Pro is ten years old now, and running a native DAW in 2023 maybe needs more firepower.

It's reassuring that you are able to do all of these things without problems that I wish I could do.

The zero-percent financing Apple offers really wasn't a huge burden back then, and wouldn't be now either?

[JSmith1234567]

Bringing up one related thing, not necessarily a point but more of a poll?

Adding sub-group busses, for me, has always bogged my projects WAY down.

Do other people have this experience?

I did when working on my 5,1 12 core Cheesegrater. Now, on my M1 Mac Studio, I can bus away to my heart's content and the Mac just purrs along.

I was bitten by DP VCA issues a while back, so have been just bussing; really handy when mixing and creating stems. I currently run all FX Returns to their own bus, but am planning to break out returns on a per-bus level to make stemming more accurate/simpler/quicker.

CanI ask which model Ultra are you running?

[HCMarkus]

I have an M1 Ultra 64G/2TB with the smallest available GPU core count, but am pretty sure the lowliest Apple Silicon Mac would do away with the bus loading issue. And the latest M3 Max (currently Laptop only) scores higher in single- and multi-core Geekbench testing than my Mac Studio, meaning there are now many options available new, refurbished and used, at many different performance levels.

I bought my Mac Studio with the intention of keeping it running my studio for a good long while and was in a position to spend a little more to insure its adequacy. It is probably overkill. Turns out the Ultra's front panel TB port is a really good thing for my setup, as it allows me to reach my interface with a 3m TB cable. I put the Mac in my machine closet with its front facing the back wall, which is the wall that separates the closet from my control room. This way, the 3m TB2 cable reaches comfortably to my 828ES while the power switch and other (fully utilized) ports face the closet door.

If budget is not an issue, go for the gold. If budget IS an issue, buy what you can afford, try it out, and return within Apple's return period if it's weak sauce, then finance something more powerful.

[JSmith1234567]

I have an M1 Ultra 64G/2TB with the smallest available GPU core count, but am pretty sure the lowliest Apple Silicon Mac would do away with the bus loading issue. And the latest M3 Max (currently Laptop only) scores higher in single- and multi-core Geekbench testing than my Mac Studio, meaning there are now many options available new, refurbished and used, at many different performance levels.

I bought my Mac Studio with the intention of keeping it running my studio for a good long while and was in a position to spend a little more to insure its adequacy. It is probably overkill. Turns out the Ultra's front panel TB port is a really good thing for my setup, as it allows me to reach my interface with a 3m TB cable. I put the Mac in my machine closet with its front facing the back wall, which is the wall that separates the closet from my control room. This way, the 3m TB2 cable reaches comfortably to my 828ES while the power switch and other (fully utilized) ports face the closet door.

If budget is not an issue, go for the gold. If budget IS an issue, buy what you can afford, try it out, and return within Apple's return period if it's weak sauce, then finance something more powerful.

Hey thanks!!!