please expalin busses to me -ACID Product Family - MAGIX Community Forums Archive

Subject:please expalin busses to me Posted by: djrave808 Date:11/15/2006 5:24:32 PM i'm new to recording and i need help by explaining how you would you use a bus in your recording?i think i might have an idea about them.if i have a 4 track recording say vocals on track 1,bass line on 2,drums on 3 and synth on 4 would i route a track or more to my bus if i wanted to add an effect to one or more tracks?also how would i route a track to a bus?please help .thanks
Subject:RE: please expalin busses to me Reply by: JohnnyRoy Date:11/16/2006 5:37:03 AM > i'm new to recording and i need help by explaining how you would you use a bus in your recording?i think i might have an idea about them.if i have a 4 track recording say vocals on track 1,bass line on 2,drums on 3 and synth on 4 would i route a track or more to my bus if i wanted to add an effect to one or more tracks? A bus is a grouping mechanism. If you wanted to add the same FX to more than one track you would not necessarily use a bus. You could also us an Assignable FX send. More about that later. Here is an example of when you would use a bus: Let's say you have a drum kit miked with 3 mics. One on the kick drum, one on the snare drum, and one overhead mic. You mix each microphone in relation to the others at the track level but now you want to control the overall volume of the drums as a set. So you route each of the 3 tracks to a BUS. Rename the bus "drums" and now when you raise and lower the drums bus fader, the entire kit gets raised and lowered while maintaining the mix of the individual mics. It's like a giant Y cord. You can also add FX to the entire drum set by adding them at the bus. The entire output of the tracks is routed to the bus. If, however, you wanted several tracks to share an FX, you could insert an Assignable FX. This is a special type of bus. There is an additional fader on the track that allows you to send "some" of the signal to the assignable FX but the rest of the signal is still coming from the track too. (note: this is called a "send" on a hardware mixer) This allows you to control "how much" of the signal is sent to the FX. If you used a bus, ALL of the signal would be sent. The difference between a bus and an assignable FX is that the assignable FX "splits" the signal and a bus routes the "entire" signal. Just remember that a bus is a way to group the output of several tracks. Once you group them you can add FX's to them, pan them, adjust the volume, whatever, as a group. For your example of a 4-track mix, I would not use any buses. If you wanted to add the same FX (for example Reverb) to all of the tracks, I would use an Assignable FX instead. Then you could control how much of each track gets sent to the FX giving you more control. > also how would i route a track to a bus? please help. thanks To insert a bus use Insert > Bus or press the Insert Bus button at the top of the bus area. You will notice that a new button is now available in each track header. Press this button to assign that track to one of the buses. To insert an Assignable FX use Insert > Assignable FX... or pres the Insert FX button at the top of the bus area. Select the FX you want to insert. You will notice that a new fader has been added to the track header (note: you might have to expand the track header to make it taller so this new fader is visible). For the first FX this new fader will be labeled “FX 1:”. This controls how much of the track signal gets router through the FX. Remember, the track is still also being routed to the Master bus (or whatever bus it is assigned to) You can read more about this in the ACID manual or get the Instant ACID book which myself and mD (Iacobus) wrote. We go into buses and assignable FX in detail in the chapter on mixing. ~jr Message last edited on11/16/2006 9:16:45 AM byJohnnyRoy.
Subject:RE: please expalin busses to me Reply by: djrave808 Date:11/16/2006 5:04:09 PM the book looks very interesting .all of the info i have gotten from you guys have been great .i want to thank you again.also all of the stuff in the book ,can i use it in version 6 it says it is for acid 5?
Subject:RE: please expalin busses to me Reply by: JohnnyRoy Date:11/16/2006 7:03:28 PM > all of the stuff in the book ,can i use it in version 6 it says it is for acid 5? Most of it except for MIDI recording which has changed significantly in ACID 6. Otherwise all of the tips for creating loops and special FX and the groove pool, etc. is all the same. Especially explaining tracks, buses, and assignable FX. If you had MIDI questions I would not recommend our book but the topic you asked about is still relevant. ~jr

> i'm new to recording and i need help by explaining how you would you use a bus in your recording?i think i might have an idea about them.if i have a 4 track recording say vocals on track 1,bass line on 2,drums on 3 and synth on 4 would i route a track or more to my bus if i wanted to add an effect to one or more tracks?

A bus is a grouping mechanism. If you wanted to add the same FX to more than one track you would not necessarily use a bus. You could also us an Assignable FX send. More about that later.

Here is an example of when you would use a bus: Let's say you have a drum kit miked with 3 mics. One on the kick drum, one on the snare drum, and one overhead mic. You mix each microphone in relation to the others at the track level but now you want to control the overall volume of the drums as a set. So you route each of the 3 tracks to a BUS. Rename the bus "drums" and now when you raise and lower the drums bus fader, the entire kit gets raised and lowered while maintaining the mix of the individual mics. It's like a giant Y cord. You can also add FX to the entire drum set by adding them at the bus. The entire output of the tracks is routed to the bus.

If, however, you wanted several tracks to share an FX, you could insert an Assignable FX. This is a special type of bus. There is an additional fader on the track that allows you to send "some" of the signal to the assignable FX but the rest of the signal is still coming from the track too. (note: this is called a "send" on a hardware mixer) This allows you to control "how much" of the signal is sent to the FX. If you used a bus, ALL of the signal would be sent. The difference between a bus and an assignable FX is that the assignable FX "splits" the signal and a bus routes the "entire" signal.

Just remember that a bus is a way to group the output of several tracks. Once you group them you can add FX's to them, pan them, adjust the volume, whatever, as a group. For your example of a 4-track mix, I would not use any buses. If you wanted to add the same FX (for example Reverb) to all of the tracks, I would use an Assignable FX instead. Then you could control how much of each track gets sent to the FX giving you more control.

> also how would i route a track to a bus? please help. thanks

To insert a bus use Insert > Bus or press the Insert Bus button at the top of the bus area. You will notice that a new button is now available in each track header. Press this button to assign that track to one of the buses.

To insert an Assignable FX use Insert > Assignable FX... or pres the Insert FX button at the top of the bus area. Select the FX you want to insert. You will notice that a new fader has been added to the track header (note: you might have to expand the track header to make it taller so this new fader is visible). For the first FX this new fader will be labeled “FX 1:”. This controls how much of the track signal gets router through the FX. Remember, the track is still also being routed to the Master bus (or whatever bus it is assigned to)

You can read more about this in the ACID manual or get the Instant ACID book which myself and mD (Iacobus) wrote. We go into buses and assignable FX in detail in the chapter on mixing.

~jr