Old 12-09-2018, 06:15 PM   #1
Coachz
Human being with feelings
 
Coachz's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Charleston, SC
Posts: 12,770
Default Whats on your FX Bus ?

What effects do you put on your FX bus and what do you do with it?

For example, Do you have one compressor bus just for NY City Parallel compression that you feed bass, kick and snare to ?

Do you have on reverb for vocals and another for guitars and drums ?

Do you have delays for instruments that are tied to tempo ?

Just wondering what's on your bus ?
Coachz is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-09-2018, 06:52 PM   #2
foxAsteria
Human being with feelings
 
foxAsteria's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Oblivion
Posts: 10,255
Default

I like big buss and I cannot lie! This is my typical situation: Pre-fader parallel group busses for all instruments of the same type, and also sometimes mix and match further emphasis. These are compressed for glue. Delay buss is always tempo synced and time fx are post-fader. Got a short and long verb busses too (the 3 fx buss beginners rule almost always works for me). Then I got channel and tape plugs on every track for variable color. Every track sends to the 3 time Fx busses in varied amounts to create the space. EQ for making things fit and that's about it.

I find that starting out with busses like this, I don't have to do as much to the individual tracks.
__________________
foxyyymusic
foxAsteria is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-10-2018, 01:52 AM   #3
Coachz
Human being with feelings
 
Coachz's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Charleston, SC
Posts: 12,770
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by foxAsteria View Post
I like big buss and I cannot lie! This is my typical situation: Pre-fader parallel group busses for all instruments of the same type, and also sometimes mix and match further emphasis. These are compressed for glue. Delay buss is always tempo synced and time fx are post-fader. Got a short and long verb busses too (the 3 fx buss beginners rule almost always works for me). Then I got channel and tape plugs on every track for variable color. Every track sends to the 3 time Fx busses in varied amounts to create the space. EQ for making things fit and that's about it.

I find that starting out with busses like this, I don't have to do as much to the individual tracks.
cool. what is the the 3 fx buss beginners rule ? I can find very little on Youtube or web articles discussing setting up FX busses. Do you mean EQ on individual tracks ?
Coachz is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-10-2018, 02:55 AM   #4
foxAsteria
Human being with feelings
 
foxAsteria's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Oblivion
Posts: 10,255
Default

I put EQ on every track by default, just to have em, don't always use em. 3 buss rule...I made that up, there's no rule. It's just very often recommended to start out with 3 fx busses and learn to use them together; delay, short reverb, long reverb. I started with that and just kept doing it. It works for me most of the time.

If you send all your tracks to the fx sends then you can have a knob on your mixer for each track to quickly add reverb to push it back (long) or bring it forward (short) or to help it sync to the beat (delay). If you wanna get crazy you can send your sends to to your sends (creates interesting feedback).
__________________
foxyyymusic
foxAsteria is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-10-2018, 11:32 AM   #5
Magicbuss
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
Posts: 1,957
Default

I've got a mix template with about a dozen FX busses. I never use all of them but the idea is to be able to quickly audition multiple FX to find the one that works.

So off the top of my head here's my FX busses:

Slap delay mono
Slap stereo
1/8 note delay
1/4 note delay
Stereo ping pong delay
Small room reverb (500-700ms)
Spring reverb mono
Plate reverb (1-1.5 sec)
large hall verb (2-2.5 secs)
Huge ambient reverb
Chorus
Parallel drum crush buss (with choice of decapitator, slate monster or devil loc)

and probably a couple more I'm forgetting
Magicbuss is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-10-2018, 11:58 AM   #6
karbomusic
Human being with feelings
 
karbomusic's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2009
Posts: 29,260
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Coachz View Post
What effects do you put on your FX bus and what do you do with it?
Nothing is default except a delay track/return and a reverb track/return or twice that with an short verb, long verb, short delay, long delay - sometimes I'll add a special FX delay but that either goes in the folder for whom it affects or with the other two. Everything else gets added on a need-by-need basis.

Quote:
For example, Do you have one compressor bus just for NY City Parallel compression that you feed bass, kick and snare to ?
That wouldn't be an FX bus for me, it would just be placed on the drum sub/bus and I'd use blending of the plugin or chain if I wanted NYC. Tbh, I've never been 'that' excited with NY Compression, it's fine, just don't use it that often. I use it but it's not on the default list.

Quote:
Do you have on reverb for vocals and another for guitars and drums ?
Most often not, but not a hard rule.

Quote:
Do you have delays for instruments that are tied to tempo ?
Depends because sometimes not being aligned to the tempo sounds better - most useful on shorter delays, longer are usually aligned but sometimes pushed a tiny bit out of alignment to push/pull the beat... Sometimes I'll need a repeat that is on 1/4 or 1/2 notes or dotted 1/4 or 1/2 that repeat a few times and I'll time it so the repeats get a tiny bit later each repeat as they flow across upcoming measures, this is very small, as I said, just enough to lag a bit as it fades and is a specific creative decision at some point in time somewhere like my project from last year. This can keep some of the mechanical sound out.

Bus/FX wise, I usually let the song tell me what it wants, since I don't have regular clients, I don't have to preconfigure a template then stuff the song through that.
__________________
Music is what feelings sound like.

Last edited by karbomusic; 12-10-2018 at 12:07 PM.
karbomusic is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-10-2018, 12:06 PM   #7
ashcat_lt
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Dec 2012
Posts: 7,272
Default

I think it's weird but kind of wonderful that so many people start their mixes from templates. It's great that y'all have that kind of discipline, and it might help my workflow if I could. I do remember the analog days when I had the mixer all normalled through the patchbay and always knew there was a reverb on aux1 and a delay on aux2...

My stuff always just ends up falling together. I really just add things as I need them. If/when I decide I need to mix some group of tracks through some kind of effect, I add a track and slap on some plugins and drop some sends. I've been doing a little better about saving track templates for things I do most often, but for me something like a reverb or delay bus doesn't take all that long to just make from scratch.

For my own stuff I might have a bunch of parallel weirdness for some tracks and some submix processing and all kinds of whatever. Then I basically just slap a reverb on at the very end, adjust almost nothing, and render.

For the last couple paid gigs I actually did consciously start with busses for short and long verbs and short and long delays. I liked how it worked out in those cases, but I was shooting for a sort of cohesive sound to the album as a whole, and I still ended making several other special tracks for certain parts of certain songs. That part is so much easier than back in the day when you had to figure out if you had a hardware unit free to do what you want, and then find an unused aux or other output on the board and then an open channel to come back to...
ashcat_lt is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-10-2018, 12:24 PM   #8
Magicbuss
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
Posts: 1,957
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by ashcat_lt View Post
I think it's weird but kind of wonderful that so many people start their mixes from templates. It's great that y'all have that kind of discipline, and it might help my workflow if I could.
Once i started using templates I never looked back. It speeds up workflow tremendously and it requires zero discipline. You can easily create a basic template and then add to it over time. It has a way of organically evolving to meet your changing tastes, skills and tools.
Magicbuss is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-10-2018, 12:32 PM   #9
ashcat_lt
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Dec 2012
Posts: 7,272
Default

I mean it requires at least enough discipline to actually save templates of things that I like rather than just moving on...

I've been doing better. Saving some presets and FX Chains and track templates. It's just not really any kind of priority because I don't ever know what I want until I hear it and when I do, I know how to get it, so I just do that, and then when the mix is done, I probably don't ever want to see it again.
ashcat_lt is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-10-2018, 12:43 PM   #10
karbomusic
Human being with feelings
 
karbomusic's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2009
Posts: 29,260
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by ashcat_lt View Post
I don't ever know what I want until I hear it and when I do, I know how to get it, so I just do that, and then when the mix is done, I probably don't ever want to see it again.
Pretty much ^me. I do have some chains but I end up forgetting they are there anyway. If I were mixing a client a week, I'd have some basic setup but even then, I'd leave a bit open to the song telling me what it wants and every time I use a template, the song tells me something different.
__________________
Music is what feelings sound like.
karbomusic is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-10-2018, 12:48 PM   #11
Coachz
Human being with feelings
 
Coachz's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Charleston, SC
Posts: 12,770
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by karbomusic View Post
Pretty much ^me. I do have some chains but I end up forgetting they are there anyway. If I were mixing a client a week, I'd have some basic setup but even then, I'd leave a bit open to the song telling me what it wants and every time I use a template, the song tells me something different.
Plus as we discover new things like VCA and stealth sends and we get new plug-ins that combine the functions of other combinations of plug-ins we come up with all kinds of new workflows. Hell just this week finding out a new way to edit midi drums and punch in just the instrument I want whether it's snare, kick, cymbals, toms one at a time or in any combination will totally change my workflow for the better.
Coachz is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-10-2018, 04:11 PM   #12
Tod
Human being with feelings
 
Tod's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Kalispell
Posts: 14,745
Default

I have my bare bones tracks that I start with that are used in every project. The only FX is on the
Mast-FX track, an EQ and a Limiter. The EQ is bypassed and will remain that way through most of the
project. I've got the limiter setup for -1.0dB output and around a -3.5dB threshold. Of course the
Span tracks will have Span on them.

I only add FX as I need it, and since 80% to 90% will be midi, I don't use a lot. I do usually end up
with 2, 3, or 4 reverb sub-bus tracks.

Tod is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-10-2018, 04:23 PM   #13
ashcat_lt
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Dec 2012
Posts: 7,272
Default

One of the handy things about using a "Sub Master" bus track rather than going direct to the Master itself is that you can duplicate that track and all the "top level" receives are right there already set up. Drop a reverb on there and it's just like putting it on the Master except you can mix it in via the track fader. More importantly, though, you can tweak that mix as necessary via its receives and add things like EQ or comp to it. I find it a lot faster than trying to figure out exactly which tracks are actually routed to the master. I guess the routing matrix might help with that, but it just freaks me out and I never look there.
ashcat_lt is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -7. The time now is 01:53 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions Inc.