Bus confusion

[Cobus Prinsloo]

I thought my mix was perfect until I noticed that sound from my Drums bus feeds into my Vox bus! The open EQ is from my Vox bus, but the sonic spectrum on display is coming from my drums.

I assume this is happening because both my Drums bus and Vocals bus have sends to the same Reverb bus to ensure that they share the same space. Is there a better way of sharing the same reverb among different buses?

[Amberwolf]

Don't send the reverb back to the orignal track or bus.   Send the reverb in parallel (just the wet signal, no dry) to the master bus (or whatever mixdown-busing you use before that).

So your structure would have your various tracks going to their various type-buses, and each track or bus would have it's send to this reverb bus. 

The reverb bus *and* the other buses all then feed your mixdown or master bus, etc.

 

That said, if your mix is exactly the way you want it, it doesn't matter what's "wrong" with the way the buses are setup, etc.  If it sounds like you want, it's done.  

Edited November 7 by Amberwolf

[Cobus Prinsloo]

24 minutes ago, Amberwolf said:

Don't send the reverb back to the orignal track or bus.   Send the reverb in parallel (just the wet signal, no dry) to the master bus

Thank you, now for a potentially dumb question: how do I relay only the wet signal of Reverb directly to my Master bus?

[David Baay]

7 hours ago, Cobus Prinsloo said:

how do I relay only the wet signal of Reverb directly to my Master bus?

I'm not exactly sure what you have going on because Sonar wouldn't  allow sending or outputting the reverb bus back to any source track as that would create a feedback loop, but the Reverb bus should Output to Master.

EDIT: I should add that when using an FX on a bus as a Send FX, the FX should be set to 100% wet. The dry signal gets to the Master directly from the track/bus that's the source of the Send, and the wet signal gets there from the FX bus. Dry/Wet mix is controlled by a combination of the send levels and the FX bus Volume.

Edited November 7 by David Baay

[Cobus Prinsloo]

1 hour ago, David Baay said:

but the Reverb bus should Output to Master.

I've got it like that now, thanks. How do I determine that it's only the wet signal going through?

[msmcleod]

1 hour ago, Cobus Prinsloo said:

Thank you, now for a potentially dumb question: how do I relay only the wet signal of Reverb directly to my Master bus?

In your reverb plugin, there should be either a Mix control, or separate Dry/Wet controls.  You want dry at 0%, and wet at 100%.

Once you've done this, you may have to reduce the send level from your tracks, and increase raise the output fader (because the dry signal is no longer being "added" by the reverb).

Having the dry at 0% / wet at 100% is standard practice when sending to an effect bus.  The only time you'd want a different mix of wet/dry is when you're using the effect inline.

 

[Cobus Prinsloo]

Thank you so much - now it makes more sense. I still use the old Sonitus Reverb. The Dry slider below is at 0 dB, which I assume should stay as-is. The Reverb slider is set to -7 dB. I don't know what E.R stands for.

Edited November 7 by Cobus Prinsloo
Added a screenshot

[msmcleod]

2 hours ago, Cobus Prinsloo said:

... I don't know what E.R stands for...

E.R. means "Early Reflections".  Treat this as part of the reverb - i.e. you probably don't want this at 0.0db, but it may be less than the reverb level, depending on how loud you want them to be.

[rabeach]

5 hours ago, Cobus Prinsloo said:

Thank you so much - now it makes more sense. I still use the old Sonitus Reverb. The Dry slider below is at 0 dB, which I assume should stay as-is. The Reverb slider is set to -7 dB. I don't know what E.R stands for.

 

Set the Dry level to its minimum value. This is typically labeled as -Inf. dB (negative infinity decibels). This removes the original, unaffected audio from the plugin's output.

 

[57Gregy]

7 hours ago, Cobus Prinsloo said:

Thank you so much - now it makes more sense. I still use the old Sonitus Reverb. The Dry slider below is at 0 dB, which I assume should stay as-is. The Reverb slider is set to -7 dB. I don't know what E.R stands for.

Click on an effect's or synth's GUI, then hit your computer's F1 key. That will usually bring up that app's Help file.

[Cobus Prinsloo]

Thank you everyone for your valuable input.

[Bristol_Jonesey]

11 hours ago, Cobus Prinsloo said:

Thank you so much - now it makes more sense. I still use the old Sonitus Reverb. The Dry slider below is at 0 dB, which I assume should stay as-is. The Reverb slider is set to -7 dB. I don't know what E.R stands for.

Set the Dry to -Inf (all the way to the left)

Reverb at 0.0dB

E.R. blend to taste in accordance with the mix, but probably never as high as 0dB

[Amberwolf]

I just use the mute button on the dry when using it as a send / aux effect in it's own bus (instead of in the track itself).   

Then I leave the wet set at 0dB, and use the volume of that bus (if it'sthe only effect on it) to set the level of the reverb (or even to automate the amount).

If I use the early reflections at all, I'll set that one relative to the wet by experiment to see how it sounds in the"thinnest" part of the mix, where the least stuff is going on.  If that screws up things (feels busy) in more active parts I'll automate ER to damp it out for those sections. 

 

 

FWIW, the Sonitus plugs have a number of presets already setup for this use, so if you are using any of the built in presets, just pick the ones that says "aux" and it will already only be 100% wet.

 

 

[Bass Guitar]

Acon  Verberate 2 is a free reverb that not only sounds good but is dead simple to use. One knob does it all.
Sonitus are DX and in a few more years they will be totally obsolete and possibly not even useable in Sonar. They are slowly putting them out as VST’s because DX has not been supported for years now. Great stuff in its days. But time to move on. 

[Glenn Stanton]

fyi -- the Acon verberate is $199 ($79 for existing customers) and the "free" version is demo...

[Bass Guitar]

@Glenn Stanton There is a free version that is not a demo   .https://acondigital.com/products/verberate-basic   

I also love the Lexicon version from Legacy Sonar. 
Another great reverb is Relab LX 480 which is also dead simple to use. I got it dirt cheap at some point in time by subscribing to email. I think it was $30.   https://relabdevelopment.com/lx480-essentials/

That’s the best way to gather plugins. Find something that you want and sign up. At least once a year the good stuff is always available at huge discounts. Never pay full price for Software.

Like right now Sonar is super expensive @ $179 compared to the deal that was offered last spring @ $49.  Oh I see they just offered it again at $99. SO once again only a fool pays full price. 

Edited Sunday at 04:00 AM by Bass Guitar

[AB99]

Yes to Relab LX480.  Also, it is good to have a plate like this for $50:  https://valhalladsp.com/shop/reverb/valhalla-plate/  Check around for demos of various "dedicated" plate reverbs, especially those that do a great job with the EMT140.

[Starship Krupa]

One of my favorite free reverbs is Wave Alchemy's Magic7.

In their words, "Experience the immersive sound of the legendary Bricasti M7 reverb for FREE with Magic7."

I have other reverb plug-ins that I love, so I have no need for a free Bricastalike (MTurboReverb's "Brichamber" model is one of my go tos), but when I've messed around with it just testing it, it sounded really good.

The MeldaProduction FreeFX Bundle also includes MCharmVerb, which is an algorithm reverb that sounds pretty good, and MConvolverEZ, which is a convolution reverb that I am told sounds really good.

Of course if you have Sonar Premium, it comes with the Sonitus algorithms in VST3 form with new UI's, so you could go with Cakewalk Core Reverb and it should sound exactly similar to using the DXi version.

[Glenn Stanton]

17 hours ago, Bass Guitar said:

@Glenn Stanton There is a free version that is not a demo   .https://acondigital.com/products/verberate-basic   

thanks! i have that one already myself. i thought you meant the main product. LOL

[Bass Guitar]

13 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

Of course if you have Sonar Premium, it comes with the Sonitus algorithms in VST3 form with new UI's, so you could go with Cakewalk Core Reverb and it should sound exactly similar to using the DXi version.

This is what I kind of thought was the whole idea behind the launch of these new versions. Load an old project and swap them out, done. 

I never used any of the Sonitus plugins for the last 5 years knowing they were soon to be discontinued.

There's this  video I watched a while ago where he was telling people never to use plug ins that are tied exclusively to any particular Daw. It will make it hard to share projects with collaborators as well as future proofing your work if you switch Daw's down the road. 

I was actually very surprised at how many of my Cakewalk instrument collection open in any Daw. Like Dim Pro, Rapture and even the SI instruments.