I'm not denying its a clever way to create a bus, and I'm not trying to give Ludwig flak about it.  I just want to know why it is worth the effort when we already have busses built in that do exactly the same...
 
The only advantage I can see is being able to place the bus right next to the group of tracks that are being summed: ie. vox1, vox2, vox3, vox bus, guitar1, guitar2, guitar3, guitar bus.  But then you're mixing your busses in with the tracks, making them harder to find, harder to compare bus levels, etc...
 
I still don't see an advantage.
 
There is an advantage to having all your busses in one place however.  With your main drums, guitars, keys, vocals, FX, etc. busses next to each other you effectively have a sub-mixer that gives an at-a-glance overview of what your mix contains, what is playing and how loud relative to the other sound groups, etc.
 
I realise that is a work flow preference.

What would be nice work flow wise is if there was a "Folder fader" that way you could group the tracks you want together and if you collapse the folder you still have a fader for the rest the tracks. This would work in the TV but not sure how this would work in the console where I do most my mixing.
 
You could also direct the tracks to a bus temporarily and then bounce the bus and import the resulting audio to a new track and place it where you want. Although that would not be very flexible if you needed to tweek the mix on your grouped tracks.
 
Glad you found something that makes you happy.
 

Karyn
The only advantage I can see is being able to place the bus right next to the group of tracks that are being summed: ie. vox1, vox2, vox3, vox bus, guitar1, guitar2, guitar3, guitar bus.  But then you're mixing your busses in with the tracks, making them harder to find, harder to compare bus levels, etc...

They're not harder to find if you know they are right next to the tracks that you send to them. :) And being able to compare bus levels only matters if you know those buses are worth comparing - which some of them won't be, if they just exist to route other things.
 
The way I think about it is that there are 2 types of bus - aux buses, which is where you're using a traditional send and return to add reverb or some other effect that layers on top, and grouping buses, where you gather a bunch of sounds together to try and treat them as a similar sound.
 
If I group all my rhythm guitars or drums into one track folder, it's frustrating that I then have to look somewhere else entirely to control their overall volume via a bus, whereas instruments that don't have their own bus can be controlled in-line in the track section. I could create a bus for every type of instrument... but why? It seems to me that the distinction is arbitrary and that we should be able to route things in and out of whatever tracks we like.
 
This is why I really wish that Sonar would implement a fader and FX bin on track folders, or simply make track folders into buses. That would meet a lot of the desires that people have for buses.

Yes, even if that were the "only" advantage, it's a pretty big one! Best part? If the buses pane were actually kept the same, then you could have both! I'm finding less and less difference in track folders and buses and starting to see them move towards the same thing...or at least being able to have a bus be a track folder as well.

Nice routing trick, it eliminates the bus I use to create for a looper. Now I can keep all the tracks related to the looper in one folder.
 
thanks

scook
Nice routing trick, it eliminates the bus I use to create for a looper. Now I can keep all the tracks related to the looper in one folder.

I thought a looper might be feasible with this, but tried and still couldn't figure out how to get an output back into its own input. Can you describe how you're doing this? I always end up going external and using physical patching. 

Kylotan
This is why I really wish that Sonar would implement a fader and FX bin on track folders, or simply make track folders into buses. That would meet a lot of the desires that people have for buses.

While this doens't solve the problem, I use Take Lanes to do this when I want to apply an effect with a fader to a lot of tracks. Of course the big limitation is that the tracks have the limitations of take lanes, but if all the parts are the same (e.g., massive stacked vocals for choirs), it can work.

I still resorted to an external loopback but the Sonitus Gate eliminates the bus I was using for the loop. For me, the advantage is keeping the tracks associated with the loop in a single folder.

Thanks. Let me know if you ever figure out a way to trick Sonar into feeding back on itself. I understand why the Bakers don't want to allow this, but maybe we could unlock this as a feature if we sign a pledge promising to use this power only for good.

As an alternative, maybe CW should introduce a new Console View (in addition to the existing one) that displays tracks and buses merged together and can be reordered without affecting the order in Track View and normal Console View.  Just an idea.