All,
Wonder what wisdom you can shed on routing of buses. When I use a send from a track or tracks to an FX or parallel compression bus, I usually output that bus directly to the Master... Would it be smart to send it from said bus to another bus(e.g., a vox bus or instrument bus) in addition to routing its output to the Master, or is it best to just route the bus directly to another bus??
 
Hope I am making sense here...
 
I know there are many situations which might require different routing, but I was just interested in some scenarios.
Thanks and salud!

I group everything into buses:  vocals to a vocal bus, guitars to a guitar bus, bass to a bass bus (even if there is only one bass track), drums to drum track, etc.
 
The reason:  I automate the volume on the individual tracks.  Then if I decdie, for example, that I need more or less strings, or need the string section to fade out, I can do that with the bus instead of messing up all the volume automation on all the individual string tracks. I may have the mix finished, but decided I need more drums, or less drums.
 
Another use: when a singer is recording, I can pull the instrument buses down so she can hear herslef without messing up my mix. That's one reason the bass has a bus even if it's just one track and doesn't have a lot of automation.

I would send an FX buss (or aux) to the same buss that I have the main instrument going to.  If the vocals are going to a Vocals Buss, and I am sending to a compressor Buss, i'd send the compressor Buss to the Vocals Buss.
That way, if I adjust the volume of the Vocals Buss, the compression is consistent. 

Hi. I do the same as Konrad (for the same reasons).
Each instrument type and vocals (even background vocals) goes to their own bus.
Buses are routed to Master, which is routed to my Audio Interface Main Outs.
All the best.

All excellent ideas... Thanks!   So, when you are mixing in console view (if that's how you do it), do you use track manager to hide the individual tracks in order to avoid clutter, or do you just use the scroll bar at the bottom.  Seems like you wouldn't need the individual tracks if you were happy with the automation...
 
Thx...
 
 

I also use sends for a parallel compression bus.
Then I blend them to taste.
In other words, create a send on every drum track you want parallel compression.
Then send that to new Parallel Compression drum bus. Then route the outputs of your drums to a bus called Drum bus.
Now you have two buses. 1= drums output / 2- drum sends. Put compression on the sends track and use the bus fader and sends to achieve desired effect.

Thanks...
Would there ever be a case where you would use a send from a bus to a second bus and also output the second bus to the master?
 
Edit:   Just read slugbaby's post again and it answered the question, but does the Compressor bus also go to the master in addition to being sent to the Vocal bus??

Here's a short blog explaining Chuck Approach (I think) http://mix-engineer.blogspot.com/2011/07/new-york-parallel-compression-technique.html
 
I think it depends of how many buses you are using, and how much parallel compression you do. If you have a lot going on, sending both the drum buss and the paralell drum buss to to a further buss makes sense. But if it's not so busy, adding that extra buss is just causing clutter, and not helping it. 
 
Since many compressors have a mix knob now, then most parallel compression happens in the track for me, so it's mainly just the drums that get a separate parallel bus, and then if I don't want one half to be completely clean (light compression) and the other heavy compression, or I want further processing on the parallel bus (say distortion and EQ).
 
 

bokchoyboy
Thanks...
Would there ever be a case where you would use a send from a bus to a second bus and also output the second bus to the master?
 
Edit:   Just read slugbaby's post again and it answered the question, but does the Compressor bus also go to the master in addition to being sent to the Vocal bus??

bokchoyboy
Thanks...
Would there ever be a case where you would use a send from a bus to a second bus and also output the second bus to the master?
 
Edit:   Just read slugbaby's post again and it answered the question, but does the Compressor bus also go to the master in addition to being sent to the Vocal bus??

There is nothing stopping from, say, inserting a send from a delay bus to a reverb bus. This means only the delays have reverb added to the signal rather than the main track that's feeding it, which can mean you introduce a bit more clarity into your mixes.

bokchoyboy
 
Edit:   Just read slugbaby's post again and it answered the question, but does the Compressor bus also go to the master in addition to being sent to the Vocal bus??

The Compressor Buss would go to the Vocal Buss, along with the Vocal Audio Track.  The Vocal Buss would output to the Master, so everything that goes into that buss ends up at the Master.
 
To clarify the Sending vs Output verbage:
 
Vocal Audio Track:  Output to Vocal Buss, Send to Compressor Buss.
Compressor Buss:  Output to Vocal Buss, no Sends
Vocal Buss:  Output to Master Buss, no Sends.
 
 That's just an example of a singer and parallel compression.