Best way to set up mix, Buses, Outputs,

VOCALS
 I am sending all of the vocals to a Stereo bus called Vocals.  That would have all of the vocals, lead and background going to it.  That way I can control all of the vocals with that one overall fader.

Bristol_Jonesey
The only thing I would change would be the destination from your Fx buss - route that one to your master buss

Razorwit
Hi fads,
One quick note: unless you're doing some kind of parallel processing, the VC-64, compressor, and probably HF Exciter likely should be insert FX as opposed to sends. Those are generally 100% wet effects so using a send is the wrong choice there unless you're doing something in parallel.
 
Dean

Razorwit
Hi fads,
It doesn't matter if those FX are on channels or buses, the distinction is whether they are Send FX or Inserts. When you route to an FX send you are sending copy of the signal to a bus and it will eventually be mixed back into the original. So you'll end up hearing both the original AND the output of the effect. That works fine for some effects like reverb or delay, but generally speaking for effects like compression and EQ we only want to hear the output of the effect. For example, if I put an EQ on a signal to remove some unwanted frequencies, I want to use that as an insert instead of a send, because if I end up hearing a combination of the original signal and the effected signal I didn't really remove that unwanted frequency. Same thing applies to compression, de-essing, and (usually) to HF exciters.
 
The exception here is parallel processing. A common technique is to take an signal/track and use a send to create a duplicate of that signal (a "parallel path") which you then use heavy effects on and mix back into the original. Do a bit of research on New York Style compression for a good example.
 
Dean
 
 

SDCyclist

fads

Bristol_Jonesey
The only thing I would change would be the destination from your Fx buss - route that one to your master buss

OK, but the reason I didn't is because if I mute the vocal bus, the effects from the vocals are still present at the master output.  Maybe i am still doing something wrong?

I don't know if this would be considered "common" but I find it helpful. I route ALL of my FX Busses (typically something like...  LVox Verb, BVox Verb, L INST VERB, BG INST Verb, Glue Verb, Delay 1/4, Delay 1/8, Delay Slap etc...) to a "WET" Bus. All other tracks go to "DRY" bus. Then both of those are in turn routed to my master or sub-master BUS. This allows me to quickly A/B the DRY and DRY+WET sounds. It also allows me to mute all the DRY signals so that I can evaluate and "mix" my "space" as a separate entity without affecting any of my DRY signals. I also often split the Reverbs and Delays to  ALL VERB and ALL DELAY buses before sending them to the WET bus.
 
It sounds like you are on the right track. Just keep practicing and when you have one of those "Gee, it would be really nice or helpful if I could just do that" moments, stop and figure out a way to do it. That and use reference mixes all the time. Most people don't get just how quickly our ears adjust and our brains start lying to us about what we are hearing without something to reference.  
 
Lee