Advice on mixing with bus channels

[Banesy]

Right, so I need to up my game and really learn how to utilize bus channels the correct way. I haven't been seeing a whole lot of detailed information about how to use them best in the mixing and mastering material posted above. Also, I am a little spoiled with Ableton and perhaps I have my definitions wrong, but I have been using the group function as a bus where I apply effects to the group...is that not technically correct? Will a group in Ableton route differently than a bus? Also, I read in the Ableton manual you can use the return tracks as a make-shift bus by selecting the sends only option for the output on a track.

Anyway...I am looking for a good place to start to learn about how to efficiently use bus channels to create a better mix. I already sort of micro-bus...like I will take a lead synth that has a few layers and group them together for processing but for example, I am not sending all lead synths to a single bus. I am not sure if I should even be doing that. I am looking for some basic rule of thumb type of reading material or advice so I can practice the proper technique of using a bus instead of just winging it like a cowboy. Thanks guys!

[fragments]

Three basic reasons to bus channels together:

1. Parallel Processing
2. Serial Processing
3. Gain Staging

At least those are the only three reasons I do it. You are over thinking this?

[blinx]

As far as i understand Group = Bus in ableton terms.

How i use Busing/Grouping.

I use a produciton template if you dont have one get one made up.

The template has Bus/Groups for:
Samples
Effects
Drums
Bass
Leads
Pads

Each bus has 3-5 Channels in them that either are AUDIO or MIDI Instruments.

So Samples Bus has 5 Blank Audio channels, so i can slap sample in them when i need to start building and they are all grouped together and i can process them accordingly.

Drums has 5 drumk racks with 5 totally different drum kits i have slapped together over the last 5 years.

Bass has 4 Massive instances, where i crank out basslines.

Leads has FM8, Sylenth1 and Albino.

Pads is a copy of Leads but i use it for atmos/pads.

Each bus has a compressor on it and i think my bass bus has a few extra VSTs too like Vintage Warmer and the gotos for bass stuffs. Drum bus is sidechained to bass bus and other things like that.

This allows me to quickly sketch and idea and pull a track together in a matter of minutes (atleast the skeleton of it). When i start refining the track out, i like to balance my elements in a bus. Then later when i need to do the real mixdown i dont have to really touch EVERY pad or EVERY lead instead i can pull whole "groups" down a bit or up a bit, giving me way more control over what i am doing to the mix. Usually by the mixdown time, i have the single elements pretty well where the need to be inside their respective groups/bus, so most the mixing can be done by getting each group to sit with each other. having 6 faders to deal with is way easier on my brain, where if you odnt have groups that 6 faders turns into 30+ faders you are have to deal with in a mixdown = yuck!

This is not a science and of course its just how "i do it" so your mileage may vary.

[zosomagik]

Three basic reasons to bus channels together:

1. Parallel Processing
2. Serial Processing
3. Gain Staging

At least those are the only three reasons I do it. You are over thinking this?

Yeah, I'd say you're overthinking it man. A bus is just a channel you're routing audio to so you can process it in one of the 3 ways above. The ableton groups work just like a bus, and essentially are a bus because you're routing the audio through that channel. Like example 1 fragments gave would be like sending your drum group to a return track to compress it, but while also having the OG audio from the group come through too. So it's a mix of the OG signal and the compressed signal, hence the name parallel. Number 2 would be like what you said about using the sends only function so you only get the audio from the bus. And 3 is like creating a submix (i think, I'm not too sure about my knowledge of this term) so basically you have your drum group or whatever, and you gainstage them, basically just getting the levels of everything where you want them. Then once you've got all the drums sitting where you want them, you can check it with the rest of the mix and if they need to come up or go down you have that one fader of the bus to do so because you already have the drums sitting where you want them with each other. You might need to make tiny adjustments, but you get the picture.

I hope this makes sense, when I type a long anything, I'm just on autopilot basically

[Banesy]

Well...compared to this I don't think I am overthinking it. http://blog.audient.com/post/29328828590/multibus

Thanks, those are all helpful posts. I def don't want to overthink it, I just want to understand why I need to do it and know the different flavors of setting them up so that I have some end goal in mind instead of feeling around in the dark for what works and what doesn't.

Blinx, thanks for the details. I have been grouping in Ableton but more so out of ease for processing and haven't been thinking about it in terms of buses. I think I am headed down that road to setup a template.

[fragments]

That is the thing--if you don't know WHY you are doing it, don't.

That blog post is interesting and I am sure it is a valid technique as Brauer is well known and all those artist have done well. But a couple of things--if you don't have a complex understanding of compression and the compressors you have available to you and know what you want to achieve and how all that serial and parallel processing is just going to cause a huge mess. That is all that is going on in that technique is parallel and serial processing, but Brauer knows why he is doing it.

Secondly, Brauer is dealing with very dynamic, live recordings of human-played instruments. You are dealing with software synths. Compression is a bit of different beast in an all soft synth, all ITB production versus an actual band.

Drum busing probably gets the most discussion in the electronic music world, that would probably be a place to start looking up information so you know why you are busing things together.