BUSS count? how many, and how do you use them?

I set up 3 or 4. 1 main and the rest for like tracks such as acoustic instruments, electric guitars and so on. All stereo. Then send to those from the DAW, that way I can still use DSP for each "type" of send. For instance, the elec guitar buss gets a UAD Fatso strapped across it.

My method is based on the concept of less is more. If the tracks are recorded well, many times all that's needed is a bit of buss compression and eq for all the stems on each buss. I go ahead and send all the tracks to the respective busses and then listen. If individual tracks need a tweak here or there with some additional processing I make it. This method cuts way down on DSP usage and to my ear yields better result.

I hear guys all the time talking about needing more DSP, more DSP. Gotta buy another quad satelite. I don't get it really. I guess I always wonder why put an instance of an 1176 on every guitar track in the mix when 1 across a stereo buss will do? And in most cases, sound cleaner with far more resolution.

Busses are so important to a mix engineer. One of, if not THE most important tool in the kit.

I agree. For me, individual channels are for fixing problems within the instrument, busing allows you to shape how each instrument reacts to the others as a whole.

Shaping up to be a "more than one way to skin a cat" thread, i love it! I love trying different approaches.

I would love to see redbadge chime in here with some details of how he uses his busses, i seem to remember him using them primarily for effects returns? not sure?

This is what jim williams told me he does the other day(he lives less than 1 mile from me), i'm paraphrasing of course, "I don't like summing things twice(once at sub, once at stereo), sources take too much of a sonic hit that way, i also hard wire bypassed my stereo buss fader, i never changed it from 0 anyway, so why have the fader circuitry stepping on the sound? it opened up the highs a bit, if i need to change overall volume of the drums, i grab all those faders and do it, it may be a tiny bit more of a pain, but i think it sounds better"

I may have mis understood what jim was saying, he's like a mad scientist!, and hard to keep up with lol! I will say that i heard his rig, and it is clean, wide and HUGE sounding! Everything he's modded for me sounds much, much better than it did stock. That being said, i don't do things exactly like jim, i subscribe to the Jeff Steiger "more is more" theory more often than not when it comes to equipment choices. But to each his own, it's what make things interesting for sure.

Greetings, earthings!

Yes, I am from a different world. No longer a member of NARAS, AES, etc, I set myself free from the commercial restrictions of audio fashion production and the economic ties. Fixin' pays for the mixin'.

I'm not a CGI style of mixer, I'm more a documentarian. Anyone can mess up an audio signal, few can offer "the truth". Having worked with some of the best in the biz, I'm more of a "get out of their way" recordist. There are some with talents so great no gear can help, it all gets in the way on some level.

That's how I learned, let the greats do their thing and keep your sonic thumbprint to a minimum.

Now days, it's all about the AE and "his sound", artist be damned. I'm not one to be so bold. Then again, today's "auto-tune" artists are not that good so anything that can help may be valid.

Buses are what the poor folks ride in. I don't use those either.

I use two busses here, left and right. That's all I need, that's the output of the production and I don't need busses to submix and mess up the audio with parallel compressors and stuff. My groups here are very clear, but I never run through more circuits than are necessary. That comes from my "get out of their way" background. I make extra efforts to avoid running through any additional electronics in the audio path unless something is required. Listenability is the greatest motivation here, I don't know how some of you can listen to a lot of the current crop, it burns a hole in my ears.

Yes, that is against the current style and crew of mixers, but being different was always a badge of honor for me.
 
Less is more, more or less.

Full Necro.




Well put.
Cool discussion. Just wanted to bring it back.

I've set my console up for 4 busses/submixes, in addition to the master. It originally has 2, but I sacrificed 4 channels to get 2 more.
This started, as my uneducated way of mixing, meant the mix would duck too much if the dynamics increased. So, buss 1 has drums, bass and guitars going into a 2500 on a fast and punchy setting. The main vox are on buss 2, going into an SSL buss comp. Buss 3 is usually for backing vox, into a Dual Vandergraph, and Buss 4 is on standby. I mainly use it for paralell drums, or split them up into 2 mono for kick and snare, going into 1176s if needed. The whole mess meets up in the master buss, going into the Obsidian set to auto/slow.

I probably should review the way I mix, but I really like the sound of buss 1 the way it is set up. And dividing the rest of the elements on 2 or 3 more busses worked great. It solved my problem with over compression, and gave the whole mix a lot more transparency, yet still maintained that glue I've gotten used to.

As you might suspect, I mainly do rock stuff.

Man, that was an old post you replied to.

I've grown a lot since then and found new ways to do things in mixes.

Now instead of smashing stuff, I ultra smash stuff.

Works better.