Looking for advice on organizing mixes coming from a different environment.

[Karmoon]

Greetings all,

I am looking for advice and ideas on how to tackle a small project in terms of routing to busses.

I came to Mixbus from a DAW where I have access to limitless tracks, busses and VCAs. What this means is that I don't really know how I'm supposed to organize tracks and busses/sends effectively yet. I am practicing, but I figured I might as well ask too.

I have a relatively simple project consisting of the following 17 tracks:

Drums:

• Kick.
  
• Snare.
  
• OH.
  
• Toms Rack.
  
• Toms Floor.
  
• Room.
  

6 tracks.

Bass:

• DI.
  
• Amped.
  

2 tracks. 8 total.

Rhythm Guitar x 2:

• Mic 1.
  
• Mic 2.
  
• Line in.
  

6 tracks. 14 total.

Lead Guitar:

• Mic 1.
  
• Mic 2.
  
• Line in.
  

3 tracks. 17 total.

I would like to use the following sends for effects:

- Room reverb
- Long reverb
- delay

I'm interested in how people would go about assigning and tackling this amount of tracks with what is available in Mixbus 32c.

For example, with the rhythm guitars, I'm used to summing them together in a group/bus and then applying whatever processing i need, and then sending them to a rhythm guitar bus, and then finally the instruments bus that feeds directly to the master.

Another example is sometimes I like to have a separate bus/send for only the kick and snare where I can apply parallel compression.

So far I am happy with the results I am getting in Mixbus. So it's not like I can't even attempt the project. I'm just wondering how those more experienced than I would tackle routing for a small project like this.

I feel that I am running out of busses and need to take decisions that I might not normally. If the project also had say, vocals, synths and sound effects, then I really think I would have difficulties deciding on the proper routing using the 12 mixbusses available.

As I said, I am happy with the results I've been getting thus far despite this issue. It's very liberating to get a great sound using very few plugins. I have always enjoyed using channel strip plugins in other DAWs, so Mixbus seems really natural in that regard.

What I've been doing so far is using mixbus 9-12 as my main produciton groups that feed the master directly, so percussion, instruments, vox/lead and effects.

And then I use the other mixbusses as best I can and route them to the four main groups above.

Cheers.

[sunrat]

12 busses says you are using Mixbus 32C. I regularly mix live gig recordings similar to your session. First 8 mixbusses for track subgroups and the last 4 for effects because you can send signal from any of 1-8 to any of 9-12. Rarely use any more than 12 busses.
You can create unlimited tracks, aux busses, and VCAs in Mixbus as far as hardware can handle.
The manual is incredibly detailed and well worth searching in there first for answers.

[Karmoon]

12 busses says you are using Mixbus 32C. I regularly mix live gig recordings similar to your session. First 8 mixbusses for track subgroups and the last 4 for effects because you can send signal from any of 1-8 to any of 9-12. Rarely use any more than 12 busses.
You can create unlimited tracks, aux busses, and VCAs in Mixbus as far as hardware can handle.
The manual is incredibly detailed and well worth searching in there first for answers.

I am aware of aux busses and the like and would probably use them for mixing larger and more complex projects. I have answered all my questions thus far with google or the manual. In this specific case, I'm interested in the human approach to the situation.

The fact that you mix live gig recordings similar to my session is extremely validating for me. Also - it seems like I had the role of the last 4 busses backwards.

I'm grateful your reply, you've helped a ton! Cheers!

[PBuryk]

@Karmoon -
Regardless of the number of tracks in your current session versus the potential number of tracks you might have in some future session,
I would recommend that you experiment with adding AUX busses to your workflow. Then you have a more consistent instrumentation setup
that you can save as a template for any session without concern about "running out of busses". Using the AUX Bus will also give you a more flexible EQ,
if you need that.

So, as per your example session (above):
Rhythm Guitar tracks --> Rhythm Guitars AUX Bus -->Instrumentation Mixbus --> Master Bus

I tend to use AUX Busses to gather "like" tracks (eg., drums, rhythm guitars, acoustic guitars, lead guitars, horns, synths, BK vox, etc.) and then direct
them to mixbusses (1-8) as logical mix sections [Reserving Mixbusses 9-12 for spacial processing]. That way my Mixbusses (1-8) retain a (pseudo) standard
control purpose regardless of the project I'm working on. For example:

Drum Kit Tracks --> Drum Kit AUX Bus --> Rhythm Section Mixbus (mixbus #1)
Room & Overheads --> Room AUX Bus --> Rhythm Section Mixbus (mixbus #1)
Rhythm Guitar Tracks --> Rhythm Guitar AUX Bus --> Rhythm Section Mixbus (mixbus #1)
Snaps/Claps/Tamb/etc. --> Percussion AUX Bux --> Rhythm Section Mixbus (mixbus #1)

Strings & other Orchestration Tracks --> Orchestration AUX Bus --> Orchestration Mixbus (#2)
Horns (eg Jazz or Blues Section) Tracks --> Horns Section AUX Bus --> Orchestration Mixbus (#2)
Synth Tracks -->Synth AUX Bux --> Orchestration Mixbus (mixbus #2)

Lead Guitar Tracks --> Lead Guitar AUX Bus --> Solos & Cameos Mixbus (mixbus #3)
Piano Tracks --> Piano Aux Bus --> Solos & Cameos Mixbus (mixbus #3)
Sax Tracks --> Sax AUX Bus --> Solos & Cameos Mixbus (mixbus #3)

You can see by the above that if I were to group all of my "like" instrumentation into mixbusses that I would have exceeded the total number of mixbusses 
available. However, by using AUX busses, I can accomplish the same organization using fewer actual mixbusses. Also, I've established a grouping and bus
routing that I can store and recall as a template for projects that might have different instrumentation.

Cheers!
Patrick