Bus channels

[Chambo_ XKRT]

Right, I'm probably going to get a massive slap around the face for asking such a noob question , but...

What are bus channels? What can they be used for?

I hear the term "Route it to a bus" all the time but it just goes straight over my head, so, anyone care to shed this guy some light?

[ehbes]

It's just putting different things into the same channel

[Towany]

go onto youtube....use the search bar....its amazing

[KoenDercksen]

It's basically sending a small amount of a track's audio to a so called "bus track", ie. a track with some fx on it etc that you can send different tracks through in order to apply those same effects to different tracks.
Another way of using them is to lessen the amount of tracks for the mixdown phase, ie. you get all your drum levels right in the separate tracks and then send all drum tracks to a drum bus, so you can control the volume of the drums as a whole with one track. Obviously, when using them like this, you'd turn off the master send on the separate tracks.

[Chambo_ XKRT]

It's basically sending a small amount of a track's audio to a so called "bus track", ie. a track with some fx on it etc that you can send different tracks through in order to apply those same effects to different tracks.
Another way of using them is to lessen the amount of tracks for the mixdown phase, ie. you get all your drum levels right in the separate tracks and then send all drum tracks to a drum bus, so you can control the volume of the drums as a whole with one track. Obviously, when using them like this, you'd turn off the master send on the separate tracks.

Ah thanks a bunch man! I'm guessing this is maybe a good way (or even possibly the only way) of re-sampling? Idk, I need to read up on that, but yeah anyway, cheers bro!

[KoenDercksen]

Ah thanks a bunch man! I'm guessing this is maybe a good way (or even possibly the only way) of re-sampling? Idk, I need to read up on that, but yeah anyway, cheers bro!

No problem! Resampling can be done this way if you want to easily render a couple of track together in one audio file. However in bass resampling (what some people automatically think of when you say resampling), you'll be rendering single tracks more, so you won't use busses that much. It is possible of course, just use whatever method you find handy!

For example, "instant" resampling could be done by setting up one VSTi track and sending that to another track (which you could call bus) and setting that track to record it's own output. That way you will instantly record what you play with the VSTi, I sometimes tend to use this when making a lot of variations of a sound with the midi keyboard just dicking around. Tons of ways to do the same stuff though.