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Lanky_panda
Benefits of drum bussing...?!

06-09-2010 05:31 AM

just been getting really into bussing, but wonder what the benefits of bussing drums together are?? trying to understand in my mind, sounds kinda noob I know, much appreciated thank you!

JLB8LVR
Re: Benefits of drum bussing...?!

06-09-2010 07:08 AM

Making your separately processed drum hits sound like one consistent break using reverb, saturation, distortion, compression etc or put them in their own 'space.' It also allows you to automate all your drums all at once using the bus track (e.g. Automating a low pass filter before a drop). Another thing you can do when bussing your drums is mute them all at once if you need to, and it gives you a good idea of where the level are at when things are bussed to groups.

lethargik

06-09-2010 07:13 AM

Well bussing is great overall for making an easier mix down.... Imagine if all you have to fiddle with at the end is Leads, Basses, Drums and FX channels as opposed to hundreds of channels..... It just helps to make everything more organised. If you layer up kicks, send it to bus one, then your snares to bus 2, and all your percussion to bus 3.... then you can process each element further on it own with interference. When your finished with the busses 1,2 and 3... then you can send them all to bus 4, your Drum bus.... Now you can compress it all together to make it sound tight, a bit of reverb to make it all gell.... its piss easy to automate filter cut off points on your original sample (so there is no need to render selection to sample) Bussing is just really useful..... do it [edit] beaten to it :mad:

thermal

06-09-2010 07:15 AM

well for one it lets you balance the level of the drums using one fader instead of many. Another

major benefit is being able to process the drums as a whole, say for making a filter sweep or doing stuff that glues the kit together, like compression or reverb. experiment :upsidedow edit: beaten to it!

Corpheus
I was stuck in this boat until recently. The advantages of bussing are: 1.) You can manage groups of sounds more effectively, batch process, ect.

06-09-2010 07:29 AM

2.) The harmonics glue together better than if you processed them seperately. Basically, bussing unifies the sound. If you individually process everything and just send it to your master buss, it'll sound less "solid" and "together" than if you'd bussed stuff. 3.) Less CPU hit. One VST obviously uses less power than two...or three. or four. In the analog domain, this means less time re-recording each one after its processed, re-layering, ect. Some things to watch out for though: 1.) Relying on your buss to correct problems with individual sounds, layers, ect. The buss should be where you add that critical touch of class, shape the overall tone of the kick/snare/other percussion instrument sound, not take care of a crappy EQ'ing job. 2.) In the same sense, you'll waste a ton of time trying to use your drum buss(es) to get sounds that otherwise don't really work together to work together. That doesn't mean you should go for the obvious answers, but if after ten minutes you can't get the snare to hit right and are constantly fidgeting with stuff on the snare buss, maybe it's time to take a look at the actual sounds that make up your snare. 3.) Beware over-bussing. You do not need to buss every sound, nor do bussed sounds need to be re-bussed (although it works wonders with kick +snare sounds). This is just going to make everything a gigantic muck of processing, crap out your processor, and make you one unhappy chap. your high-frequency drum stuff, like cymbals, shakers, ect. These are the guys you especially don't want to hyper-buss/crack-buss/be a buss-meth-head about. This vid is a pretty good starting point on bussing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgN8SxpXkGQ

Lanky_panda

06-09-2010 07:54 AM

I find in FL studio, when I make a drum bus, if I turn down the drum bus level, if its lower than the individual drum level(s) then it seems to leak through...how do I go around this...?! thanks this is sound advice!

Cowboy Inc.

06-10-2010 06:42 PM

I didn't realize that buss tracks sould be re-bussed in cubase? When I try to tap the output of a buss, none of the other busses appear as options, just the outputs of my soundcard....

Strict Resistance
Quote:

06-10-2010 07:56 PM

Originally posted by Cowboy Inc. I didn't realize that buss tracks sould be re-bussed in cubase? When I try to tap the output of a buss, none of the other busses appear as options, just the outputs of my soundcard....

It depends... In Cubase Sx, FX busses cannot be re-bussed. If however you just create new group channels and bus to them, you can keep re-bussing them to new groups as many times as you want i.e. group 1,2 & 3 can be sent to 4. What you can't do is then send groups backwards i.e 4 back to 1. Dunno about newer versions of Cubase though.

Strict Resistance
.

06-10-2010 07:58 PM

dfault

06-10-2010 09:52 PM

I usually use like five main group busses for certain categories of sounds i.e. Drums, Mids, Pads, Reverb/ Delay FX. That's after I group certain subcategories i.e. breaks, cymbals etc. in the signal chain before those main busses. It makes it a lot easier to keep track of busy projects plus the sounds can be gelled incrementally to create a more polished sound. I almost always use a limiter of some sort on the final drum group to A) Squash the peaks of the kick and snare a bit for a more up front sound. B) Catch any unexpected 3 db ish peaks that reduce the overall level of the drum mix like when I have all 3000 channels playing at once after the drop. I use Logic so I can't help with Cubase. I'm sure you can route things all over the place with it I've just never used it.

Full Clip Audio

06-10-2010 10:43 PM

People have pretty much listed the many great reasons for it but I would stress that it is a great way to add layers of subtle processing. By using compression to control individual elements on their own channels and then using gentle compression and or saturation to "gel" the sounds together on the buss and finally a small amount of compression/saturation on the master you end up with a much fuller, more natural sound. These multiple subtle layers of saturation and harmonics enhancement is what in the end will make your tracks come alive and sound much more "analog".

Philthy_mpc

06-10-2010 11:36 PM

This why I love Live's drum rack, its sort of an instant bussing tool the way it allows you to affect and process every drum sample separately.

Lanky_panda

06-11-2010 03:57 AM

Oh sweet, Just fixed the problem I was having with bussing...works perfectly fine in FL studio thank god!! :biggrin:

frantik
Quote:

06-11-2010 04:09 AM

Originally posted by Lanky_panda I find in FL studio, when I make a drum bus, if I turn down the drum bus level, if its lower than the individual drum level(s) then it seems to leak through...how do I go around this...?! thanks this is sound advice!

you need to turn off routing to the master bus

mister_tech
Quote:

06-11-2010 07:01 AM

Originally posted by Lanky_panda I find in FL studio, when I make a drum bus, if I turn down the drum bus level, if its lower than the individual drum level(s) then it seems to leak through...how do I go around this...?! thanks this is sound advice!

Right click on the bus and click 'send to this channel only'

Snakesnatcher
can somebody recommend a nice limiter for the drum bus. maybe a freebie.

06-11-2010 11:41 AM

MVV
i personally find that it also works on full tracks(not too much tho)

06-11-2010 12:44 PM

i use pocket limiter all the time : http://hem.bredband.net/tbtaudio/arc...vstplugins.htm

luthatron
Quote:

06-11-2010 12:52 PM

Originally posted by Snakesnatcher can somebody recommend a nice limiter for the drum bus. maybe a freebie.

bootsy VCS channel strip. free, it has: saturation hi and low pass eq compression limiter all in one plugin.

mrkrush

06-13-2010 04:11 AM

I hate to say it but when it comes to limiting one of the best is the Oxford Limiter. Transparent as they come but has some nice features built in that allow you to colour the sound a bit or a lot. hope that helps dauntless

JLB8LVR

06-13-2010 05:44 AM

Flux do a nice limiter that works well on drums too, and then there's always the L1 & L2 if you like a bit of distortion on your drums.

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