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Trying to wrap my brain around software Aux buses and FX buses.
( busses?)

It's not clear to me what the distinction is. Also, can someone
explain or point to a good resource to explain 1) What send vs return
does and 2) the pre/post issue on an Aux bus?

Also, not clear on why there's an individual track Aux bus control as
well as a separate Aux bus.

I'm using Cakewalk, but the help files seem a bit sketchy on these
topics.

Thanks.

[D C[_2_]]

wrote:

Trying to wrap my brain around software Aux buses and FX buses.
( busses?)

They're both outputs, and essentially the same, although in the context
of the DAW, the FX bus might automatically assume you'll choose an effect.

Also, can someone
explain or point to a good resource to explain 1) What send vs return
does


A send, again is an output, which goes somewhere. A return is an input,
coming back from somewhere.


and 2) the pre/post issue on an Aux bus?


There may be occasions where you want to fade the audio but leave the
effect sound there, or have an independent mix, not affected by the
fader. These are cases when the pre will be desirable.

Post is the opposite. The fader will affect the send. An independent mix
won't be possible.


Also, not clear on why there's an individual track Aux bus control as
well as a separate Aux bus.


The aux bus is the master fader summing all of the other individual auxes.

Mike's probably writing a really good version.

[wayne]

Here is Sonar's signal flow diagram. A picture will explain a lot.
ftp://ftp.marine.csiro.au/pub/mcintosh/signalflow3.wmf
And the place to go to bake 'Cake.
http://forum.cakewalk.com/tt.asp?forumid=5

If in this case you are thinking 'track EX bin' then that would be
akin to a channel insert patch point on a hardware mixe, in series
with the track flow vs a split of the signal on an aux send.

[RD Jones]

On Dec 4, 10:10 pm, wrote:

Trying to wrap my brain around software Aux buses and FX buses.
( busses?)

It's not clear to me what the distinction is. Also, can someone
explain or point to a good resource to explain 1) What send vs return
does and 2) the pre/post issue on an Aux bus?

'Aux' or 'send' are general terms, and usually one of either
pre-fader and pre-EQ -or- post-fader and post-EQ.
Pre is most often used for monitors and post sent to effects.

Sometimes it's useful to have a send post-EQ but pre-fader
and some consoles allow this to be set by jumpers on the
channel strip.

Send vs return is really self explanatory but think of a
stereo receiver with a tape monitor switch (and jacks).
With the switch in 'tape monitor' it interrupts the signal path
and sends the signal out through the output and returns
through the input. A console has a much greater degree
of flexibility but the intent and function is very similar.

Also, not clear on why there's an individual track Aux bus control as
well as a separate Aux bus.

I'm using Cakewalk, but the help files seem a bit sketchy on these
topics.

Virtually all software is just mimicking a hardware console's
signal paths. Each aux bus can have a mix of signals (or not)
and they are mixed by the individual channel send controls.
The master aux controls the overall level after those signals
are mixed, just like any other mix bus in the board. And just
like the main outputs those signals can be sent anywhere
you need them: monitors, broadcast feeds, zone mixes (like
bathrooms hallways, elevators), recording tracks, effects
and more effects, etc.

A printed manual may help more than an online help that
is likely blocking your view of what you're trying to learn.

rd

reply not crossposted

[Richard Kuschel]

wrote:
Trying to wrap my brain around software Aux buses and FX buses.
( busses?)

It's not clear to me what the distinction is. Also, can someone
explain or point to a good resource to explain 1) What send vs return
does and 2) the pre/post issue on an Aux bus?

Also, not clear on why there's an individual track Aux bus control as
well as a separate Aux bus.

I'm using Cakewalk, but the help files seem a bit sketchy on these
topics.

Thanks.

I don't know about Cakewalk and the time I tried to use it was
anything but!

However in the Aanalog, hardware world an FX bus is generally post EQ
and Post Fader, whereas an Aux bus may be pre-fader, and EQ. To
further confuse the issue, an Aux bus could be Post Fader and EQ by
assignment, which would make it the same as an FX bus.

[Rick Paul]

You don't mention which version of Cakewalk software you're using, and that
can make a difference as, past a certain version of SONAR (from memory I'm
thinking either V3 or V4) bus names can be whatever you want to name them,
and you can route them quite flexibly. Whereas prior to whatever that
version was, bus routing was less flexible.

In any case, the general scoop is as follows:

There are two basic places you can put effects and signal processors in
SONAR. One is in the inserts associated with a mixer track and the other is
in a bus. Those operate similarly with respect to the signal coming in and
going out of the track or bus -- i.e. they process the track's or bus' input
and send the processed signal to the track's or bus' output.

The main distinction between tracks and buses in SONAR is that tracks are
places were sound originates (i.e. inside SONAR -- it may have come from
somewhere else prior to getting into SONAR), whereas buses get fed sound
from other tracks and/or buses.

There are two basic ways of feeding sound from a track or bus to another
track or bus. One is to use a send to route the signal from a track or bus
to a bus. The other is to route the output of a track or bus to a bus.

When you use a send to route signal to a track or bus, you can configure it
to be pre- or post-fader (i.e. SONAR's Volume control). Note that the SONAR
3 signal flow diagram someone else posted showed the post-fader send as
being before panning, but SONAR 7's signal flow diagram shows post-fader
sends as being after panning, too. In both cases, though, the sends show up
as being after any FX in SONAR's FX bin. Also, in both cases, there is a
send pan control that lets you alter the panning of the signal being sent to
the send without affecting the signal going to the track or bus output.

Note that the SONAR FX Bin is the parallel of an insert loop in a hardware
mixer -- there are just no cables involved in most cases. I say "in most
cases" because the key exception is if you are using one of SONAR 7's
external insert effects. In that case, where you are basically using a
hardware processor like a plug-in from the view of the SONAR signal flow,
the effects insert actually does route to and from hardware outputs and
inputs, respectively, with the hardware processor(s) in between.

Getting back to routing with sends, there really isn't a "return" concept,
per se, in SONAR. The send is simply tapping the signal at some point to
"Y" it out to the bus that is serving as the target of the send in addition
to keeping it flowing to the track or bus output. Where the part that was
sent to the bus that was the target of the send, which you can call an aux
bus if that's how you're using it and you like that name, or an FX bus, or
even a function-specific name like Vocal Reverb bus, is not fixed in recent
versions of SONAR. You can route that target bus to any other bus in SONAR,
as long as that routing would not create a feedback loop. Let me give two
examples to demonstrate different uses:

1) The target of the send is a bus with the vocal reverb on it, and it
will be used for all the vocals in the project. You can call it an Aux bus
if you like here, though I prefer the more descriptive Vocal Reverb bus, but
the function is like an old-time auxilliary bus. You are routing multiple
signals to allow one effects processor (i.e. in the hardware world) or
plug-in effect (i.e. in the software world) to process all those signals,
rather than requiring one effects processor/plug-in per signal. In the
hardware world this was necessary because you couldn't clone pieces of
hardware and budgets could prevent buying more. In the software world this
helps conserve CPU power. In both worlds, it can also help avoid having to
make the same set of effects settings in multiple places. The input to this
Vocal Reverb bus is the mix of whatever level of vocal tracks and send
panning has been sent to it via the vocal track send controls and send
panners. Whether the track faders and panners also affected what came into
the picture depends on whether you used a pre- or post-fader send, but odds
are that for this specific situation you would have used a post-fader send
since you'd likely want the relative levels of the individual vocals in the
mix to also be proportional to the relative levels of the individual vocals
in the reverb. Where you route the output of the effected signal is up to
you, but odds are you might route it to the mix bus, or perhaps to a vocal
stem bus if you are needing to provide stems to someone else for potential
rebalancing (in which case the vocal stem bus would then go to the mix bus).
The routing of that output is what would correspond to a traditional
hardware return from an aux bus.

2) The target of the send is a bus with a bass amp simulator, and
possibly some other bass effects, on it, and you will be blending the "amped
signal" with the direct input signal from the bass. In this case, you might
use the track controls to deal with the dry input from the bass, and a
pre-fader send to get the signal to the FX bus or Bass Amp bus in this case
(i.e. since you wouldn't want your changing the blend and positioning of the
dry bass signal in the mix to affect the amount of signal being send to the
bass amp or the flexibility you'd have in panning the amped signal). In
this scenario in a hardware world you might have been more likely to use a
splitter somewhere before the recorder, so you'd end up coming into the
recorder with both the DI/dry signal and the miked amp signal, using two (or
possibly three if you do stereo miking) tracks. Thus, the Bass Amp bus
we're creating here is being used more like another track. Where you route
it afterward depends on what you want to do with the bass signal in general
and the individual components of it (i.e. dry and amped) in specific. For
example, you might then route both the bass track and the Bass Amp bus to a
Bass Submix bus, where you could then use the bus send controls to send the
blended signal to any more general aux-type effects, such as room reverb,
while sending the Bass Submix bus output to the mix. Or you could deal
separately with bass track and Bass Amp bus processing, sending each
separately to the mix, blending them at the mix level instead of at a submix
level. It just depends what you want to do with the components and the
blend, and what controls you need where to do that. For example, if I were
going to be automating the blended bass level in the mix, I'd probably go
for a Bass Submix bus so I could automate one fader instead of two. That
would also leave me the flexibility of separately automating the blend of
the two components using their individual faders if need be.

As hinted at above, another main function of buses is as submix buses. For
example, common ones I tend to use include background vocal submix, drums
submix. In a submix bus, you are generally taking the outputs of other
tracks and/or buses as inputs, then controlling them as a unit to send to
the mix and any common send effects (e.g. room reverb).

On any of the buses, if you are using sends (e.g. to send some of the Delay
bus signal into the Reverb bus in order to have the echoes also be affected
by the reverberation), the pre- and post-fader concepts work similarly to
how they work on tracks. That makes sense in that, in the example I gave
above with the Bass Amp bus, you are essentially using a bus like a track
(i.e. in terms of how it would likely be done in the traditional hardware
world or even the DAW world when recording a hardware amp in parallel with
the DI signal), and also in some cases of more complex effects processing
(e.g. the example I gave above of routing a bit of the delay to the reverb).
Of course, it also gives the potential to make things seem, or actually be,
incredibly complex if you think about the possibility of many layers of
buses all with an arbitrary number of pre- and/or post-sends available. The
good news is you only have to use those capabilities if you need them (and
they are there if you do need them), and SONAR makes sure you don't create a
feedback loop by doing something that could be all too easy to do in a
similarly flexible hardware world.

SONAR 7 adds one additional capability, which is the ability to send signal
into the sidechain input of plug-in processors that have them (e.g. the
Sonitus:fx compressor and gate, PSP MasterComp). From the perspective of a
track or bus, these sidechain inputs look just like any other bus, so you
can use them as the destination for a Send or as the destination for a track
or bus output. The thing that is different is that, instead of going to a
bus, the signals going to the sidechain go into the plug-in's sidechain or
key input, and that sidechain plug-in is sitting in another bus' or track's
FX bin. (SONAR also protects against creating feedback loops in this more
complex case.) Fun stuff. ;-)

Getting back to your original questions, I hope it is clear from the
detailed explanations above, that what you are calling an "aux bus control"
is actually a track or bus Send control, which happens to be routed to a bus
named Aux, and that the "separate Aux bus" is specifically the bus itself,
which happens to be named "Aux". You can have multiple send controls (e.g.
on different tracks and buses) feeding signal to the same Aux bus -- e.g. in
the case of a vocal reverb you might have a lead vocal plus three background
vocal tracks all sending to the same vocal reverb bus. You can think of the
"Aux sends" in this case as a submixer that mixes the signals coming from
each track together prior to sending it into the reverb bus, with each Send
control being the fader (and panner) for its individual signal.

Rick

--
=======================================
Rick Paul
Closet Cowboy Music (ASCAP)
Web: www.RickPaul.info
MySpace: www.myspace.com/rickpaulmusic
=======================================

wrote in message
...
Trying to wrap my brain around software Aux buses and FX buses.
( busses?)

It's not clear to me what the distinction is. Also, can someone
explain or point to a good resource to explain 1) What send vs return
does and 2) the pre/post issue on an Aux bus?

Also, not clear on why there's an individual track Aux bus control as
well as a separate Aux bus.

I'm using Cakewalk, but the help files seem a bit sketchy on these
topics.

Thanks.

[Mike Rivers]

On Dec 4, 11:10 pm, wrote:
Trying to wrap my brain around software Aux buses and FX buses.
( busses?)

The name and the application. Actually, they're all Auxiliary busses,
some used to send a signal to an effect, other used to send a signal
to something else.

Typically effects sends are post-fader so the signal level going to
the effect changes in proportion to the level of the unprocessed
signal in the mix, so on "user friendly" mixers, post-fader busses are
often labeled "Effects."

A stage or headphone monitor mix is often different from the main mix,
so those busses are fed pre-fader. Usually if there's an "Effect" bus
on a mixer, there will be a corresponding "Monitor" bus for pre-fader
sends. On a general purpose mixer, you'll find then all called "Aux."
There may be a switch to select whether their associated busses are
pre- or post-fader or some maybe hard-wired one way or the other.

Also, can someone
explain or point to a good resource to explain 1) What send vs return
does and 2) the pre/post issue on an Aux bus?

Also, not clear on why there's an individual track Aux bus control as
well as a separate Aux bus.

http://mackie.com/support/compactmixer/index.html is a good
explanation of what's what in a mixer. You can apply what you learn to
either hardware or software mixing.