Can't understand bussing

[Perej]

Right so everyone talks about how necessary it is to use busses.

I don't get this. The only time I use a bus right now is on Cubase to send a load of things to a sidechain compressor. What are the other benefits of using busses and don't you just mean a group track? Are they not the same thing?

Thanks for any responses.

[outbound]

Right so everyone talks about how necessary it is to use busses.

I don't get this. The only time I use a bus right now is on Cubase to send a load of things to a sidechain compressor. What are the other benefits of using busses and don't you just mean a group track? Are they not the same thing?

Thanks for any responses.

Grouping tracks is used to keep certain elements together to make structure a little easier in the arrangement (e.g keeping all drums in one place and all bass sounds in another)

A buss can be used to have a group of tracks audio output feed into a single channel (can be mono or stereo). The advantage to this is having a single fader to control volume (e.g if drums are too loud then can bring all of them down at the same time) as well as buss processing. (e.g having a compressor that acts over all of the drums) this can be useful in making certain elements sound more 'cohesive'

[6000]

cubase makes things overly confusing in my opinion. yes, a group track is pretty much the same thing. for example, if you put all your drum tracks in a group and compress the group, that's the same as sending everything to a bus and compressing the bus. however, with a bus i believe you can also mix in the original tracks, uncompressed -- i'm not sure if you can do that with cubase group tracks. (i'm not using cubase anymore).

in cubase an fx track is more like a bus. one common trick is to put a reverb (or any other effect) on a bus (fx track) so you can send whatever you like to it. it makes things quicker and easier to set up, it saves on cpu, and it can sound nicer than having a bunch of different reverbs on different parts.

[deadly_habit]

see i've never found a reason to use a fx track in cubase since a group track does all that a fx track can do and more
but yes the group track is like a buss

[6000]

see i've never found a reason to use a fx track in cubase since a group track does all that a fx track can do and more
but yes the group track is like a buss

what if you want to put the same reverb on (say) some hi hats, a pad and a vocal line? doesn't seem like it would make a lot of sense to put a bunch of unrelated stuff in a group. also, they may already be in their own groups... i'd use an fx track in this case.

but yeah, one of my favourite things about reaper is there's only one kind of track, but you can do pretty much all the stuff the various cubase track types do (folder, group, fx, midi...). it's a lot less confusing for my little brain.

[deadly_habit]

it's just the way they're named the fx track in cubase is the same as a group channel, just you can't route it any further like you can with a group track
they both function the same

[nowaysj]

Bussing, like resampling, like layering, they're buzz words and young producers think they need to be doing this shit, but if you don't know what is going on, you're going to fuck up and do it wrong. So just carry on with making tracks, and when you find something lacking... like your kick doesn't have any sub in it, LAYER it, when your bass has a hundred fx on it and is still static, resample it, and when you want to do the same thing to a bunch of sounds, buss them. But don't put the cart before the horse and just start layering and resampling and bussing shiz around, it will get you nowhere, slow.

[Perej]

Bussing, like resampling, like layering, they're buzz words and young producers think they need to be doing this shit, but if you don't know what is going on, you're going to fuck up and do it wrong. So just carry on with making tracks, and when you find something lacking... like your kick doesn't have any sub in it, LAYER it, when your bass has a hundred fx on it and is still static, resample it, and when you want to do the same thing to a bunch of sounds, buss them. But don't put the cart before the horse and just start layering and resampling and bussing shiz around, it will get you nowhere, slow.

Thanks mate, I think this is the thing. I keep throwing compressors and EQ on everything when I only have a faint idea what i'm doing with them. I just keep trying to emulate people who've been in this for so long and getting dissapointed with the results. Back to the drawing board I spose.

[Triphosphate]

Bussing, like resampling, like layering, they're buzz words and young producers think they need to be doing this shit, but if you don't know what is going on, you're going to fuck up and do it wrong. So just carry on with making tracks, and when you find something lacking... like your kick doesn't have any sub in it, LAYER it, when your bass has a hundred fx on it and is still static, resample it, and when you want to do the same thing to a bunch of sounds, buss them. But don't put the cart before the horse and just start layering and resampling and bussing shiz around, it will get you nowhere, slow.

Thanks mate, I think this is the thing. I keep throwing compressors and EQ on everything when I only have a faint idea what i'm doing with them. I just keep trying to emulate people who've been in this for so long and getting dissapointed with the results. Back to the drawing board I spose.

Don't get me wrong, trial and error and noodling are a great way to come up with great things, but you really should dedicate a lot of time to getting to know your tools, a carpenter can hammer in screws for his entire career and it might work sometimes, but it's not going to be as effective as the screwdriver.