So far I’ve let you add every plugin on each individual track. This is ok for a simple vocal recording session. Feel free to mix your vocals this way when you have one track with your instrumental and one or two vocal tracks. However, there is another way of adding plugins, which is of much more interest to use when you’re mixing larger sessions and full songs.
At this point of mixing I personally am running into problems with my computer resources. So I switch to another method for adding more effects to my mix. I create a Bus and an Auxiliary (Aux) track.
The best way I can explain this is to simply say that it let’s you recycle. It let’s you reuse the same settings more efficiently. Creating a bus, automatically creates an aux channel. You add your plugin (or plugins) to the aux channel and then call upon that bus on a track.
In order to create a bus, you can use one of the default bus lines that Logic has available for you. Go to the mixer window (view > show mixer). You see a small drop down menu with a knob on it’s right. This is where you can find the bus lines:
The place to assign a bus to a track
Select a bus. To make life easier you can provide your own names to this, so you’ll know what you’ve used it for. This is what the track looks like when you’ve assigned a bus (In this case I’ve used Bus 10):
A bus is assigned to a track now and an aux channel got created
A new track will now have been added to your session (all the way on the right). You can add whatever plugins you want to this track with whatever settings:
The Aux channel that corresponds with Bus 10
The effect of your plugin will then apply to the track(s) you’ve assigned the bus to. The cool thing about working this way, is that you have a bonus option that comes with it. You can now set how much of your effect should be added to a track. This gives you even more control over what your song sounds like! You do this by turning that knob low right to the bus on the track.
That’s as far as my knowledge goes about this so far, so I’m taking the easy way out here and let Mitchell Pigsley explain to you exactly what Bus and Auxiliary tracks do and why this method of working is preferred. Don’t worry, you don’t need to be an expert to understand this:
Part two:
