I'm just trying to get to grips with the bussing in this template.

It looks fairly straight forward to me -
SUB MASTER BUS sending to both MIX LEFT and MIX RIGHT
MIX LEFT and MIX RIGHT being routed to the MASTER OUT
MASTER OUT going to the main outs of my Firewire 410 outputs

The confusion I'm having is that the SUB MASTER BUS has sends to MIX LEFT and MIX RIGHT, but also appears to output directly to the Firewire 410 outs. Is this a mistake, or is it my misuderstanding of how busses work?

Thanks,
Stuart.

ORIGINAL: jamjar

The confusion I'm having is that the SUB MASTER BUS has sends to MIX LEFT and MIX RIGHT, but also appears to output directly to the Firewire 410 outs. Is this a mistake, or is it my misuderstanding of how busses work?

Thanks,
Stuart.

Notice that the Submaster Bus has its volume fader all the way down, so it's not sending any signals to the audio interface. The signal is only being routed to the Mix L/R through the use of Sends set to Pre-Fader. From there it goes to the Master Bus and finally to your audio interface. You can set the Submaster's output to 'None" if you want to and it won't affect the results, except you'll get the annoying message saying that the Submaster Bus has no output routing everytime you open this project.

HTH

ORIGINAL: Jose7822

ORIGINAL: jamjar

The confusion I'm having is that the SUB MASTER BUS has sends to MIX LEFT and MIX RIGHT, but also appears to output directly to the Firewire 410 outs. Is this a mistake, or is it my misuderstanding of how busses work?

Thanks,
Stuart.

Notice that the Submaster Bus has its volume fader all the way down, so it's not sending any signals to the audio interface. The signal is only being routed to the Mix L/R through the use of Sends set to Pre-Fader. From there it goes to the Master Bus and finally to your audio interface. You can set the Submaster's output to 'None" if you want to and it won't affect the results, except you'll get the annoying message saying that the Submaster Bus has no output routing everytime you open this project.

HTH

OK, this makes perfect sense now.

However, it begs one question - does Sonar interpret this as "routing disabled" or as "route the audio data stream, but with volume zero"? The former is what you would hope would happen, but if it is the latter then I think I'd rather turn it off and put up with the warning message whilst (maybe) saving a bit of overhead.

Of course, this assumes that I understand the way that this system works (which is a BIG assumption!).

Thanks,
Stuart.

That's a good question, and I hope I can answer it correctly.

First thing you have to understand is that sends are nothing more than extra outputs you add to a Track or a Bus. For example, you have Track 1 who's output is being routed to the Master Bus (and from there to the soundcard). Then you insert a send in Track 1 and point it to the Reverb Bus (which also outputs to the Master Bus). What happens here is that the audio from Track 1 is being sent to both the Master Bus (via the regular output of this track) and to the Reverb Bus (via the send you inserted). So it's like you added another pair of outputs to Track 1. This is aking to using a Y-cable on a guitar to split its signal, except we're talking about Stereo Routing (unless you use Mono Buses). So far so good?

Alright, so in JA's template, the Submaster Bus is receiving everything and splitting it into two mono signals that go to Busses 'MixL' and 'MixR' via sends. From there the two hard panned mono signals are brought back together to the Master Bus, which outputs to your soundcard. Turning the Submaster' volume up would be like sending everything that's going into this Bus twice to your soundcard: once from its output (since it's set to output to the Soundcard) and once again from both MixL/R sends (which again, send the signal to the Master and finally to your soundcard). This is why the volume on the Submaster Bus is turned down and the sends are set to Pre-Fader so that you can do that. Otherwise, if set to Post-Fader, you would get everything twice to the Master Bus.

Use Post-Fader when you wanna blend two signals together (i.e. when using FX Busses). This is why you set the Bus FX to 100% wet, so that you can blend the direct signal with the wet signal without adding another layer of direct signal. It effectively becomes a MIX control like those found on FX plugins. You use Pre-fader when you want to route audio and ignore the Bus fader (i.e. on Headphone mixes or JA's crazy routing scheme :-P). In the case of headphone mixes, having sends set to Pre-fader enables you to adjust the volume of different tracks without affecting the overal balance of the mix. This way you can have a mix where the drums are louder than everything else so that the Bass player can lay his track, but the mix coming from the Master Bus is intact. In the case of JA's template, setting the sends of MixL/R to Pre-Fader enables him to split the signal without adding extra signal from the Submaster Bus to the final output.

The best way to understand Pre and Post is to experiment with it. Try this:

- Load JA's template and turn the Submaster's volume up to unity gain (0dB); The overall sound should be louder.

- Now set the MixL and MixR sends to Post-Fader; You should hear no change in volume.

- Turn the volume of the Submaster Bus back down to -Infinity; You hear silence.

- Change the sends back to Pre-Fader; Volume is back to normal.



HTH

Thanks Jonas for the Tips!



This with MS to Stereo-Sub buss with help of Pre-sends to the MasterBUS makes a big different in Stereo-Wide! Great, thanks!
A great trick with out any Stereo Wider. It the same technical MS you can find in old Compressors like example Fairchild 670 compressor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2FKNiwEFXU&feature=related


Regards
Freddie

Jonas' template link isn't working for me ... is it just me?

It's working here with Internet Explorer 8. Which Browser are you using? Try switching browsers if using something different.

ORIGINAL: mwall

Jonas' template link isn't working for me ... is it just me?

Just checked, working here.

Jon

I get nothing when using Safari, Firefox or Opera on my Mac. Will have to try it on my PC/IE when I get home. Thanks.

ORIGINAL: Jose7822

That's a good question, and I hope I can answer it correctly.

First thing you have to understand is that sends are nothing more than extra outputs you add to a Track or a Bus. For example, you have Track 1 who's output is being routed to the Master Bus (and from there to the soundcard). Then you insert a send in Track 1 and point it to the Reverb Bus (which also outputs to the Master Bus). What happens here is that the audio from Track 1 is being sent to both the Master Bus (via the regular output of this track) and to the Reverb Bus (via the send you inserted). So it's like you added another pair of outputs to Track 1. This is aking to using a Y-cable on a guitar to split its signal, except we're talking about Stereo Routing (unless you use Mono Buses). So far so good?

Alright, so in JA's template, the Submaster Bus is receiving everything and splitting it into two mono signals that go to Busses 'MixL' and 'MixR' via sends. From there the two hard panned mono signals are brought back together to the Master Bus, which outputs to your soundcard. Turning the Submaster' volume up would be like sending everything that's going into this Bus twice to your soundcard: once from its output (since it's set to output to the Soundcard) and once again from both MixL/R sends (which again, send the signal to the Master and finally to your soundcard). This is why the volume on the Submaster Bus is turned down and the sends are set to Pre-Fader so that you can do that. Otherwise, if set to Post-Fader, you would get everything twice to the Master Bus.

Use Post-Fader when you wanna blend two signals together (i.e. when using FX Busses). This is why you set the Bus FX to 100% wet, so that you can blend the direct signal with the wet signal without adding another layer of direct signal. It effectively becomes a MIX control like those found on FX plugins. You use Pre-fader when you want to route audio and ignore the Bus fader (i.e. on Headphone mixes or JA's crazy routing scheme :-P). In the case of headphone mixes, having sends set to Pre-fader enables you to adjust the volume of different tracks without affecting the overal balance of the mix. This way you can have a mix where the drums are louder than everything else so that the Bass player can lay his track, but the mix coming from the Master Bus is intact. In the case of JA's template, setting the sends of MixL/R to Pre-Fader enables him to split the signal without adding extra signal from the Submaster Bus to the final output.

The best way to understand Pre and Post is to experiment with it. Try this:

- Load JA's template and turn the Submaster's volume up to unity gain (0dB); The overall sound should be louder.

- Now set the MixL and MixR sends to Post-Fader; You should hear no change in volume.

- Turn the volume of the Submaster Bus back down to -Infinity; You hear silence.

- Change the sends back to Pre-Fader; Volume is back to normal.

Brilliant, thanks Jose - you defintely speak my language!!!! In other words, cut through the jargon and just give me a simple example that teaches me exactly what you're talking about.

Well done and thanks