What is the defintion of "BUSS" in regards to Mixers

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

In looking at mixers I see advertised 4buss and 8buss mixers. What exactly
are the uses of the buss. Are they the outputs for monitors/mains to the
amp?

I'm somewhat of a novice and want some clarification.

Thanks

 

[erick]

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

CPT Boy wrote:
> In looking at mixers I see advertised 4buss and 8buss mixers. What exactly
> are the uses of the buss. Are they the outputs for monitors/mains to the
> amp?

Generally speaking, a buss is a signal path. Usually when a mixer
manufacturer says their mixer is a 4 bus, or 8 buss, they are referring
to the number of subgroups. Occasionally, the manufacturer may count the
auxiliary sends and the master out as busses as well. Yamaha is the one
I can think of offhand that does this. They will say their console is a
"12 bus". They are counting the 4 subgroups, the six aux sends and the
main out. While technically correct, it is somewhat misleading. In the
past it has been common practice to only count the subgroups as busses
when describing a console.

Perhaps your intended question then is, "What are sub-groups?".
Sub-groups are generally used for combining a number of channels onto a
single sub-group fader. You might combine all of the background vocal
channels into one sub-group. Then you could just adjust the one fader if
you needed more or less background vocals, rather than having to adjust
3 separate faders. You can use the subgroups as sends to amps, although
this isn't very practical. Generally the subgroups will be sent to the
main output of the console.



--
Eric

Practice Your Mixing Skills
Multi-Track Masters on CD-ROM
www.Raw-Tracks.com

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

There will be lots of better answers for this one, but here:

For electronics in general, a bus is a circuit which is common to many other
circuits. A power bus for example, where many individual circuit blocks or
modules can tap into the same power supply.


In the context of a mixer, output signal busses are very common to
facilitate sub or "group" mixing, where a group of channel outputs can be
mixed together and the level of the whole group can be controlled with one
fader, with the individual balance between channels kept intact.

It's also common and very helpful to have group assignment busses and
faders for lighting control boards, to allow one to set up a scene,
comprised of many faders, and then control that scene and the relative
levels within it, with just one fader.

Does that make sense?

Groups or subs keep you one from having to try to control the levels of a
whole bunch of faders at once, a drum mix or scene mix for lights, which can
be very tricky if not impossible, even with more than one person assisting
at the console. Actually, decades ago, it was not uncommon to see two or
three people controlling faders during a mix as a kind of human automation.
With digital audio work stations such mix parties are no longer necessary.

Skler




CPT Boy <noneofyourbiz@aolhell.com> wrote in message
news:Xns955C5DCB7385Cwestsideincomptoncom@204.127.199.17...
> In looking at mixers I see advertised 4buss and 8buss mixers. What
exactly
> are the uses of the buss. Are they the outputs for monitors/mains to the
> amp?
>
> I'm somewhat of a novice and want some clarification.
>
> Thanks

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

In article <Xns955C5DCB7385Cwestsideincomptoncom@204.127.199.17> noneofyourbiz@aolhell.com writes:

> In looking at mixers I see advertised 4buss and 8buss mixers. What exactly
> are the uses of the buss. Are they the outputs for monitors/mains to the
> amp?

First, it's correctly spelled "bus," from "omnibus" which carries a
lot of things.

A bus is where a number of inputs are mixed together. It has at least
one input and one output. How you use the output depends on what goes
into the input. Typicaly a modern recording or live sound mixer will
have several busses. There will be the main stereo bus that carries a
mix of the input signals (after the pan pots) to the recorder or power
amplifiers.

There may be several auxiliary busses that carry a mix of channels in
proportion to how far their auxiliary send controls are turned up.

Generally when something is called a "4-bus" or "8-bus" mixer, that
refers to subgroup busses. Instead of a channel being assigned
directly to the main stereo outputs, it can be assigned to one of
these busses. They can be used either independently, like to send a
mix of all the drums out to a compressor, or the busses can be added
to the main stereo bus mix so that you can control the volume in the
main mix of, say, all the drums, or all the keyboards or all the
backgrond vocals, with one or two faders while maintaining the balance
among them that you set with the main channel faders.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers (mrivers@d-and-d.com)
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Since when did you Americans give a hoot about correct spelling,
anyway. )

AlanW (UK)

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

On Mon, 06 Sep 2004 16:13:22 GMT, CPT Boy <noneofyourbiz@aolhell.com>
wrote:


>>I'm somewhat of a novice and want some clarification.

All the latest mixers are fitted with open-topped, double-decker
busses, or so I'm told. Whooo doggies!!!
AlanW

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

On Sun, 05 Sep 2004 20:33:41 GMT, provitam123@aol.com (AlanW1, UK)
wrote:

>>On Mon, 06 Sep 2004 16:13:22 GMT, CPT Boy <noneofyourbiz@aolhell.com>
>>wrote:
>>
>>
>>>>I'm somewhat of a novice and want some clarification.
>>
>>All the latest mixers are fitted with open-topped, double-decker
>>busses, or so I'm told. Whooo doggies!!!
>>AlanW

If you're going to introduce phrases like "Whooo *doggies*!" to this
topic, at least reserve it for the new high-speed *Greyhound* busses
now used in the new leading-edge super-mixers. ;-)

Jim

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Mike Rivers wrote:

> First, it's correctly spelled "bus," from "omnibus" which carries a
> lot of things.


There was a Mackie manual that said, "Get on the bus", to explain this concept.

Did you write that, Mike?

: )

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

CPT Boy wrote:
> In looking at mixers I see advertised 4buss and 8buss mixers. What exactly
> are the uses of the buss. Are they the outputs for monitors/mains to the
> amp?
>
> I'm somewhat of a novice and want some clarification.
>
> Thanks

Now that you know how to spell it...

A bus is something you mix channels into. The simplest possible mixer
would have two input channels and one output bus. If you had a stereo
mixer, they would go into a Left bus and a Right bus, also called, as a
pair, a stereo bus (and you'd probably have a few more inputs).

Most mixers have the stereo bus, usually labeled main. You can also
have other buses, called group (or subgroup) 1-4 or 1-8. Then each
channel has "assign" switches that connect that channel to any bus or
buses (Group 1-8 and/or L and R). These are almost always assigned in
pairs and the Pan knob fades between L and R or Even and Odd. The main
Channel fader controls the level to these buses.

The Group buses also have faders and can be assigned to the Stereo bus.
this lets you put a group of channels into a bus and control the whole
group's level from the one bus fader.

There are also Aux buses or Effects busses and Monitor buses that a
channel can send to. These use pots instead of switches, which gives
you more control over them, separately (and sometiimes independently)
from the main channel faders.

All these buses have outputs from the mixer. You can connect your
4-track recorder inputs to Groups 1-4 outputs and mix the choir mics
(whatever you have, say 4 mics) into Groups 1 & 2 (panned to become
Choir Left and Right), the saw section (maybe six of them) into Group 3,
and the banjos (four more) into group 4 and adjust the balance for each
input at its channel and each track level at the Group. Or doing live
sound on the same orchestra, assign all four groups to the main stereo
bus and those go out to the house speakers. This gives you control by
section instead of having to grab all six saw mics to turn them up.

The monitors would come from the Monitor bus outputs.

So a mixer that says its 56+8+2 has 56 inputs, 8 Group outputs and 2
main (L & R) outputs. Monitor and Aux buses usually get counted separately.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

On Mon, 06 Sep 2004 16:13:22 GMT, CPT Boy <noneofyourbiz@aolhell.com>
wrote:

>In looking at mixers I see advertised 4buss and 8buss mixers. What exactly
>are the uses of the buss. Are they the outputs for monitors/mains to the
>amp?
>
>I'm somewhat of a novice and want some clarification.
>
>Thanks

Actually short for busbar. In the power business, whence it comes, it
is a big thick chunk of copper that carries power to or from many
different circuits. In audio it is a circuit carrying the combined
signals from many individual channels.

d
Pearce Consulting
http/www.pearce.uk.com

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

In article <413CC549.B738CA07@comcast.net> dcooper28800@comcast.net writes:

> There was a Mackie manual that said, "Get on the bus", to explain this concept.
> Did you write that, Mike?

No, but I would have. I think I wrote something like that as a
paragraph header in an article about console topology in Recording
many years ago.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers (mrivers@d-and-d.com)
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Mike Rivers wrote:

> > There was a Mackie manual that said, "Get on the bus", to explain this concept.
> > Did you write that, Mike?
>
> No, but I would have. I think I wrote something like that as a
> paragraph header in an article about console topology in Recording
> many years ago.


It's good stuff.

I was far from a beginner when the 1202 first came out, but I was
training some sales people who had no audio experience, and Mackie's
stuff was always well written, and easy to understand.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

In article <413D0558.BAF14D1B@comcast.net> dcooper28800@comcast.net writes:

> Mike Rivers wrote:
>
> > > There was a Mackie manual that said, "Get on the bus", to explain this
> concept.
> > > Did you write that, Mike?
> >
> > No, but I would have.

> I was far from a beginner when the 1202 first came out, but I was
> training some sales people who had no audio experience, and Mackie's
> stuff was always well written, and easy to understand.

I wrote a big book about analog mixers for Mackie a couple of years
back, but it got caught in the layoffs and reorganizations and never
got published. While it addressed Mackie products where appropriate,
it was pretty general in nature. The plan was to have a short
quick-start four-pager specific to each mixer, pointing out where all
the knobs, switches and jacks were, then referencing the big book for
detailed explanations. It would have been bigger than an instruction
manual, and hence perceived as having more value, so maybe it wouldn't
get thrown away, but would remain on the shelf for reference.

Mackie is interested in putting some tutorial content on their TAPCO
web page, and I reminded them that they had a wealth of it on hand
that I had already written. It was quite a bit of effort and it would
be nice to see it published in some form or another. We'll see.



--
I'm really Mike Rivers (mrivers@d-and-d.com)
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

S O'Neill <nopsam@nospam.net> wrote in
news:zeOdnWwkUueWbaHcRVn-uQ@omsoft.com:

> CPT Boy wrote:
>> In looking at mixers I see advertised 4buss and 8buss mixers. What
>> exactly are the uses of the buss. Are they the outputs for
>> monitors/mains to the amp?
>>
>> I'm somewhat of a novice and want some clarification.
>>
>> Thanks
>
> Now that you know how to spell it...
>
> A bus is something you mix channels into. The simplest possible mixer
> would have two input channels and one output bus. If you had a stereo
> mixer, they would go into a Left bus and a Right bus, also called, as
> a pair, a stereo bus (and you'd probably have a few more inputs).
>
> Most mixers have the stereo bus, usually labeled main. You can also
> have other buses, called group (or subgroup) 1-4 or 1-8. Then each
> channel has "assign" switches that connect that channel to any bus or
> buses (Group 1-8 and/or L and R). These are almost always assigned in
> pairs and the Pan knob fades between L and R or Even and Odd. The
> main Channel fader controls the level to these buses.
>
> The Group buses also have faders and can be assigned to the Stereo
> bus.
> this lets you put a group of channels into a bus and control the
> whole
> group's level from the one bus fader.
>
> There are also Aux buses or Effects busses and Monitor buses that a
> channel can send to. These use pots instead of switches, which gives
> you more control over them, separately (and sometiimes independently)
> from the main channel faders.
>
> All these buses have outputs from the mixer. You can connect your
> 4-track recorder inputs to Groups 1-4 outputs and mix the choir mics
> (whatever you have, say 4 mics) into Groups 1 & 2 (panned to become
> Choir Left and Right), the saw section (maybe six of them) into Group
> 3, and the banjos (four more) into group 4 and adjust the balance for
> each input at its channel and each track level at the Group. Or doing
> live sound on the same orchestra, assign all four groups to the main
> stereo bus and those go out to the house speakers. This gives you
> control by section instead of having to grab all six saw mics to turn
> them up.
>
> The monitors would come from the Monitor bus outputs.
>
> So a mixer that says its 56+8+2 has 56 inputs, 8 Group outputs and 2
> main (L & R) outputs. Monitor and Aux buses usually get counted
> separately.
>
>

Thanks for the info on the definition of the bus!! It really helped
clarify some things!!!

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

CPT Boy wrote:

> Thanks for the info on the definition of the bus!! It really helped
> clarify some things!!!


Like the spelling of it?

: )