hi everyone, this is a basic question that i'm quite sure most of you will find annoying however, i'm going to ask anyway. I have routed all my drums to a bus, but, when I solo the kick and route it to the main output (bypass the bus) I like the way it sounds, however, when I route it to the bus I loose the EQ I put on the kick.
so I guess my question is, why even use a bus?
I don't have a lot of effects on the individual pieces so I don't understand why I would send them to a bus which will have effects.
does that make any sense?
thanks  

Output the track to a bus, not a send.

 

If you are routing correctly you shouldn't lose the EQ. A bus simply combines signals. So having all your drums on one bus allows you to do things like fade them all up or down at once, add compression to the overall drum mix etc. It won't change the sound at all.

when I route it to the bus I loose the EQ I put on the kick

 
If you have the EQ on the bus and not the track, this is exactly what you would expect.
Move the EQ to the track.
 

You've got two different questions/issues going on here. While you never need to use a buss if you don't want to, there are lots of good and sound reasons to use them. 
 
But before we get to that, lets tackle the bigger issue which is the eq deal. When everything is set up properly (and all faders/levels are equal), there is absolutely no audible difference between routing a channel to a buss vs routing it directly to Master or directly to the output port of your interface. So if you're soloing the channel and it seems to lose eq when pushed through a buss, there is more to the story going on here.
 
How are you routing everything? Where is the eq that you seem to be losing placed? What effects if any are on the buss?  What effects if any are on the Master?

ok, i should have made myself clearer (more clear?) anyway, instead of EQ i should have said effects. @GOSTABO that is another thing i'm mystified about. the relationship between SEND and where something is routed to.
my main concern is, if i have an effect on the snare and use both SEND TO DRUM BUS and (at the bottom of the strip) output to the drum bus. 
somehow the effect i used on the snare seems to get lost or buried when i solo the drum bus.
i've been reading and watching tutorials on SENDS, but i'm having a hard time understanding the benefits/drawbacks of them.
i know for most of you this is recording 101. however, if i don't ask i won't know. 

"Send" is generally used to route a copy of the signal to an FX bus, eg a bus with a reverb.
 
"main track out" is the routing for the final output of a track, either direct to Main, or to a bus (sub group would be a better term to use here).  Route main track output for all your drum channels to a "Drums Bus" to apply the same EQ, compression, FX, etc to the entire drumkit and control the overall level of the drums.
 

Ok now we're getting somewhere. When you route a channel somewhere (i.e. select an output destination at the bottom of the channel strip), that is where all the output of that particular channel goes. Everything, or in certain cases almost everything post fader is going to go to what is selected at the bottom on the channel strip. Those certain cases mentioned in the previous sentence would be cases where a aux send is used.
 
Aux stands for auxiliary which for our purposes here, means 'in addition to'. So an aux send is creating an additional output for the signal. Now some portion of the signal goes out the aux send and some portion ALSO goes out the channel output. 
 
For effects like EQ, I use the effects rack inserts because I want all the signal processed. For effects like reverb or delay, I also use effects rack insert most of the time. This way any output of that channel sounds the same no matter what. This method works perfectly in cases where the reverb/delay/etc is set and never needs to change throughout the song. But sometimes you want the reverb to change. Lets say I want a little bit of reverb on the snare during most of the song but I want a lot of reverb on it during the bridge section. 
 
This is where I'd set up the reverb as an aux send. Create a new audio channel and put my reverb in the effects bin. Then add an aux send to the snare and patch the output of that send to the input of my reverb channel. Now I've got a knob that I can easily automate and I can 'send' a little bit of snare for most of the song, but then turn up the knob and 'send' more snare to the reverb during bridge of the song. Patch the output of the reverb channel (bottom the channel strip) to the same bus as the rest of your drums and everything should be seamless.

i can't tell you guys how much your suggestions/advice/guidance has cleared up this for me. i've already done a few things and now things are moving along nicely.
thank so much again
jp

I've returned. I have 4 vox tracks. I made a vox bus then I put the output (bottom of strip) to that bus. on that bus I inserted 2 effects. questions follow.
i'm still not sure of the sends. when the blue light is lit it's post fader. which fader is it, is it the main fader or the knob that's on the send. how do I blend the tracks with the bus with the FX on it? also,
I want to put an effect on 1 vox track. and not have it effected by whats in the bus, do I simply change the output to the main?