Musings on buses and project organization

Perhaps this should go in the Bakery as it goes in the direction of a feature request but I'd like to get some input or alternative views first. I'm not sure where to start so I'll just start.
 
As we all know, Cakewalk's mixer is based around a traditional console. There are, with a few notable exceptions, basically audio tracks and buses. The great benefit over a traditional console is that you have a virtually unlimited number of them. This means it's a lot easier to use buses freely, compared to a hardware console which might have a limited number like 8 or even 16. This helps with putting FX on groups of tracks, or just grouping similar tracks (backing vocals, guitars, etc.).
 
However, in a modern music production, it's pretty common to have multiple "stages" of buses. For instance, I usually have two buses for my drums to facilitate parallel compression, then another one to sum all drums together. Then I might have another "full band" bus next to a "lead vocal" bus before hitting the "master" bus, etc.
So quite a few layers. Yet there is no real way to organize this visually apart from the order I guess. I think that's something of an anachronism - we have the tracks/buses divider and we have track folders. We have unlimited buses. But no way to show signal flow beyond "tracks first, then buses". 
 
When aux tracks were introduced, people instantly adopted them as "faux buses" - to group a bunch of vocals for instance, and keep the main level adjustment for the group next to the actual tracks. This, to me, shows that there is a common desire for better visual organization, like what I'm looking for. Aux tracks have their own idiosyncracies of course, for instance you can't fast bounce using them because they literally only sum "live" input. Also, input monitoring has to be on at all times on aux tracks if you want to use them in this way. Finally, they only really add one "layer" of routing like I described in the previous paragraph. So when used this way, they're kind of a hack solution for the larger issue.
 
So what I would like to see in future Sonar development is a better way to organize signal flow. There is no real reason for Sonar to be stuck in the fixed mixer paradigm although I understand it's the easiest to comprehend for people starting out. Perhaps the default template would just be the mixer as it is now.
 
1. Custom dividers - this seems the simplest (and most limited) solution. The idea is that you could add simple divider lines at any point in the buses pane. The rest could be done with the order of the buses and you could drag buses and divider lines up and down at will. This way you could put your basic instrument groups at the top, any meta-groups after that, then fx buses, super-meta-groups and the master (or any order you like). It would be clear that all signal (apart from send fx) hits your instrument group buses first, then your meta buses, then your super-meta buses and finally your master.


2. Nested bus folders - I haven't convinced myself entirely that this is a great solution but it has some perks. The idea is you could create bus folders where each folder would have its own fader and its own fx bin. Basically you would keep everything inside the Master folder (with your limiter or SSL bus compressor or whatever), then keep your "band" and "fx" bus folders and "lead vox" bus in there. You would then keep your instrument buses in the "band" bus folder (or have another layer for some groups). I like the idea of having folders with their own bin and fader but I worry it might get fiddly moving things around with lots of layers, not to mention this would seemingly only work in track view, not in the console.
 
3. Option number three... something better, or a combination of these things?

I wonder what all your thoughts are, and if I explained it well enough. It seems pretty technical writing it all down but I think in modern productions many of us run into this stuff, where you have 24 buses and some of them going to other buses which go to other buses... etc.

(nevermind) 

I will try the color thing but intuitively it seems like that would help visualize groups but not signal flow.

Anderton
Use the Mercury theme so you can use colored strips. Group related buses together, then color-code. For example, suppose you have two buses of vocals feeding into a master bus. Make the two buses different shades of green,  bump up the saturation on the master bus, put the master bus to the right or left of the other two buses.
 
Using saturation is tremendously helpful. If I have multiple vocals or guitars with a lead, I saturate the color on the lead but not the others.

This is why I still think it's a howling shortfall that custom themes don't colour tracks in the same way as Mercury. This was a long-standing problem which eventually got solved, was trumpeted as a big update, but is broken in custom themes. Such a completely weird omission.

John T
Side note, not related to the main point.
 

Sanderxpander
Aux tracks have their own idiosyncracies of course, for instance you can't fast bounce using them because they literally only sum "live" input.

You absolutely can. I only ever use fast bounce, and use loads of aux tracks in mixes. Have just double checked this.

Huh I must have been doing something wrong. Still, there are other annoying things - you can only hear what's on the aux bus if you enable monitoring on it (or at least it works that way for me with synths) which messes with plugin delay compensation. Altogether I like aux tracks but they're not the "solution" for my bussing problems.

I guess with a little thought about the GUI you could make folders work in console view too. I just worry you would create more complexity than you solve, when you increase the number of layers. With the basic signal flow going from left to right (tracks/buses/outputs) simple dividers would just add stages but stay logical for everyone used to a "regular" mixer.

Honestly I don't use console view that much in the first place. Most of my adjustments are made in track view through the inspector - while I'm still writing it's usually quick adjustments to single tracks, and while I'm mixing it's mostly automation. It's not that often that I have a whole bunch of tracks that I just need to balance and leave alone for the entire song. But any workflow enhancements should work in both views.