Utility Busses Q again, but a bit differently this time...

[Subzero]

I have 4 guitar tracks. It's a take and it's double, each recorded with 2 mics. My goal was to combine them along with some other guitar parts to a utility buss which will be sent to a mixbus eventually.
I created a stereo utility buss and open the connection window to send the audio from these tracks exclusively to the utility buss.
No matter how I connect them (each mic to 1 side / each mic to both sides) the pan on those tracks does nothing. The same happens when trying this with a mono buss.
As I want the signal from these tracks to go EXCLUSIVELY to the utility buss, I do not want to use a send.
What am I missing here ?

Thnx
Itsik

[Subzero]

Anyone???

[JamieLang]

I think you have to use a send to mix tracks into a utility bus. But, then--the one time I used one, it told me I'm never using it again. Solo issues. I couldn't solo one source track without also solo'ing the utility bus...but, I couldn't solo the bus itself and get everything feeding it...it was a kick that I had two mics and a mono sample blended--and to solo "the kick" I had to hit four buttons. No thank you.

...it's also possible that there's a better way to deal with utility bussing. Hopefully someone comes along with a better way.

[Subzero]

Thank you Jamie. I was hoping that some one from Harrison could also provide some insight on this but ...

[JamieLang]

Email them. They're more responsive via email for a specific inquiry. IME.

[Dingo]

As I want the signal from these tracks to go EXCLUSIVELY to the utility buss, I do not want to use a send.
What am I missing here ?

Thnx
Itsik

You should try using a send to the Utility Buss.
So long as ALL mix busses and the Master are turned OFF there should be no issue with double ups.
Using Audio Connections is like patching rather then summing or mixing.

[Tassy]

The pan on stereo u-buses works well.
If you hear elways from the center you must see what the meter bars show on the u-bus when panned. The two green bars should show balanced as you pan. (if the connections are L and R)
If the meters show panned but you hear centered from the master maybe there is a plug that makes it mono on the master.
Expected sound you hear if the audio track to master led is off, the u-bus to master led is on.

If you send one mono audio to the bus R and another audio to the bus L the hard panning on the u-bus will mute either left or right respectively.

Conclusion: since the u.bus pan works well, the problem can be only by some not proper I/O connection or an activated mono somewhere in the signal chain.
I hope some of it helps
Tassy
PS: Why not send to mixbuses? there are 12 latency compensated and one click?

[JamieLang]

Panning works....that's the difference in the send and patching it....when he switches to using the send, panning will work.

Anyone have a solution for soloing?

3 kicks....to one (mono in this case but should be irrelevant) utility bus assigned to the drum bus--this is REALLY typical for me--to buss the two snare mics together to EQ and compress as one...I often get the typical 57+121 for a amp mic'ing that I want to establish a blend that works for me and then just EQ/compress the blend as one....none of this is "full on mixbus" worthy, because they NEED to cascade to an actual mixbus. I usually make the blend and then hide the originals so all I SEE in the mixer is the "utility bus".

My problem is that when I solo that, it doesn't solo anything sent to it. So, to solo that blend of kick mics, I have to LEAVE 4 channels visible and solo each and every one of them....that's a serious functional problem. If it were only relative volume, I could of course create a kick VCA....but, how then do I put them all through the same compressor to get a uniform envelope on the kick? See what I mean?

As it stands, the only functional reason I see to use utility busses in Mixbus is for an extra send effect that doesn't need compensation-AND you're out of proper mixbuses, because even used as an extra delay line--it won't solo when you solo the track being sent to it....so, you've got to now solo the guitar track AND THEN go find the utility bus and solo that in order to hear the guitar with it's delay line.

[Tassy]

I use u-bus for recording if I want to insert plugins or use some channel options (gain, compr..) for recording.
record signal into bus (plug, options etc,) and record arm on the audio track input

[JamieLang]

You can do that with a normal channel. Fwiw. I open an audio track....insert amp sim....second track with that output as the source—allows me to also print throuhg the 32c EQ on the first channel like I would my analog on the way in with a real amp.

I do the same with midi tracks—I rarely record midi....I just arm a second audio track with the VI’s output....