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In article writes:

Busses relate to the number of different outputs.

Ummm... might be my understanding... you still didn't explain what is a
"bus" in the mixer, and secondary how it can affect the performance? Will a
8 bus better than 13 bus?

The term has different meanings depending on whether you're talking
about the internal workings of the mixer or the way the mixer is used.
Inside the mixer, it's the place where all the inputs assigned to that
bus are summed (mixed). From there it goes to an output jack, maybe
thorugh a volume control.

Let's say you have a very simple mono mixer. All of the inputs go
through their individual level controls and are summed together to one
bus. That bus is connected to the mixer output. Bunch of inputs to one
bus to one output. A one-bus mixer.

Now let's expand that to a stereo mixer. Each input goes through its
individual level control, then the output of the level control goes
through a pan pot which directs the signal to one of two busses, the
"left" and the "right" bus. Anything that's panned all the way to the
left goes to the left bus only, anything panned all the way to the
right goes to the right bus only. Anything that's panned somewhere in
between goes partially to each bus, kind of like a secondary volume
control that sets the volume to the left and the volume to the right
bus. All the signals going to each bus get summed, and then they go to
two outputs - usually left and right channels. Two busses, two
outputs.

An 8-bus mixer lets you assign an input not only to two bussed, but to
eight, and split the signal up so that it can go to any, or all of the
eight busses. Sometimes those eight busses are used to send different
"submixes" to the tracks of a multitrack recorder. This lets you mix,
say, all the keyboards to one track, all the backup vocals to another
track, all the drums to a track or two, etc.

Another use of multiple busses is as "subgroups." In this application,
there's a button which assigns the bus output to yet another bus so
you can mix all the backup vocals to one bus, then control the level
of the backup vocals in the mix with a single control. But there's
gotta be that button - most multi-bus consoles have one, but some
don't, and some (none of the ones you're considering) use a "matrix"
rather than a simple assignment to left and right busses.

Then there are the busses that are used for auxiliary sends. This is
like a mixer within a mixer. If a company wants to brag about how many
busses their mixer has, they'll add those to the count (because
they're really busses internally). Other manufacturers will say
something like "4 busses plus left, right, and mono with six auxiliary
sends" which makes 13 busses. I would call this a "4-bus" console.

I know, but if I have half your knowledge, I wouldn't need to post a
suggestion request here. Right?

So get a little knowledge. Read a mixer instruction manual. Mackie has
several on line on their web site and they're decent tutorials which
will give you an idea of where you might apply those busses.

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