routing/bussing books?
 

As i never assisted an experienced engineer, went to audio college or have a big console to play with, my knowledge and experience of aux sends, routing and bussing is rudimentary at best.

Can anyone recommend any books that are particularly well written in this subject area that might help me expand my bus routes knowledge ( and i don't mean transportation timetables either!!).

tia

Re: routing/bussing books?
 

Try these threads:

Thread One

Thead Two

Rail

Re: routing/bussing books?
 

thanks Rail,

interesting threads, although i knew all that stuff. I think what i am really after is something that illustrates different ways in which people use bussing for complex mix situations.

I often try pick the brains of our mix engineer during a session (Hi Paul - he often reads these but never joins in!!) and then try reproduce what i remember back in my suite, and i have learned a lot from doing that, but i'm keen to learn more as i know how knowledge stored away can often lead to creative solutions in future problems.

regards

Re: routing/bussing books?
 

For me, the bussing "backbone" of my sessions is completely crazy and more convoluted than I would prefer. I would have a hard time explaining it in person much less in writing. I use a lot of busses and devote significant DSP power to it. Not only do I have to cover every mixing (aux sends for verbs and other processing common to many tracks) and monitoring need, I also have to generate various deliverables such as 5.1 mix, LtRt mix, stereo or mono stems of dialog or interviews, music, effects, VO, dipped and/or undipped, a mono mix, sometimes with laybacks to video, sometimes to DA88, sometimes to files, sometimes combinations of these, and all dithered. It seems as though 'most every session requires slightly different combinations of things so that for every client I have to tweak my templates. Oh and, naturally, everything should be perfectly time aligned. It's that last point that gets to me. Keeping mixes and sub mixes in perfect alignment to the picture as well as to each other is sometimes next to impossible without separate passes for different stems. No matter how I mess around with it, I usually feel humbled by the time I'm done.

I used to think my starting template was not thorough enough so I've re-worked it often and made it more and more complicated, yet I still alter it for almost every new show. I don't know about anyone else, but I spend quite a lot of time checking and re-checking my various stem breakouts and adjusting delays and sliding the whole session around to get everything in sync. It is not very efficient. Delay compensation? A blessing and a curse. I often just turn it off.


I know this doesn't help you, but I feel better venting!

Re: routing/bussing books?
 

actually it does in a way, Richard. It explains why its such a difficult subject to find info on. And you have also got me thinking about templates - something i tend not to do at the moment, as my work all starts out as a blank session. I tend to avoid using plug-ins as i find eq and reverb are better judged at the final mix, which we do out of house.

the whole thing about bussing really only became interesting this week whilst i was building a complex sound that involved several layers being affected by various plug-ins, and different plug-ins at different times in the effect. I was experimenting with ways to route the signals and found half the time i was not hearing what i expected....i suppose it just highlighted a lack of knowledge on my part and i set out to correct that.

so yes, any answer does help because it can lead to other avenues of thought and realisation.

regards