Noobie question.

[kb420]

I'm not familiar at all with working in a DAW that has a limitation (outside of cpu power) on tracks. Pro Tools Le is limited to 32 mono tracks, 16 stereo, or a combination of the two. My question is this, do busses count against that total?

[spkguitar]

My question is this, do busses count against that total?

I think you are confusing the traditional hardware definition of a bus (such as on a 4 bus mixer) with busses in Pro Tools.

Bus count is completely separate from tracks. A bus in Pro Tools is just the route audio takes to a destination. Busses in Pro Tools can be routed to Audio, AUX or instrument tracks, so to answer your question:

It depends on what you are sending the bus to.

If you are sending from 6 audio tracks across a bus to an aux track (to re-create the "bus" of a hardware mixer), your audio track count does not increase against the limitation, no.

If it is routed to an audio track, then yes, of course.

[kb420]

Ok, so basically, aux tracks do not count against the limitation? I get it.

[spkguitar]

The limitations of Pro Tools LE are as follows (covered on page 30 of the 7.4 Pro Tools Reference Guide):

• 32 voices: mono voices can be combined for a total of 32 mono tracks, or any combination of stereo and mono tracks. Stereo tracks count as 2 voices. This voice limitation can be replaced with a 48 track limitation by purchasing either the Music Production Toolkit, or the DV Toolkit 2.
• 128 total voiceable tracks: you can only listen to 32 voices at a time, but you are capable of creating 128 tracks whose voices can be turned on or off as you need them.
• 128 Auxiliary input tracks: these just pass audio I/O. can also be used for virtual instrument plugins.
• 256 MIDI tracks: for recording and playback of MIDI data.
• 32 instrument tracks: basically a combination of MIDI and AUX tracks.
• 32 internal busses: to route audio from place to place.
• 1 Quicktime Video Track: self explanatory?