Subject:Solo when using buses ?
Posted by: alltheseworlds
Date:5/22/2006 8:32:38 PM
The solo function works great until you start using buses. Then, when you try to solo a track you still get everything that's sending anything to a bus. Eventually, when you have a lot of track ssending signal to a lot of buses, the solo function ceases to have any great effectiveness. In fact I'm find it impossible to solo anything. So how can you solo a single track - and hear it with its bus effects - without hearing everything else on that same bus as well ? |
Subject:RE: Solo when using buses ?
Reply by: JohnnyRoy
Date:5/23/2006 12:47:57 PM
You are doing this correctly. When you solo a track you should only hear that track regardless of what else it shares a bus with. Are you sure you don’t have more than one track selected? This would solo them all together. Are you sure you are not soloing the bus? What you want should happen just as you expect. ~jr |
Subject:RE: Solo when using buses ?
Reply by: Iacobus
Date:5/23/2006 1:50:02 PM
Ditto what JohnnyRoy said; any track you solo should be all by itself even if several tracks are routed to the same bus. The only time I could think of for hearing another track's FX is if the track (or tracks) in question are assigned to an assignable FX chain with the "pre volume" setting selected. Iacobus |
Subject:RE: Solo when using buses ?
Reply by: alltheseworlds
Date:5/23/2006 4:10:26 PM
Well then this is sure to be "user error", but I can't imagine what I'm doing wrong. I have about audio 40 tracdks, at least 30 of which have some amount of signal routed to one of six buses. I'm using the drop-down selecter in each track to choose the bus and selecting the amount sent to the bus with the multi-purpose slider. Note that I'm not using the little "square in a square" icon next to the track record button, just the multipurpose slider.. Nothing is muted or soloed anywhere else in the project. When I hit the "!" to solo a track I can see the level indicators on all the bus tracks in the mixer are still playing at their usual level. However, any track that is NOT sending anything to a bus is muted. So the problem is definitely with the buses. Is there some preference I've missed ? The performance of the app and the solo & mute functions seems in all ways normal - greyed out tracks etc Any further ideas most appreciated .... |
Subject:RE: Solo when using buses ?
Reply by: jumbuk
Date:5/23/2006 4:26:43 PM
Are you saying you have 6 assignable FX buses? And you are using the FX sliders to send a variable signal from your tracks to the FX buses? Then, when you solo a track, all the other tracks are muted (which is what should happen - that is what solo does)? Not sure I understand what you are doing. Perhaps a bit more explanation? |
Subject:RE: Solo when using buses ?
Reply by: alltheseworlds
Date:5/23/2006 4:41:11 PM
Yes jumbuk, that's exactly what I'm doing ! :-) I have six busses and am putting a little bit here and there across about 30 audio channels. So for example: Track 1 main volume slider: -43 busA: 0.5dB busB: 1dB busC: - 3db Track 2 main volume slider: -20 busA: 1db busB: -2dB busC: inf busD: 3dB etc Now, if I solo track 2 I'm still hearing all the bus amounts from track A, and all the buses in the mixer are still happily playing. Multiply this by 30 audio tracks and you can see that soloing a track has virtually no effect... |
Subject:RE: Solo when using buses ?
Reply by: H2000
Date:5/23/2006 6:18:08 PM
You have your sends as "pre volume" (which is also pre solo). you need to right click on the send slider and set it to post volume. However, this may change your send levels depending on where the track volume fader is, so you may have to readjust. |
Subject:RE: Solo when using buses ?
Reply by: jumbuk
Date:5/23/2006 7:20:13 PM
Are you using assignable FX buses or additional buses that you are treating like assignable FX? If all you are doing is using the additional buses for FX, you should be using assignable FX. They should solo properly. |
Subject:RE: Solo when using buses ?
Reply by: alltheseworlds
Date:5/23/2006 7:43:10 PM
Thanks H2000, that was it ! But this is all extremely interesting. The manual advises selecting the bus from the drop-down menu and then using the track value slider as a "dry" amount, and that seems an excellent way of getting a wet/dry mix. But to do this you have to send as "pre-volume". But, as my original problem shows, if you do this you lose the ability to solo the track. Now though, by switching the send to "post-volume", I lose the ability to have the track and mutli-purpose sliders as dry/wet sliders on the track. The track volume has to be up to send some signal through to the bus. So does that mean I always get that track volume amount as a default "dry" amount no matter what's happening on the bus ? if, for example, busA has a reverb with 100% wet out, then do I get the track volume + reverb out as the final output ? Or is the track volume in this instance just an "internal" send amount to the bus ? In that case I'd get the wet/dry mix according to whatever the effect unit was set to... I'm still (obviously) confused about buses, but I think I'm slowly getting there with the help of the good folks on the forum :-) |
Subject:RE: Solo when using buses ?
Reply by: alltheseworlds
Date:5/23/2006 8:11:03 PM
Jumbuk, thanks for the thought. I'm using effects on a bus. In the old days I used to just route a track to a bus using the little "square in a square" icon next to the track record icon. That way I used to load up four buses with multplie effects and each track would simply be routed to one bus. It worked well enough for my purposes, but not too flexible. When I discovered using the dropdown for different bus levels it was great, but has led to these new problems. "Assignable effect chains" are just another swilring mysery - I can't see what I get from them that I can't get from a bus. Also, in what situation would I use the little "square in a square" icon to route the track to a bus ? Why wouldn't I use the dropdown ? With all this fluffiung I'm starting to think maybe my old way using the "square" icon and just a single bus choice per track was in fact quite good. I wrote songs, the clients were happy and I just fumbled onward... I wish the manual had a much bigger "philosophical" explanation of buses, effect chains and pre and post sends. There's simply too many choices for me to know which one I should use. I just want to find one good, flexible setup, stick to that with everything and write music. Message last edited on5/23/2006 8:14:58 PM byalltheseworlds. |
Subject:RE: Solo when using buses ?
Reply by: jumbuk
Date:5/23/2006 8:42:22 PM
"Assignable effect chains" are just another swilring mysery - I can't see what I get from them that I can't get from a bus. - They are just the equivalent of send FX on a hardware mixer. They are automatically routed to the main out. Also, in what situation would I use the little "square in a square" icon to route the track to a bus ? Why wouldn't I use the dropdown ? - The most obvious use is for creating groups (like on a hardware mixer). Another use might be for creating monitor mixes. I wish the manual had a much bigger "philosophical" explanation of buses, effect chains and pre and post sends. There's simply too many choices for me to know which one I should use. I just want to find one good, flexible setup, stick to that with everything and write music. - Most music software uses the hardware mixer paradigm because that is what the majority of users were familiar with when software first came in. What we are seeing now is users (like yourself, maybe) for whom the hardware analogy doesn't help much. For me, the Acid setup is pretty obvious. Assignable FX are the old FX sends that you use for reverb and delay. Track FX are the old "insert sockets" on a mixer channel where you plug in a compressor or chorus pedal to apply to that channel alone. Buses are a just a more flexible version of the group channels that you use to create (say) a drum submix. You can also use buses to create a custom monitor mix for members of the band. You want your monitor sends to be pre-fader because you don't want your band monitors to be affected by the track fader level. You want your reverb and delay FX sends to be post-fader so that the reverb/delay goes down if you pull the track fader down. Message last edited on5/23/2006 8:45:04 PM byjumbuk. |
Subject:RE: Solo when using buses ?
Reply by: alltheseworlds
Date:5/23/2006 9:02:50 PM
Yep, the hardware analogies mean absolutely nothing to me, making reference to them as an attempted explanation just makes things muddier. I couldn't care less how some old hardware works.... To me that'd be like calling parts of a car the "bridle", "stirrup" and "saddle". But I do appreciate the help ! For now I'm just going to keep experimenting until I find a version of the bus / square / dropdown / pre / post / chain luckydip that seems to be consistent and logical to my brain. That could be a challenge ! ;-) |
Subject:RE: Solo when using buses ?
Reply by: pwppch
Date:5/23/2006 9:09:00 PM
jumbuk's explination is exellent. There is nothing technically wrong with how you are using sends on a track, though I can't imagine how this makes mixing easier since you will have to constantly select the active multipurpose fader as all tracks follow the active one. As others have stated, to make solo work the way you want, just set all of the sub bus sends to post fader and you should get what you want. As far as a philosophy behind this... The model ACID - and Vegas - use is that of a mixer - a Mackie 8 bus was what it was modeled after orginally. You may want to consider our tutorial series of DVDs or one of the third party books on ACID to gain some insight into the mixing and busing approach and its applications. Peter |
Subject:RE: Solo when using buses ?
Reply by: alltheseworlds
Date:5/24/2006 1:07:49 AM
I think I'm homing in ! I'm reconstructing my latest project taking out all the buses and creating effects chains instead. At least the solo works properly then ! The input and output faders on the assignable effects seem to get easily overloaded... but progress is being made here :-) Peter, any recommendation on a book that covers version 6 ? Are any out yet ? |
Subject:RE: Solo when using buses ?
Reply by: JohnnyRoy
Date:5/24/2006 5:56:38 AM
> I think I'm homing in ! I'm reconstructing my latest project taking out all the buses and creating effects chains instead. At least the solo works properly then ! Be careful. If you are applying the FX Chains to the tracks instead. (you didn’t say where you were using them) This could easily overload your CPU with too many FX! > Q. Also, in what situation would I use the little "square in a square" icon to route the track to a bus ? > A. The most obvious use is for creating groups (like on a hardware mixer). To expand on this since you don’t have a hardware background, let’s say you want to control the drums from one fader but the drums are on 6 tracks. You would use the “square in a square” assignment to route each of the 6 tracks to a new bus you’ve labeled drums. Now you can bring the drums in and out of the mix as a group. You can also apply FX to the drums bus so that all of the drums have a consistent sound. If you also wanted to add an addition FX to just one drum (let’s say a gate on the snare) you would add that as a Track FX on just the snare track. > Peter, any recommendation on a book that covers version 6 ? Are any out yet ? We (me and mD) cover all of this in the Instant ACID book which was written for ACID Pro 5.0 but mixing hasn’t changed between releases so all of it will still be relevant. ~jr Message last edited on5/24/2006 5:58:23 AM byJohnnyRoy. |
Subject:RE: Solo when using buses ?
Reply by: jumbuk
Date:5/25/2006 4:24:15 PM
Just to reflect on this thread a bit ... I had never really thought about how to use the FX buses in Acid before. It just seemed obvious that they were there to set up a global reverb send (or similar) and I went about my business without giving them a second thought. However, this is the second time the bus confusion has come up in the last few weeks (there is another thread somewhere). It seems like buses are not intuitive for many Acid users (that sentence would have meant something completely different in the 70s!). AllTheseWorlds seems to be a fairly experienced muso (he has clients after all!). But he somehow ended up setting up FX buses in a counter-intuitive way that caused problems. This suggests to me that Sony should rethink the interface a little - maybe the time has come to ditch the hardware mixer analogy? Or maybe a new graphic "patchbay" window that shows how all the buses are interconnected, and where you can add new ones, repatch etc? |
Subject:RE: Solo when using buses ?
Reply by: alltheseworlds
Date:5/25/2006 10:42:49 PM
Well, with the help of many good people here I think I've got it all worked out now. I'm using 'Assignable Effects Chains' and sending tracks there with post-volume (default) on. It all seems to be pretty smooth. But what you say makes sense to me. I've been writing music for more than 20 years, mostly electronic, but until recently I've left the mixing and production to others. I have been using Sonar 5PE, but AcidPro 6 just seems so much more streamlined and 'fast' to get ideas going that I'm using it almost exclusively now. But the bus issue sure did confuse me. There are just so many options: - Assigning a bus from the little 'square' icon - Assigning a bus via the slider - Selecting pre or post volume on busses - Creating effect chains rather than busses - Choosing pre or post on the send to the effects chain - Manipulating the input and output faders on the effects chain in the mixer - Whether to use the main track volume slider as a dry send (as described in the manual) or configuring it one of the other many ways Just with those few options above there are dozens of possible combinations. And I'd always just assumed that busses were the way to assign effects. but now it seems they're really more designed to group track outputs. Maybe there's some scope to have a few "example production" projects with chains and busses setup ? Peter did suggest a training video or book and I'll probably go that way anyway, but I think this bus/chain/mixing area is perhaps the only area of real complexity in the entire app. (Or maybe it's just me!) |
Subject:RE: Solo when using buses ?
Reply by: JohnnyRoy
Date:5/26/2006 5:56:45 AM
> It seems like buses are not intuitive for many Acid users (that sentence would have meant something completely different in the 70s!). Whatever you do. Don’t drink the Kool-aid. ;-) > This suggests to me that Sony should rethink the interface a little - maybe the time has come to ditch the hardware mixer analogy? Actually, I think part of the problem might be that Sony DOES NOT use the hardware mixer analogy. If they did, Track FX would be called Inserts and Assignable FX would be called Sends. Then Buses wouldn’t be confusing because they would only be for grouping. I think it’s the overloading of terms that might make "buses" confusing. Perhaps if Sony DID stick to the hardware mixer terminology, customers could pick up any book on mixers and instantly learn how to use ACID. I don’t know, I’m not a usability expert but it took me a while to relate my hardware knowledge to ACID’s terms so they are definitely not using a hardware analogy. ~jr Message last edited on5/26/2006 5:57:32 AM byJohnnyRoy. |