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Mixing with buses

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PeteS

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« on: June 06, 2020, 03:43:32 PM »
In a post on @Jamie's excellent new song 'Minor Victories', @Unclenny made an interesting observation so I'd like to as for a little more explanation.

The comment was 'From an engineering perspective, consider routing the backing track to a bus and compressing it carefully with a compressor that is keyed by the vocal track. That would make the instruments duck under the vocals when they are there.'  That was followed by a comment from @shadowfax agreeing but saying something about not the drums though.

So in principle, I believe a bus is used to group tracks of a similar nature so that they can be treated to the same effect or process equally.  Is that right?  And am I so unaware of this because I use Garageband and it doesn't have buses?  Does it?  Or does it use some other similar way of doing this?

Thanks

Pete
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Unclenny

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« Reply #1 on: June 06, 2020, 04:21:51 PM »
Hey Pete @PeteS ........it does look as if GarageBand does not have buses. I bet some GarageBand users will know some sort of work around for that.

I work only in Protools and I couldn't mix without buses. Buses allow you to set up an effect such as a delay or a reverb and send some of that effect to multiple other tracks. You can also put a compressor on a bus and send your track to that bus for parallel compression which allows you to keep the dynamics of the original track and add in the compression.

In the case of @Jamie 's vocals, he was able to send the instruments to a bus with a compressor that used the vocal track to activate the compressor. That meant that when the vocal came in it triggered the compressor which brought down the gain of the instruments very subtly. That can be tough to get right but I think @Jamie nailed it. @shadowfax was spot on when he suggested to leave the drums and bass out of that process because that way the rhythm section never faltered and the song kept driving.

I also use a stereo bus to run all my tracks through when I self-master my stuff. I can equalize, compress and limit the mix as it goes to a new master track and tweak things along the way.

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PeteS

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« Reply #2 on: June 06, 2020, 04:36:14 PM »
Thanks @unclenny, really interesting.

How does the vocal track trigger the compressor?  Is that just creating automation?  And given it was a chorus could increasing the volume of the vocal with automation work in a similar fashion or would that just stand out as increased volume?

I have since found on the Garageband guide (a really useful site for GB users) a workaround where he applies the effects or processors to a single track then saves that as a user patch that includes all the instrument and effect plug in settings.  Clearly it won't work though if you had different instruments so only a partial fix.

I have tried ProTools first and it looked really good but the limitations were too great and the full version is too expensive when I do have Garageband for free.
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Boydie

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« Reply #3 on: June 06, 2020, 05:02:05 PM »
hey @PeteS

Welcome to the Rabbit hole  ;D ;)

First of all...

Quote
'From an engineering perspective, consider routing the backing track to a bus and compressing it carefully with a compressor that is keyed by the vocal track. That would make the instruments duck under the vocals when they are there.'

I haven't seen this comment in context but I would personally NOT recommend this approach for general music mixing as it could lead to a very unnatural and distracting listening experience

IMHO it would be MUCH better to automate the vocal to ensure it can be heard above a consistent backing track - and automate individual elements so that they shine in a mix

The only exception to this would be for a "voice over" track - eg for a nature documentary or advert - where you would want the music to get out of the way of "spoken word" - although even in this case I would approach it with automation

However -let's get back on the BUS

A "bus" is a single track (usually stereo) where you can route other tracks to

You can then route a "bus" to another "bus" (and then to another and another etc.) until you finally route everything to your MASTER BUS

To understand this I will follow through a typical routing for a drum kit....

DRUMS
If you mic a drum kit up you might multiple mics that you want to group on to 1 fader/channel

Eg if you have a mic on the top and bottom of the snare you will have tracks called "Snare Top" and "Snare Bottom"

You may want to feed these tracks to a bus called "Snare Bus"

You may then want to route this "Snare Bus" to a "Drum Bus"

The "Snare Bus" is then referred to as a "sub bus" to the "Drum Bus"

The "Drum Bus" may have lots of other sub busses being routed to it eg a "Kick Bus" (made up of an "inside kick mic" and "outside kick mic") a "Overheads Bus" (made up of "overhead right" and "overhead left" tracks) etc. etc.

The first advantage of using busses is that you can really BUILD the elements of your mix in detail (eg balance the levels and shape the tone of the snare top and bottom mics) and then move on to the "bigger picture" of mixing the "Snare Bus" with the rest of the drums

When you have processed and balanced all of the busses feeding the "Drum Bus" you will have drum sound you want going to one fader channel (is the "Drum Bus") so when you need to balance the level of the drums with the rest of the track you only need to change 1 fader

As you have already mentioned the use of busses also makes it possible process a whole group of instruments with a single effect - eg adding reverb to the bus would help give the impression all instruments are in the same "space"

Adding very light "compression" to a bus can also help to "glue together" the various tracks and busses feeding a bus as they will all take on the subtle tonal characteristics and "movement" from the single compressor

You might also have various percussion elements feeding a "Percussion Bus"

In this case you might want a "Master Drum Bus" that is fed by the "Drum Bus" AND "Percussion Bus" - this means that ALL of your drums and percussion can now be controlled on a single fader. This makes it easier to make broad changes to the mix - if you want all of the drum elements, including percussion, louder you just turn up the "Master Drum Bus" fader

Remember - you can still go back to any of the busses or tracks at any time to tweak - eg if you want just the Drums louder you can turn up the "Drum Bus" - if you want the snare louder you can turn up the "Snare Bus" and if you want more of the top of the snare you can turn up the "Snare Top" track

This helps with mixing a song that has loads of different tracks and elements because as the mix progresses you start mixing using the busses (groups of instruments) rather than trying to juggle a gazillion tracks (safe in the knowledge that you can dive in to the detail at any time to tweak anything)

The key to busses is BE LOGICAL AND ORGANISED - I can't stress this enough

I have consciously avoided using the word "SEND"

I find it useful to refer to "routing to" of "feeding" bus - ie you send ALL of the signal from the track or bus to another bus

I then think of "SEND" as tapping off a bit of the signal (controlled by the "send level") to another bus (usually an FX bus)

It can be confusing but stay organised and logical and busses are an absolute godsend for lots of different reasons (many of which I haven't covered in this example)

Most DAWs allow you to create "templates" - so that when you open a new file to start recording on mixing all of your "routing" (tracks to busses and busses to other busses) are already set up and ready to use

Here are some examples of the routing I have set up:

Lead vocal -> Lead Vox Bus -> Master Vox -> MASTER BUS
Lead Double -> Lead Vox Bus -> Master Vox -> MASTER BUS

Backing Vocal 1 -> BV Bus -> Master Vox -> MASTER BUS
Backing Vocal 2 -> BV Bus -> Master Vox -> MASTER BUS
Backing Vocal 3 -> BV Bus -> Master Vox -> MASTER BUS

Snare -> Drum Bus -> Master Drum Bus -> MASTER BUS
Kick -> Drum Bus -> Master Drum Bus -> MASTER BUS
Tom1 -> Toms Bus -> Drum Bus -> Master Drum Bus -> MASTER BUS
Tom2 -> Toms Bus -> Drum Bus -> Master Drum Bus -> MASTER BUS
Floor Tom -> Toms Bus -> Drum Bus -> Master Drum Bus -> MASTER BUS
Overhead Left -> Overhead Bus -> Drum Bus -> Master Drum Bus -> MASTER BUS
Overhead Right -> Overhead Bus -> Drum Bus -> Master Drum Bus -> MASTER BUS
Room mic -> Drum Bus -> Master Drum Bus -> MASTER BUS

Acoustic Guitar -> Rhythm Guitar Bus -> Master Guitar Bus -> MASTER BUS

Rhythm Guitar Clean verse -> Clean Guitar Bus -> Rhythm Guitar Bus -> Master Guitar Bus -> MASTER BUS
Rhythm Guitar Clean with delay -> Clean Guitar Bus -> Rhythm Guitar Bus -> Master Guitar Bus -> MASTER BUS

Rhythm Dirt 1 -> Dirty Guitar Bus -> Rhythm Guitar Bus -> Master Guitar Bus -> MASTER BUS
Rhythm Heavy Chorus -> Dirty Guitar Bus -> Rhythm Guitar Bus -> Master Guitar Bus -> MASTER BUS

Lead guitar intro ->Lead Guitar Bus -> Master Guitar Bus -> MASTER BUS
Lead guitar solo ->Lead Guitar Bus -> Master Guitar Bus -> MASTER BUS
Lead guitar harmony left solo -> Harmony solo bus ->Lead Guitar Bus -> Master Guitar Bus -> MASTER BUS
Lead guitar harmony right solo -> Harmony solo bus ->Lead Guitar Bus -> Master Guitar Bus -> MASTER BUS
Lead guitar outro ->Lead Guitar Bus -> Master Guitar Bus -> MASTER BUS

Etc. etc.

At first glance this may seem complicated - but with templates you only need to do it once and you can always build it up over time

But as you can see from the example above I could take ALL of the rhythm guitars down with one fader (Rhythm Guitar Bus) OR take all of the guitars down with a single fader (Master Guitar Bus)

This is particularly useful for creating different versions of mixes to compare - eg to create a "guitar heavy mix" you only need to nudge up one fader

Did I mention it was important to be LOGICAL AND ORGANISED?  ;)

It can help to actually draw the routing and groupings you want on paper before touching your DAW

I am not sure if GaragBand has busses but if you are already looking at this type of thing I think you will quickly outgrow GarageBand

I can recommend STUDIO ONE as a solid fully fledge DAW - along with Logic, Cubase, Sonar

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Boydie

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« Reply #4 on: June 06, 2020, 05:12:19 PM »
Quote
How does the vocal track trigger the compressor?  Is that just creating automation?

This is called "side chain" compression - you send a signal from the vocal track to the compressor that is on the instrument track so that when there is a signal coming from the vocal track (ie the singer is singing) the compressor listens to this (rather than the track/bus it is on) and is activated to reduce the volume of the rest of instruments

As I said above I would not advocate this approach for general mixing unless you are going for a specific effect - eg voiceover

Quote
And given it was a chorus could increasing the volume of the vocal with automation work in a similar fashion or would that just stand out as increased volume?

Now you are getting it  ;D ;)

With the use of busses (described above) it is VERY easy to put automation busses to increase or decrease the volume of all elements feeding a bus

Eg in my example above you you subtly increase the volume of the "Master Guitar Bus" to increase the volume of all guitars during the chorus to add some excitement (or just the "Rhythm Guitar Bus" to increase all of the rhythm guitars or just the "Dirty Guitar Bus" to increase just the dirty guitars without affecting the acoustic or clean rhythm guitars- do you now see how the use of busses can give you lots of easy and creative mixing options

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Unclenny

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« Reply #5 on: June 06, 2020, 05:16:44 PM »
I haven't seen this comment in context but I would personally NOT recommend this approach for general music mixing as it could lead to a very unnatural and distracting listening experience

I definitely agree that it could.

 :)
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shadowfax

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« Reply #6 on: June 06, 2020, 05:50:39 PM »
I do it all the time and I don't believe my songs are an unnatural listening experience..LOL :) :) if they are an unnatural listening experience please tell  :) :)me..LOL

regarding routing I think it important if..for instance you send a vocal to a vocal bus with whatever effects it may have, it then should not go to the master bus if the master bus has effects on it that would further effect the vocals, the vocal should go straight to stereo out, bypassing the master bus, or is it that you are saying the master bus is the stereo out? in which case the same would apply because anything on the master bus would effect the vocal which has already been sorted on it's own bus...automation is of course also needed with a vocal..
« Last Edit: June 06, 2020, 06:07:46 PM by shadowfax »
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Boydie

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« Reply #7 on: June 06, 2020, 06:23:42 PM »
Quote
I do it all the time and I don't believe my songs are an unnatural listening experience..LOL :) :) if they are an unnatural listening experience please tell  :) :)me..LOL

@shadowfax - I haven't looked at the post in context but I noticed @PeteS mentioned that you do not include the drums so you seem to agree in principle with my thinking

As with all things "mixing" it is the end result that counts so as long as it sounds good it is all good  ;D 8)

Quote
it then should not go to the master bus if the master bus has effects on it that would further effect the vocals, the vocal should go straight to stereo out, bypassing the master bus, or is it that you are saying the master bus is the stereo out? in which case the same would apply because anything on the master bus would effect the vocal which has already been sorted on it's own bus...automation is of course also needed with a vocal..

In my routing (and view of the world) ALL tracks and busses should go to the MASTER BUS for the very reason that mastering effects SHOULD also be applied to the vocals

I would personally keep the MASTER BUS free from all effects apart from mastering effects that I want to affect all tracks and busses - eg when doing the final "mastering" of a track

All of my main instrument groups make their way to their own "master" busses - eg Master Guitars, Master Keys, Master Vocals etc. so if I do want to affect everything apart from vocals (which I very rarely do) I would set up a "Pre-Master Bus" and route this bus to the "Master Bus" - and then route all of my instrument "master busses" to this bus and then route the "Vocal Master" to the "MASTER BUS"

I didn't want to confuse @PeteS but even though I treat my "MASTER BUS" as the final bus before the outputs - it isn't really...

I route the MASTER BUS to a "MASTER FADER" bus. The reason for this is so that I can do fade outs AFTER any mastering effects applied to the MASTER BUS without affecting anything

My "MASTER FADER" then goes to the STEREO OUT, which I never touch and just leave at Unity


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shadowfax

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« Reply #8 on: June 07, 2020, 10:22:39 AM »
@Boydie Hi Paul, sorry If It seemed I was disagreeing with you, I thought I was just adding to the conversation... :)

Just for interest..(if any) my routing is thus..

any instrument will have whatever treatment it requires on it's track and will be sent to a make space bus triggered by the vocal..which will remove..ever so subtly, the frequencies that may fight with the vocal, this bus then goes to a master bus which may or may not have effects (depends on the song) then to Stereo out...
the mono bass track (with it's own effects) will go directly to the stereo out, avoiding ..lets say, a stereo widener or further compression that might be on the master bus,
the drum track (with it's own effects) would go directly to stereo out...
the vocal track (with it's own effects and side chained to the make space bus) goes directly to stereo out,
all tracks have a plugin that forces everything below 100Hz to mono..

I've probably forgotten something but that's the gist of it..as you say Paul, it doesn't matter how you get there..if it sounds good, it's worked then innit!! :)

best, Kevin :)
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PeteS

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« Reply #9 on: June 07, 2020, 11:20:06 PM »
I didn’t realised what I’d started  ;D

Thanks so much for the information, it just goes to show that there are multiple ways to achieve the result.   @Boydie you probably did confuse me a little but I get the main principle so thankS for the detailed explanation,  I’ll be keeping that for when I move on from GarageBand.   As it happens, I have looked at Studio One and even spent a bit of time with the free version, it’s definitely not as intuitive as Garageband but once you learn and set up your templates that doesn’t matter.  The free version is too limited though and I remain reluctant to move away from Garageband.

I guess that when I do upgrade it will be to Logic Pro as I have so much time invested in Garageband that would be reusable in Logic that it seems a no brainier, other than the price.  The fear of learning a new package is one thing but the Apple products do come with a lot of built in instruments and effects. 

So thanks for the information, as I say, when I upgrade it will be useful to me, in the mean time I will try to use it to the best of my ability within the confines of Garageband. 

Thanks everyone.
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cowparsleyman

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« Reply #10 on: June 08, 2020, 12:04:37 PM »
@PeteS - Yip there are many ways to sound great, I guess busses just make things quicker, and more controllable, when the number of tracks increase one needs some way of keeping control of everything, @Boydie is right one has to be kind of organised, and as he says pre designed templates with the buss/track structure already setup can really save time.

Personally I couldn't work without busses, at it's most simple, you can solo and mute a buss, so if you have 10
BV's feeding into a buss, you can hit the S or M button and bingo! especially useful for arranging BV's the position in the stereo field.

If there is a lot going on the busses will make it easier to get the relative elements such as Bass and Drums sounding really tight, and their levels correct relative to each other, although there might be 32 tracks of drums and 3 tracks of bass, you can manage all this in 2 sub busses..

The best way is to just try it, after a while it'll be second nature.

Hope this helps

Rich


PeteS

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« Reply #11 on: June 08, 2020, 12:12:00 PM »
Thanks Rich.  Garageband is my current limitation but when I do progress to Logic I'll be all over it as it sounds really useful.
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