Guys, I don't understand bussing.

[Unavailable]

Would anyone like to educate me a little? I'm ashamed because it seems like such a basic concept in audio engineering. I also haven't been able to find anything about it anywhere online. Essentially, what does bussing help an audio engineer do?

Also, to save space, anyone know what equipment Jack from Exodus uses to achieve his chainy, gritty sounding bass tone (however you want to describe it ) such as on Tempo of the Damned? I'm looking to get something close to that for my band's recordings.

 

[NickL]

Bussing lets you send the outputs of a handful of tracks to one single track. This way you can use plugins or outboard gear on the bus and it affects all of the tracks instead of using 25 plugins or 30 LA2As or 55 Imperical Audio Whatzagidgets

 

[elmuchoescadawg]

When I was at college bussing was explained and as being the same as a normal bus. It lets you take multiple tracks (or people) to the same destination. It was even better because the Neve we were using at the time lit a red light when you were monitoring off bus.

Ill get my coat

 

[Noumenon]

or like several master tracks with one übermaster.

 

[Pman]

this is a useful concept but i dont know how to actually achieve it
can someone please explain
(im using cubase)

 

[Jaymz]

or like several master tracks with one übermaster.

Ahh yessss, is it common to bus masters? Like you have 3 master tracks containing some pies and chips then bus them to your UBER-master before sending it out to the factory of dreams?

I like this hypothetical talk

 

[Unavailable]

Thanks for the replies folks. Makes a lot more sense now.

 

[deanbailey]

Correct me if I'm wrong, In Cubase it's called a "Group Track"

 

[2012]

The goal of bussing is to give you more control over a group of tracks that comprise an element in the mix.

For example, I will have a buss for each element in the mix: Drums, Bass, Guitars, Acoustic Guitars, Vox, BG Vox, FX, etc. This allows me to use an Aux or Master fader to control the overall level of that element of the mix as well as giving me the ability to quickly print stems at mixdown.

Another example of bussing in a mix is parallel processing. For example: parallel compression on the drums. Buss the kick, snare, and toms to a compressor and really slam it hard. Then bring up the fader underneath the uncompressed drums. This gives you the body that compression brings out together with the punch of the unaffected transients. For the musicians in us, that means slammin' drums.

 

[Jaymz]

The goal of bussing is to give you more control over a group of tracks that comprise an element in the mix.

For example, I will have a buss for each element in the mix: Drums, Bass, Guitars, Acoustic Guitars, Vox, BG Vox, FX, etc. This allows me to use an Aux or Master fader to control the overall level of that element of the mix as well as giving me the ability to quickly print stems at mixdown.

Another example of bussing in a mix is parallel processing. For example, in any kind of modern rock parallel compression on the drums is necessary. Buss the kick, snare, and toms to a compressor and really slam it hard. Then bring up the fader underneath the uncompressed drums. This gives you the body that compression brings out together with the punch of the unaffected transients. For the musicians in us, that means slammin' drums.

So you use something like a SSL comp/Rcomp on the drum bus, slam it hard then bring up the faders on each of the original kit parts? IE, snare, kick etc? + Do you need to bring down the fader on the drum buss? Isnt that like like compressing the drums? Simply?

 

[musickey]

So you use something like a SSL comp/Rcomp on the drum bus, slam it hard then bring up the faders on each of the original kit parts? IE, snare, kick etc? + Do you need to bring down the fader on the drum buss? Isnt that like like compressing the drums? Simply?

Create a F/X Track in your project throw a Compresser on the insert then take your kik, snare, and toms or any other drum you want and route the send of each drum to the F/X Track with the compressor on it, And then just bring up the fader of the compressed F/X track under your main Drum channels o yeah and compress the fuck out of the F/X Track

 

[xconnyx]

Correct me if I'm wrong, In Cubase it's called a "Group Track"

yes, grouptrack in cubase. there more names for this, like subgroup, bus, groupchannel. but its not a vca group! vca is something different, its common to big analog desks to control some faders by vca grouping, that is something simmilar to subgrouping/bussing, but its not the same, becaus the vca-controlled-channels do not have to be in a subgroup. mostly theyre send direct to master.

subgrouping/bussing/channelgroups allow you to apply volumen, eq, dynamics to a special type of signal. e.g.: all drumshells+their triggers go one bus/grouptrack and all the over/underheads+ride+hihat+roommics go to another bus. now you can use different dynamics/eq for the different types of singals. like a multiband comp for the drumshells, and a normal comp and a lowcut for all the overhead things.

but you have to be carefull with subgroupcompression, because sometimes things start to get to quiet because the comp is acting on a anotherchannel thats going into the group and presses the other signal away. this can be cool too, especially in live situations with drums, cause you can use this like ducking, and if the snare is played, it presses the doublebass blasts away

 

[Jaymz]

Create a F/X Track in your project throw a Compresser on the insert then take your kik, snare, and toms or any other drum you want and route the send of each drum to the F/X Track with the compressor on it, And then just bring up the fader of the compressed F/X track under your main Drum channels o yeah and compress the fuck out of the F/X Track

I think ive been doing something similar, havent been compressing it to fuck like. Isnt it basically just a way to compress your drums overall quickly and conveniently while using minimal CPU? Ill give it a bash!

 

[2012]

I think ive been doing something similar, havent been compressing it to fuck like. Isnt it basically just a way to compress your drums overall quickly and conveniently while using minimal CPU? Ill give it a bash!

No. It has nothing to do with speed or convenience. It's not about saving CPU. People were doing this long before DAWs came to be.

Like I said before it brings out the body of the drums while preserving the transients at the same time.

If you compressed every channel you would be smashing the transients and because of that you hear more resonance of the drum. By using parallel compression you are hearing both in the mix: resonance (compressed) & attack (uncompressed transient).

Make sense?

 

[Jaymz]

Yes and what compressor do you advise?

 

[2012]

Anything will work as far as learning how it works, even a stock compressor that comes with your DAW, but something with color & grit works well.

I've used RComp, Smack!, BF1176, Sonalksis SV-315, URS 1975, Blockfish, & the Waves SSL Comp all with good results, but these days I'm using the Massey CT4.

 

[schismatic]

No. It has nothing to do with speed or convenience. It's not about saving CPU. People were doing this long before DAWs came to be.

Like I said before it brings out the body of the drums while preserving the transients at the same time.

If you compressed every channel you would be smashing the transients and because of that you hear more resonance of the drum. By using parallel compression you are hearing both in the mix: resonance (compressed) & attack (uncompressed transient).

Make sense?

good explanation mate.

 

[musickey]

good explanation mate.

+1, yeah there was another discussion on this topic awile back, and yeah its been a trick for along time i think its refered to as upward compression or NewYork compression or some shit.

 

[2012]

Yeah, it was started sometime in the 80's in NYC.

Hence it first became widely known as the New York Compression Trick.