'Mix buss' versus 'Master'

I can see how this might serve to avoid mastering all together if one wanted to boost and EQ the signal before the master buss to mastering levels.  I've done this myself with good results, yet I like to play with my mastering software, so I'm not quite ready to use this method full time.  But, I'm sure this could be a time saver for many people.

LYNN-
 well, i'm not talking about mastering at all.
 
only about 'routing' schemes during regular mixing.
 
i've always mixed into a master buss compressor, set very lightly, for a bit of 'glue'.
 
but i've always had this set on the 'master' buss, and never gave it much thought beyond that.
 
if you bounce tracks to stereo (as i do with finished mixes), and use the 'What You Hear' bounce route setting, 
i always thought it didn't matter what happened before the 'master' buss, only leading into it.

Rob,  I see where you're coming from.  However, with this much flexibility there are practical applications that can be utilized if one is willing to "break the mold".  I suppose this could open up a can of worms if done haphazardly.

I for the life of me can't figure out what the difference is. I have used a sub bus for various reasons but I don't see how what you call it makes it anything but another bus. 2 bus in Sonar? I could understand if one has an analog mixer.  

John
I for the life of me can't figure out what the difference is. I have used a sub bus for various reasons but I don't see how what you call it makes it anything but another bus. 2 bus in Sonar? I could understand if one has an analog mixer.  

 
Different workflow for different people & situations.
 As long as your source mix comes out the way you want to hear it it doesn't matter what what you call them or how you have your projects set up.
 
For me it's easy. The 2 bus does any final processing ( w/ possible fader adjustments. ) The Master bus has tools & the fader never gets adjusted.

ceemusic
 The Master bus has tools & the fader never gets adjusted.

Pretty much the same here. "A" always has a brick wall on it set to -.01 dB
and then finally a Klanghelm VUMT meter.
The one right before A always has a multi-band compressor on it.

I've seen posts saying it's better to not have processing etc on a master bus (the Sonar master bus) as that could cause problems or unwanted things happening, the posts mentioned the master bus was not handling 100% /not designed for processing and it would be better to have nothing on there and the fader at 0 as that bus would be 'talking' to the soundcard directly and the last stage in the chain.
I have no proof/backup of this but then agian I don't see any negative side to having that clean/zero master bus in Sonar. Afaik it would not have any affect having 1 extra master bus.
hope this helps a little somehow

I've got a thread asking just about the same question as I'm struggling with my tried and true method of I've always used the multi band LP64 in the Master's Bin. I use it to check how my frequencies are behaving and then often turn it off as I'm not sure having it there is a good idea. 
I can see putting it in a Pre Master Buss might be less scary but then again I'm not sure this would change anything at all.
The Master buss is nothing special. It's just another source to the audio outputs.
You can send a track directly to your outputs.
Matter of fact I've had plenty of projects that had no Master by default and adding the Master and re routing the tracks made zero difference to the sound.
 

Steve_Karl
My reason for keeping the master "A" bus clean is to be able to accurately read RMS using the Klanghelm VUMT meter. I'll be getting an LUFS meter soon I suspect.

that makes sense.
 

it forces unnecessary math.
if nothing else,
more busses than necessary, could degrade the audio.
yes?

A bus is a bus is a bus, whether you call it "Master" or "Submix" or "Pumpkin Pie". It's a logical summing node, that's all.
 
I can think of no good reason to have a main mix bus that feeds into a "master" bus. In analog days I'd advise against it for the noise considerations. But in the digital realm there's really no downside, other than making your routing more complicated than necessary. There's just no benefit, either.
 
My standard setup is to route drums to a drum bus, which is then sent to an Instruments bus along with every other instrument. A separate vox bus is the destination for vocals. Having separate busses for instruments and vocals allows me to automate them independently, e.g. bringing all instruments up 1-2 dB when there's no singing and then backing it down during the vocals. An alternate trick is to apply a compressor to the instruments bus, with the lead vocal as its sidechain input.
 
If you're adventurous, it can be fun to apply effects to the instruments bus. Try a tremolo plugin there, synced to the project tempo. Or a flanger (think "Itchycoo Park"). When I do that sort of thing, I sometimes route the drum bus straight into the master, leaving drums unaffected.

bitflipper
But in the digital realm there's really no downside, other than making your routing more complicated than necessary. There's just no benefit, either.

redundant post!

bitflipper
 But in the digital realm there's really no downside, other than making your routing more complicated than necessary. There's just no benefit, either.

 

Everyone seems to work differently so I'll say for me, there is benefit ~~~
I don't mind complicated routing. It's all visible right there in front of me to see.

With a VUMT and brick wall on the "A" bus set to -0.1dB, and the vol. fader (in splat) set to zero, everything works fine.
Once I start changing that fader volume with an envelope, especially going into the +dB range, the brick wall is broken and doesn't contain peaks predictably below -0.1dB.
I learned this at the beginning of using X3e.

That is ~one~ of the reasons why I always have the seconday (or more sub MASTER/Summing) bus(s) before the "A".
The reason I call the first one "Conductor" is that I often use it to do long term dynamics (vol. envelope) in some pieces. I also always have a multi-band compressor on the Conductor bus.

Putting a multi-band on "A" is not as reliable because I most always fine tune the global multi-band compression near the end of the mix and then need to re-level my final output.
Easily done, once again with the gain fader on Conductor, but not reliable doing it on the "A" bus
because it often messes up the brick wall hold back at -0.1dB.

Why do I want to change the volume of everything at the same time, and in different ways throughout the piece and do it simply and quickly?
To have total control over what I'd call 'long term dynamics.'

Giving a volume swell, or decrescendo, for the whole orchestra, (or any band configuration) more range ... or less ... making that quiet section slightly less or slightly more quiet - making sure the long term peaks
( 2 bar crescendo for instance ) have the build up that I want,
the exact slope that want -
With that Conductor bus I can shape the long term dynamics quickly
and very much quicker than trying to do it one section bus at a time.

The brick wall on "A" can be hit a little bit hard and still everything goes no louder than -0.1dB for peaks and everything sounds fine as long as I don't hit it too hard.
That is NOT the case if I push the Vol. fader up on the "A" bus. It breaks the brick wall.

I can see if the Conductor gets a RED peak but no problem there. It still sounds clean.
If I want to make sure the piece has its full dynamic range, I can nudge down the gain slider on "Conductor" and let it breathe a little more making sure it might only hit 0 once or twice, or I can let it be bouncing into the +5 or +8 dB range occasionally, and everything still is ok. Maybe a bit hot for RMS ... but still ok.

Then finally if I want to fine tune my RMS output, say to as close to -11.5 dB as possible ... (Klanghelm VUMT)
... once again I just fuss with the Gain slider on the Conductor bus and it's easy as pie to get it fine tuned.

An other added BIG perk is one more stage of 4 band EQ in the ProChannel.
Using the pro channel EQ on the "A" bus messes up the brick wall.
I've also added, at times, a summing bus before the Conductor to get >>> 4 more bands of EQ,
or after the Conductor bus, in the case of one piece, where I couldn't get enough output.
I called it "Boost to A" and well, I also got >>> 4 more bands of EQ in ProChannel.

For "pop" style music it's generally the same. Fine tuning the sections of the song.
Added final EQ (or 2 or 3) for smoothing etc.

So, obviously everyone works differently.
I find using the extra busses right under "A" much more time effecient when dealing with big projects.

very interesting discussion guys, thanks.

Yes very interesting stuff. I saw no use at all for the pre master buss, now after reading Steve Karl I think I'm going to try this. It might be what I WAS looking for.
It has always been the issue for me .
You get the mix sounding perfect only to find your waay to close to danger in the low and low mid's.
You end up in an endless cycle of adding EQ to tracks ( or busses) and pulling faders down and trashing what you had happening. So you reach for a  limiter and now your dynamics are squashed... be nice to control this at the Buss stage.  
I was going to try setting the LP 64 Multi band to have narrower frequency ranges for only the lower frequencies and let the Hi mid, Hi's alone.