Edit: Duplicate post courtesy of IE9.
 

Beepster


After seeing how routing is done in Pro Tools I am very happy with the way things work in Sonar. Sure there could be a little extra flexibility but the PT way just seems crazy/unnecessarily confusing to me. I like having a the very defined and obvious difference between tracks and busses in Sonar. Mind you I've never worked with analog aside from little cassette based multi trackers so I'm assuming PT is a little more similar to how things used to be in older studios.

I have used analog mixers and they are not very flexible. I prefer digital mixers and they also have flexibility problems. Most mixers have a set number of buses. I'm not too sure about the  remark about analog consoles from WDI. I suppose that the very expensive ones may have that ability. None of the ones one would use in a project studio or at home in general have that ability. Most mixers describe in their name the amount of tracks and buses they support.

 

My main issue is because I'm dealing with multiple clones of guitar tracks (so they can be panned left/right) those get grouped. Then there is multiple vocals which need to be grouped and have their own FX busses. Because the drums were recorded with a four mic set up (kick, snare, two overheads) they need some particular attention. I'm going to be using samples to beef up the kick and snare so each of those will be at least two track each so they are both getting their own bus. The overheads get a bus and because I'll be creating a clone of both OHs to create a tom focused set of tracks those will get a bus as well. All drums get routed out to the main drum bus and maybe a dedicated delay/reverb and compression bus. If I decide to go with "New York" compression on the kick/snare that might be an extra two busses as well. Then I have a pre master bus to do overall tweaks on EQ/compression/etc so I can keep the Master as uncluttered as possible. There is more stuff I'm considering as well but I'll see how things progress as I move forward. So yeah... kind of complicated bussing but if I had to mix with just the tracks it would be a nightmare. That's how I was doing things before and trying to keep the clones/doubles/etc in sync with each other was an ultra pain and I always ended up missing something somewhere. After seeing a few of those Groove3 vids and reading up a bit more I realized that I shouldn't be stingy with my busses if there is a legit reason for them. Just glad my brain is able to visualize this type of complex routing now because before I was like a monkey trying to fly an F-15. lol

I will usually have a bus for vox, guitar, bass, drum, backing vox, keys, 2 reverb, 2 delay, chorus and an FX master bus for all FX. My starting template has these buses and I delete what I end up not needing.

Tracks go to master, unless there  is a reason for me to route them to a bus.  Drums, bus.  Guitars - yea, I like the ssl bus comp on a collection of guitars.  Vocals - usually for the same ssl reason along w/ reverb (delay usually goes on the track).  It is a per track agenda, or combined as said above.  It is what the instruments call for.

There is no right or wrong, just a style you develop.  If you want the same reverb wash on stuff, use a send.  If you want most of the guitars to make a wash, bus comp.  It is technical, not strategic.

@

My templates are set up pretty much like Jimbos.

But I can get pretty anal with drums - I'll sometimes split out the Toms (up to 6) to a Toms buss, I'll have as many as 3 Kick Tracks courtesy of BFD2 (Kick Mic in, Kick mic out, Sub) and assign these to a kick bus. Then route the outputs of these busses to an overalll drums bus

It might seem overkill but it makes balancing the entire kit fairly straightforward and of course there are tons of things you can do with each sub-buss.

Learning about how to set up reverb and delay busses to react to the project tempo and overall mix instead of applying it directly to tracks was a very interesting and eye opening part of my studies. It really gave me a huge insight not only about reverb and delay but bus routing in general. I'm very much looking forward to playing around with these concepts. As always guys you've cast aside some doubt for me here. I am moving forward with my current routing set up (track output to appropriate bus and sends on tracks as needed) and creating a rough mix so I can edit and then overdub with everything audible without blowing out my ears. Thanks again but by all means keep sharing. Always cool to see how others do stuff. Cheers.

Ok, if you want more.

I have a headphone buss, it's outputs are routed to channels 3/4 of my interface and from thereto a headphone distribution amp, via my desk

Now, each buss has a SEND to the headphone buss so you can easily control the relative level of what goes to the phones buss, creating a very rough dedicated mix.

But you must avoid inserting the send on any buss which feeds not to the master, but to another buss, much like my toms buss > drums buss.

If you insert it on both you'll get a doubling up of the volume from the toms because it's being processed twice. This sound really complicated to write but in practice it's extremely intuitive.

I always route logically grouped tracks to a bus, and then route that bus to a master. That way I can apply some very light compression, eq etc across that bus (if required) prior to sending to a master bus. Makes the life of the master bus compressor a little easier as the rouge peaks should have been addressed. Parallel compression, fx and the like I route to send buses, and mix to taste.

Track outputs to Master unless I'm grouping instruments, which I do frequently so then all drums output to drum buss, guitars to guitar buss, etc etc.

Group busses then either go direct to my sub-master - (outputs to none) that just splits left and right channels via sends to sub master left and sub-master right which both output to the master buss. That gives me more controls over left and right channels if I want it (rarely do TBH).

Occasionally drum buss will output to a backline buss which is where bass tracks usually output to as well. I'll sometimes use a frontline buss as well. Depends on the project, instruments, how I'm feeling, the weather outside and other important considerations