Master Bus Processing and sub mixes

[Lapick]

Jagg76,

You're question should probably have been posted in the Tips & Technique forum. As a matter of fact this whole thread should probably have been there but having noted that:

I did a quick search (both on the DUC and externally) and to my surprise I didn't find anything about the basic concept either. I'm sure there's something out there but you'll apparently have to work a little bit to find it. As I mentioned you may want to try the question in the technique forum. I'll do my best to offer up a quick explanation to get you going.

In a nutshell sub-mixing (or sub-grouping in some circles) is just the grouping of related tracks together so that you can manipulate them in some common way. A typical example would be sub-mixing the individual drum tracks so that you could change the level of (or add effects to) the whole drum kit easily without having to change each individual drum track.

This is accomplished by assigning the outputs of the individual tracks in question to their own common buss (instead of the main output buss). That buss in turn feeds the main output buss. This gives you control of that group, via its buss, independent of the main output buss and the other elements of the mix.

Sub-mixing is particularly valuable in a live situation where you may have to make quick changes to many elements of the mix at once. Quickly muting all the vocal mics for example. Instead of muting four vocal mics one at a time you simply group them together on the same buss and mute the buss. Sub-mixing also has other uses. In film and video post production it's used extensively (typically called stems or splits) to more easily control and treat the different sound elements like dialog, background music, sound effects, etc.

What djd2 was talking about is sub-mixing and bouncing that mix for the purpose of freeing up more tracks and resources. Say you have a deck with eight tracks and tracks one through six are taken up by the kick drum, snare, hi-hat, two overheads, and bass guitar. By sub-mixing and bouncing the first five tracks of drums to tracks seven and eight the first five tracks are once again free to record something else like, oh I dunno maybe five guitars.

Hope this brief explanation helped some.

Lapick

[Lapick]

Dave,

I don't think you're nuts at all. It sounds like you're just squeezing as much as you can out of what you have. The method you're using isn't ideal but that doesn't mean you can't get good results from it. Hendrix or the Beatles bouncing tracks around on 4-track machines wasn't ideal either but few argued about the results.

Based on your last post it seems that I may have understood what you were doing after all (I'll eventually learn not to read or post before I've had my first cup of coffee). As long as you do have the other instruments in the mix then at least you're not completely guessing about things but I think my original comments regarding duplicate master buss processing might apply.

All the best.

Lapick

[djd2]

Thanks Lapick,

I guess I'll just keep doing what I am doing. I did search this topic myself and didn't find much. I might head over to gearslutz and see what I come up with.

Dave