Bus creation - what am I misunderstanding ?

[johne53]

In between the mixer channels & busses there's a blue '+' sign. Pressing it brings up a dialog which allows me to create tracks, busses and VCA masters.

But if I ask it to create an audio bus called Bus-new it in fact seems to create a track called Bus-new. How do I make it create an actual bus??

[Dingo]

The Audio Bus looks very similar to a normal channel except it has a blue show/hide indicator at the top.
You can then assign from channels by right click and choose the Aux Send you want to add to.
Just tested 32C on macOS with mono and stereo bus and works as expected.

[johne53]

Thanks Dingo - so effectively there are 3 options?

1) The LHS of the mixer will show both Audio Tracks and Audio Busses
2) The middle section shows the Mixbusses
3) and the RHS shows the Master Output

[Dingo]

Yes John that is correct, the Audio Busses reside in the LHS Channels section.
Unlike the Mix Busses, Audio Busses can be reordered anywhere in the Channel strip area.

[Andy76]

Audio bus is a very generic and confusing name. It would be much easier for all of us if Harrison renames it to say "Aux bus" or something similar with a strong differentiating name, Audio bus to me is like an Audio track.
Then it obviously should have its own color palette. Now it belongs to the same color profile as regular tracks.

There are more problems with those buses.

If one uses lua script "Tracks to Bus" the assignment of the tracks could be broken. The script is unreliable.
If one creates a bus from + sign or from the Track menu and chooses Assign group from the dropdown the group will be assigned but not present in the Show sends button (it will be above where one groups tracks with the stretching band).
If you want to delete this group then how? Deselect group band?
By default the bus is in Mono, makes sense to set Stereo by default to avoid clicks and user errors as it seems the most used case scenario.
The most reliable way to create an aux bus and assign the selected tracks is this:

1. Create aux bus
2. Select tracks
3. Right-click on the Show sends
4. Choose Assign selected tracks (pre or post fader)

But if you want to get rid of all assigned tracks there is no menu for this there. And it should be.

And the most convenient way could/should be this (less clicks and more logical):

1. Select tracks in Editor or Mixer
2. Right-click on any of those selected tracks
3. Select "Make aux bus from selected tracks"

Optionally this command could be assigned to Action Buttons and this would reduce the operation to 2 clicks.

[Oleg]

Hi to all. I find one more issues with Utility Bus (When you press the + button). Normally (as in manual) Audio buses should take a role as Aux busses in Protools. So you can output some tracks to Audio Bus IN. Or make SEND from tracks to Audio Bus. But there is issue if you output mono track to stereo bus. You can connect OUT of mono track only to R channel or L channel or both channels of AudioBus. So you can't manage PAN of the track. I solved it by PINNING CONNECTION, or MONO->STEREO PLUGINS, which is very difficult and take a lot of time to connect all tracks i want to a BUS. So I see AUDIO BUS in MB just like AUX BUS.
http://mixbus.harrisonconsoles.com/forum...age-2.html - See My Post

[Oleg]

Andy 76 and Dingo can you help us to look into understanding of Utility Busses (Audio Busses in MixBus)? PLEASE.
In ProTools or Logic Pro there is obvious way to use Busses and route Tracks to them to collecting tracks in Group busses and sending to FX busses. Sometimes bus goes to other bus or to parallel busses etc., and at the end many busses goes to Master bus. Sometimes it needs 20 or more busses, if you have many groups of instruments, and Effects.
But in MixBus we have just 12 Busses, There are perfect for summing, or Parallel compression at the last stage of mixing. But 12 Busses are too small amount to collect groups of instruments + FX + Parallel compression. If you have 16 tracks and 4 musicians - Ok, but it is not enough for orchestra + FX, for example.
So Manual says, that we can use Utility Bus, "+" sign. And There is confuse and a lot of issues.
1) We can't route mono track out to Stereo Bus INNs (Audio Bus) properly. Cause there is only way to patch mono track to L or R channel or both inns of Audio Bus , so you can't manage Panorama (try it yourself). I become using Mono-Stereo Plug-in on every channel i want to route to the Bus, But my DSP Load Increased. And it takes a time. Logic and Protools makes it automatically, and it is very simple to route 10 track to "Bus 1", for example, with out difficulty.
----SO WE CAN'T USE AUDIO BUS AS ADDITIONAL GROUP FOR COLLECTING INSTRUMENTS AND THEN ROUTE IT TO MIXBUS----
2) We can't route INTERNAL SEND from mono track to Stereo Buss easily, cause the same problem. No Panorama possible, just level.
----SO WE CAN'T USE AUDIO BUS AS ADDITIONAL BUS FOR EFFECTS SUCH REVERB (cause if you pan your dry track to the left, your reverb will be at the center)---
3) We can create EXTERNAL SEND on tracks and route them to Stereo Bus. But this takes a huge times. Moreover you will see that every track has different send name like "send1", "send2' etc., so it complicate your session organization. Moreover, you need to exclude your tracks from master or mixbusses cause off latency, and you can manage Panorama only in send window.
----SO WE CAN ASSIGN TRACKS TO AUDIO BUS THIS WAY, BUT IT TO COMPLICATED AND TAKES A LOT OF ATTENTION AND TIME----
CONCLUSION - If you work with a lot off groups instrument you need a lot of Busses to collecting tracks, combining them into one bus and editing overall. You need busses for space effects like several reverbs and delays. But we have just 12 Mixbusses (in version 5). What is destination of Audio Busses? Manual says that Audio busses provide you convenience and flexibility you used in ProTools and Logic, and superrior Mixbuses strips, but in fact Audio busses are helpless.
Please What you say about?

[Dingo]

@Oleg, from what you have said, it appears you are using 32C v5 or older.
Full implementation of Audio Busses including panning within stereo busses, Show/Hide channels sending to the bus, full PDC and more.
I suggest you download a free trial version of MB 32C v6 and see how the new bussing system and other improvements works.

[Andy76]

Andy 76 and Dingo can you help us to look into understanding of Utility Busses (Audio Busses in MixBus)?

Whats your OS and Mixbus version?
Please put this info in your signature.

(Harrison, please, its crazy! We have THREE official names for one thing and confusion just continues! Utility Bus, Audio Bus, Aux Bus...U-Buss OMG)