Routing and Buses
Before you change anything, you have to be able to draw where the sound goes. Source, channel inserts, fader, pan, bus, master. Almost every confusing mix problem is a routing problem wearing a different hat.
- insert or send
- pre or post fader
- groups
Where you run into this
- Mixing
- Live sound
- Production
In short
The standard path: a source, then channel inserts in series, then the fader and pan, then whichever bus the channel feeds, then the master. Everything in an insert processes the whole signal in series; everything on a send takes a copy and processes that separately.
Understanding insert versus send is the single distinction that makes a mixing desk, hardware or software, stop being intimidating.
How it works
Pre-fader sends take their copy before the fader, so moving the fader does not change how much is sent. Post-fader sends move with it. For a reverb you almost always want post-fader, so that pulling a track back pulls its reverb back too, and for a headphone mix you want pre-fader.
Where you run into this
- A reverb that stays loud while the track it belongs to is faded down
- A group fader that lets you move six tracks as one
- A parallel chain that adds weight without removing dynamics
In practice
Use group buses early. Drums to a drum bus, vocals to a vocal bus, and process the group rather than every channel. It is fewer decisions, less processing, and it keeps the parts of a section sounding like one thing.