Subject:Pan on Busses?

Posted by: StrobeAlific

Date:6/8/2006 11:07:11 PM

Guys from Sony...

Is there a way to get panning to work on busses?

Am I missing something?

Thanks in advance.

Subject:RE: Pan on Busses?

Reply by: StrobeAlific

Date:6/8/2006 11:29:12 PM

or anybody?

I'm just wondering what good they are if you can't pan to the busses?

Apparently Vegas and Acid 5 don't do this either, I've never noticed before...but it explains a lot of weird mixing things in the past.

I tried the "pan" plugin and it works...again a weird way to do that when you compare to the analog world.

Sony...any thoughts?

Subject:RE: Pan on Busses?

Reply by: StrobeAlific

Date:6/8/2006 11:41:51 PM

Let's see how many times I can reply to my own posts...

Anybody know why I can't see the "pan" plugin in Acid, yet it shows up in Vegas?

Subject:RE: Pan on Busses?

Reply by: klyon

Date:6/9/2006 1:13:49 AM

Unfortunately, bussing on Acid -- and Vegas -- is hopelessly inadequate. The worst? Can't send to anything from a bus: softsynths *are* busses. So you can't send to an effect or buss from a softsynth. Assbackwards, but there you have it. Amateur hour for years now and nobody seems to care to change it.
But then, nothing's perfect, is it?

Subject:RE: Pan on Busses?

Reply by: vespesian

Date:6/9/2006 5:28:35 AM

um - yeah - you can send from soft synth to bus in acid (?) - just insert a new bus(es)...

Subject:RE: Pan on Busses?

Reply by: Ben 

Date:6/9/2006 6:28:16 AM

Nope, that's not sending, that's 'hard' routing. You can't send. Which is ridiculous...

Subject:RE: Pan on Busses?

Reply by: jumbuk

Date:6/9/2006 6:31:35 AM

Yes, you can pan on a bus - just select the Pan fader (change the mpf from volume to Pan).

Subject:RE: Pan on Busses?

Reply by: jumbuk

Date:6/9/2006 6:45:09 AM

"Unfortunately, bussing on Acid -- and Vegas -- is hopelessly inadequate. The worst? Can't send to anything from a bus: softsynths *are* busses. So you can't send to an effect or buss from a softsynth. Assbackwards, but there you have it. Amateur hour for years now and nobody seems to care to change it.
But then, nothing's perfect, is it? "

You can assign a soft syth to a bus. Most soft synths have built in FX, pan and volume anyway.

And as pointed out, you CAN pan to a bus.

Subject:RE: Pan on Busses?

Reply by: klyon

Date:6/9/2006 8:09:15 AM

"You can assign a soft syth to a bus. Most soft synths have built in FX, pan and volume anyway."

What are you talking about? Each softhsynth uses its own internal effects and routing? That's no way to organize a mix.
Nice try, but there's really no excuse at all for the persistent lame routing of Acid/Vegas. Not when so much of the program(s) design is so great.

And I believe the original poster is talking about panning the sends to busses (and effects). Which you can't do without adding a pan plugin.

There are workarounds for either situation. But with professional equipment in professional situations, workarounds for obvious, easily reparable faulty design is ludicrous.

Subject:RE: Pan on Busses?

Reply by: StrobeAlific

Date:6/9/2006 9:55:00 AM

jumbuk,

How? I know I can pan on the busses...

...but how to the busses?

I think you are misunderstanding, but I could be wrong. Please show me.

Subject:RE: Pan on Busses?

Reply by: StrobeAlific

Date:6/9/2006 10:00:54 AM

"There are workarounds for either situation. But with professional equipment in professional situations, workarounds for obvious, easily reparable faulty design is ludicrous."

You are right klyon, I've invested thousands of dollars into Sonic Foundry/Sony software and I want to and like to use their products. I just really want a way to do this simpler or more direct.

I've never done a CD project as large as this one completely in Vegas/Acid until now. I've always done parts of or some mixing/editing...but this is the first one completely recorded with audio, midi, lots of overdubs, lots of digital editing/splicing.

I'm not unhappy, just need the extra time that inserting a pan plugin (of which the Sony Pan doesn't work in Acid) is taking away from my edit/mix time.

Subject:RE: Pan on Busses?

Reply by: JohnnyRoy

Date:6/9/2006 10:25:47 AM

> Unfortunately, bussing on Acid -- and Vegas -- is hopelessly inadequate. The worst?

The only thing I see that’s missing is that you don’t have sends on a bus (that would solve the soft synth problem too). Other than that, what is hopelessly inadequate? You have track inserts, track sends, bus inserts, and bus-to-bus routing. That doesn’t sound hopelessly inadequate to me. What’s missing (other than bus sends).

> ...but how to the busses?

What exactly are you trying to do? I’m trying to understand what critical function could be missing from ACID and Vegas. In the hardware consoles I’ve used, the Send knob is one knob. It sends the whole track signal to a bus. In the hardware world, tracks are mono. Are you trying to just send one channel of a stereo track to a bus? Just split it into two mono tracks and only send one track. That’s what you would do with a real hardware mixing console.

In Vegas you can easily select the channel to play but in ACID you would have to duplicate the stereo track and pan one hard left and the other hard right.

~jr

Subject:RE: Pan on Busses?

Reply by: Alex_Talionas

Date:6/9/2006 10:42:14 AM

StrobeAlific,
The solution to your problem is posted over here

You probably would have gotten an answer without all the questions of how you use it, but unfortunately Sony decided to ban him from their forums and he's one of the guys that probably knows the most of the ins and outs of the Sony apps.

Subject:RE: Pan on Busses?

Reply by: klyon

Date:6/9/2006 10:45:14 AM

Sends follow the channel pan in a stereo bus of a console (or there is a choice, I should say...). They don't in Acid/Vegas.

As for the other, no sends from busses -- especially in the case of softsynths, which have no "channels" to send from at all -- is, to me, "hopelessly inadequate."
Okay, how about, "tragically inadequate?" Or, better yet, "needlessly inadequate." Perhaps that's a more accurate word choice.

Either way, If it works for you the way it is, great. I like it when people are happy.

Subject:RE: Pan on Busses?

Reply by: StrobeAlific

Date:6/9/2006 11:15:46 AM

Mono Drum tracks panned to a Stereo Bus for easy balance mixing and adjustment.

The same with all Vocals.

This project will have a CD Mix, Stereo Tracks with no vocals, Split Tracks with Instruments on Left BGVs on Right.

I want total flexibility in mixing...so If I want less vocal overall (not voice to voice) I can pull down the Vocal Bus, More drums...push the Drum Bus not all 8 tracks individually?

As far as mono bussing goes...you are thinking of Aux sends. You are partly correct and partly wrong. In my current day job, I work on a Midas XL4. It has both mono and stereo aux sends. When it comes to busses, there are 16 mono or 8 stereo busses. If you assign something to bus 1/2, it is basically in stereo mode and the pan on the channel controls L/R or to do mono odd/even. Then each bus can be assigned to the master (or direct at channel level) and each buss (1-16) has a pan of it's own. Typically, 1L, 2R, 3L, 4R, etc.

Does that clarify anything...or make it more confusing?

Subject:RE: Pan on Busses?

Reply by: StrobeAlific

Date:6/9/2006 11:30:35 AM

Alex,

Thanks. I've registered over there and thanked him, too.

Subject:RE: Pan on Busses?

Reply by: H2000

Date:6/9/2006 3:24:37 PM

This is obviously a BUG. If you look in the manual, page 29 shows the audio routing. Pan is BEFORE post-fader sends to busses and therefore the panning to the bus should work.

In Acid 5 this panning worked correctly.

Subject:RE: Pan on Busses?

Reply by: jumbuk

Date:6/9/2006 4:08:28 PM

"jumbuk,

How? I know I can pan on the busses...

...but how to the busses?

I think you are misunderstanding, but I could be wrong. Please show me."

Now I am confused! What is the difference between "on" and "to"?

You have a stereo bus. You have a mono track assigned to the bus. You use the pan slider to place the mono track wherever you want between the two channels of the stereo bus. I would call that panning "to" the busses. I know, that sounds obvious, so I must be missing what you want to do.

Subject:RE: Pan on Busses?

Reply by: H2000

Date:6/9/2006 4:17:15 PM

"You have a mono track assigned to the bus"

Not assigned to bus - use the send fader to send to the bus

Subject:RE: Pan on Busses?

Reply by: jumbuk

Date:6/9/2006 4:33:17 PM

"Not assigned to bus - use the send fader to send to the bus"

Well, naturally you can't pan in that case. Why would you expect to? The send fader is for creating foldback mixes and complex FX sends, not sub-grouping. You would use the assign button for a sub-group.

Subject:RE: Pan on Busses?

Reply by: vespesian

Date:6/9/2006 5:10:21 PM

This is totally confusing...this may sound dumb...but does someone have an image which explains the difference between 'to' and'on' a bus? Cause, as far as I can see, you either just send to another bus - or, like someone said above, split the track. I was thinking, too, that you could just duplicate and given track, ad nauseum, and pan whichever & however you'd want. One way involves more busses, the other more tracks, and, I guess on 'real' mixers, more nobs. Also - doesn't that choice of panning (additive vs film vs whatever) have something to do with it?

Subject:RE: Pan on Busses?

Reply by: vespesian

Date:6/9/2006 5:25:28 PM

Wait....I get it (just opened AP6 to figure this out)...it's exactly what he said...you can't send a pan from the 'mixing' to anything.. it's actually more there's no control for what the bus receives....you get one slider per bus, and that's it - regardless what, or how many signals it's receiving.

I think.

Subject:RE: Pan on Busses?

Reply by: StrobeAlific

Date:6/9/2006 5:27:49 PM

"on" the pan on the bus master itself

"to" the pan on the channel before the bus

I've found work arounds, but it is either a bug or hasn't been implemented. I've got to get the project finished, so I'll work with what I've got now. Thanks to all.

Subject:RE: Pan on Busses?

Reply by: H2000

Date:6/9/2006 5:34:04 PM

"Well, naturally you can't pan in that case. Why would you expect to? The send fader is for creating foldback mixes and complex FX sends, not sub-grouping. You would use the assign button for a sub-group."

Who is talking about subgrouping?
Apparently you have never heard of sending to a reverb? Well, some people use busses to create their effects chains. Possibly using external hardware.

Of course you should be able to. The manual states that you should be able to and Acid5 is able to just fine.

Subject:RE: Pan on Busses?

Reply by: jumbuk

Date:6/11/2006 3:52:31 AM

"Of course you should be able to. The manual states that you should be able to and Acid5 is able to just fine."

Fair call. If it is in Acid 5, then I agree, it should be implemented.

It would make the busses more flexible anyway if they had the full complement of FX and bus sends like on a normal mixer.

Subject:RE: Pan on Busses?

Reply by: JohnnyRoy

Date:6/11/2006 8:57:56 AM

> Mono Drum tracks panned to a Stereo Bus for easy balance mixing and adjustment. The same with all Vocals.

If you assign a mono track to a stereo bus and you pan the track it will be panned on the bus. If you send this track to a bus Post Volume it will also be Post Pan and will only show up on one side of the bus. (you must right-click on the send label to access this switch) Unfortunately in ACID Pro 6.0a there seems to bug in the Post Volume switch (it doesn’t work and remains Pre Volume) but it works this way in ACID Pro 5.

> I want total flexibility in mixing...so If I want less vocal overall (not voice to voice) I can pull down the Vocal Bus, More drums...push the Drum Bus not all 8 tracks individually?

I do this all the time in ACID. That’s why I’m confused at what’s missing here (except for the bug mentioned above) You assign the track to the bus. Don’t use the send.

> As far as mono bussing goes...you are thinking of Aux sends. You are partly correct and partly wrong. In my current day job, I work on a Midas XL4. It has both mono and stereo aux sends.

Yes, I stand corrected. If you have a console with stereo channels this is true. When I worked in a studio many, many years ago these didn’t exist. All of my consoles have mono channels (which tells me it’s probably time to buy a new console) ;-)

> Does that clarify anything...or make it more confusing?

Just confused on why you can’t assign your vocals to a bus and pull them all down in the mix with just the bus fader. That’s what busses are for and that’s the way they’ve always worked in ACID.

~jr