Additional Aux channels

I’m still a little confused about the buses/auxiliary channels etc - say I want more than 4 effect channels - if I add another bus, I do not get the option to send from an audio channel. As I see it I have to send it via the output, so it’s post fader. Not ideal - or am I missing something? I would like to be able to add an aux channel that I can send to in the same way as the 4 main buses, or the way that I can in any other DAW. Appreciate that this is trying to model an analogue desk situation but if this is strictly limited to 4 buses - ?

It’s the lack of more than 4 sends on each audio channel that’s got me confused.
Simon

Thanks Seablade

I’m going to mix a project I’d started in Logic and see how that works, it’s only 6 audio tracks so manageable if I stumble…

One thing I notice is that there seems to be no way to drop markers on the fly (Macbook Pro - no number pad) - I do a lot of live recording and that is essential as you can imagine, saves a lot of time when I come to edit and then mix.

I’m recording a choir this w/e and may well use Mixbus if I feel confident enough about it stability - have recorded 16 tracks from my Steinberg MR816 with no problem so it may work for me. I’m thinking that I’d use Mixbus when I know for sure that the client is not going to be adding Midi or VSTi at any point. Also haven’t had a chance to check out the monitoring situation for tracking in the studio, later later!

But this marker problem…is there a way around it using a/ my Nanokontrol or b/ do I have to buy a number pad?
Cheers
Simon

You can always remap the keybinding by going to Windows>Keybindings. I can’t remember if there is another way around it or not off hand but that is the easiest solution of course;)

One thing I will say, there is certainly nothing wrong with tracking a lot of tracks into Mixbus, just remember that when you do so, each track you insert will have all the associated DSP with it, so you might or might not have CPU issues eventually. When I am tracking live shows I generally track in Ardour as a result, which the DSP load is nearly 0 no matter how many tracks I have, and that way the only bottleneck if my drive transfer speed, not the CPU usage as well.

Also if you are going to track a number of tracks, it is worth it to increase the default buffer size used by Ardour or Mixbus, which I can walk you through if you wish, it does require editing one text file manually as there is no way to do it in the GUI(Typically it isn’t needed as 5 seconds is more than enough in most applications, but as I am sure you are aware when dealing with live shows you only get one shot and the larger the better provided you have memory for it).

  Seablade

Who has tracked many live shows into Ardour and then opened the same session in Mixbus to get the best of both worlds.

I am assuming you are asking about Mixbus, and not Ardour?

The basic process to add auxiliary busses in Mixbus is the standard process for Ardour. Ardour does not have the 4 mixbusses you are used to from Mixbus. So it is very important to clarify what software you are referring to.

That being said…

http://en.flossmanuals.net/Ardour/UsingSendsAndInserts

This applies to Mixbus in the same way as it does for Ardour, except that you can’t use one of these sends to send to a mixbus. You can however use it to pick where you want a sidechain input on those Mixbusses to come from with a bit more detail:)

 Seablade

Aha, it’s the right click to find the menu for sends - got it.

I love the sound of Mixbus, but I’m finding the layout and functionality a little quirky at times - ie the rather convoluted way of routing basic setups -having to deal with a “system” menu and an “ardour” menu, gets a bit annoying not to be able to address the soundcard directly in terms of ins and outs, or aux buses etc. However, this could well become my mixing app of choice - if it were to add VST or AU instruments I’d be set for it taking over from Logic and Cubase for most compositions - any idea when that may happen?

I’m going to see if using Mixbus from beginning to end works for me - next project that has no need of midi I’ll record and mix in Mixbus.

Thanks for your help Seablade.
Cheers
Simon

I love the sound of Mixbus, but I'm finding the layout and functionality a little quirky at times - ie the rather convoluted way of routing basic setups -having to deal with a "system" menu and an "ardour" menu, gets a bit annoying not to be able to address the soundcard directly in terms of ins and outs, or aux buses etc.

There actually is method to the madness. If you run true Jack applications, they each get their own tab there, so you can easily route between jack applications quickly.

The reason for not naming system ports directly is due to portability of sessions. This way you can take the same session to another machine and have the best chance of it making sense out of the box. If we routed to FWDEVICE05203 (The CoreAudio device name) then taking it to another machine would mean that anything connected to that port would be disconnected as it couldn’t be connected.

Aux Busses, well that one is known and being addressed in Ardour v3 when that comes out to make much more sense. This along with the ability to handle MIDI data as well. There will likely be a version of Mixbus that is based off A3, but likely not immediatly. Keep in mind I don’t work for Harrison so of course take anything I say with a large grain of salt;)

       Seablade

OK once again thanks, got my return key entering markers.

Good thing you mentioned the DSP load on live recording, hadn’t thought about that. May as well stick with Logic for live, though perhaps I should give Ardour a try.
Cheers

OK one last ask - then I’ll get on with this session!

I’m still a bit confused about the routing:

Each track channel strip defaults to DIrect Output. If one presses edit - it shows up as having no boxes ticked. By direct does this mean direct to the master output? Or should I be routing all tracks and buses to the master output at the bottom of the drop-down list? I don’t get why it says Direct out, and yet appears at the Master fader/strip.

Now, in the channel fader - a signal recorded to the left hand of a stereo file, nothing on the right, appear on the left, yet I hear it in mono, both sides. It appears in the master channel on both VUs.

If I edit output to “disconnect” the audio still plays centre, though the channel meter shows left. I cannot seem to get this signal appearing in mono on the left, and that being reflected in the Master output VU!

Finally - should the four mixbuses be routed to Master? Or left as they are - Direct Out - I cannot get my head around this, sorry folks!
Simon

Each track channel strip defaults to Direct Output. If one presses edit - it shows up as having no boxes ticked. By direct does this mean direct to the master output? Or should I be routing all tracks and buses to the master output at the bottom of the drop-down list? I don't get why it says Direct out, and yet appears at the Master fader/strip.

Ahh this is an area where Mixbus and Ardour are slightly different.

In Mixbus all the ‘standard’ routing to the mixbusses is handled in the GUI above that, it is not possible to route into the mixbusses any other way. The box labeled ‘Direct Out’ is a bit different than this, and is equivalent to a split from the track at exactly the same point as the ‘standard routing’ occurs. You can, for instance, send the exact same signal, post fader, eq, etc. to an auxillary bus should you choose, say for a headphone mix while recording.

Now, in the channel fader - a signal recorded to the left hand of a stereo file, nothing on the right, appear on the left, yet I hear it in mono, both sides. It appears in the master channel on both VUs.

Hmm this is odd. Do you have any processing on the track by any chance other than the Harrison stuff? You can change the metering point via the button under the meter to check a couple of different points in your track to see if the metering changes at all.

Otherwise I would love to see this session sometime as I suspect you may have done something a bit different with the routing that might explain this.

Finally - should the four mixbuses be routed to Master? Or left as they are - Direct Out - I cannot get my head around this, sorry folks!

The four mixbusses are ALWAYS routed to the master. The Direct Outs are completely independant of the Harrison Mixbus routing. The Direct Outs on the Mixbusses could be used if you want to use one of them for a Headphone mix for example, similar to how I described using an auxillary bus as such earlier.

The best way to think about it is, the Direct Outs are equivalent to a SEND you inserted on the track just before it’s output. That make sense?

 Seablade

PS I will try to be on IRC this afternoon if you have more questions, go to Help>Chat in Mixbus which will take you to the Mixbus IRC channel where you can chat with other users and devs depending on the time of day(Pretty much depending on who is awake in there;)

Seablade

Hi Simon,

Most users of Mixbus will ignore the direct outs. These are provided so that you can take individual track outputs to a console and mix outside the box. In the next version of Mixbus, these won’t be so prominent. Normally you will use the blue “MSTR” button to assign tracks to the master bus, and/or the 4 mixbus assign buttons to group tracks together.

Regarding the mono/stereo issue… is this a mono or stereo track? You can tell by the number of meters by the fader (one for mono, two for stereo). If you’ve loaded a stereo wavefile into a mono channel, then the track will only read the left side and pan it with the “pan” knob. In this case you should be able to pan the signal left and right. If this doesn’t describe your problem then please send us a note at the support email and we will dig deeper.

Best,
-Ben

Hi Ben, it is a stereo track - I recorded a quick test of a mic on one channel of a stereo input, and it can be heard on both sides on master output, but shows up on left side of channel meter. I’ve tried to replicate the problem - unsuccessfully - so hopefully it was an anomaly. I’ll upload the session folder somewhere if you like - was going to do it to Sendspace but cannot see a way to upload the entire folder with contents.

here’s the session file if that’s of use

http://www.sendspace.com/file/h5ve05

The stereo audio file - automatically split into L & R? Tried loading into Peak but unable to load 32 bit files.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/xwt33f
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ufjkhw

Thanks for pointing out the DOs - I see that the Direct Outs are analogous to a hardware mixer and like that idea - I guess it’s just the rather prominent position at the bottom of a channel strip that fooled me into thinking these were important in my routing. As a “back of the console” utility that would be better!
Cheers
Simon