Assigning Tracks to Busses

Assigning tracks to busses allows you to apply settings to a series of tracks or route tracks to a hardware output.

For example, if you wanted to apply the same three effects to several tracks, you could apply the effects to a bus and assign the tracks to that bus. If you wanted to send several tracks to a single hardware output, you could assign the tracks to a bus and then route the bus to a hardware output.

Assign a track to a busClosed

  1. Click the bus button on the track.

    The button is displayed as a when the track is routed to the master bus, and the bus letter is displayed (, , and so on) when a track is routed to another bus.

  2. Select the desired bus from the menu. The Bus button changes to display the selected bus.

NOTE If the Bus button does not appear on the track, you have not specified more than one bus in your project settings.

You can also use the I/O control region in the Mixing console window to assign a track to a bus. For more information, please see Audio Track Channel Strips.

TIP

Bus sends are pre-volume by default. In Post Volume mode, the following settings are applied to the track before it is sent to the bus: track volume, track volume envelopes, track panning, and track panning envelopes.

To change to post-volume, right-click the fader handle and choose Post Volume from the shortcut menu.

Adjust a bus send levelClosed 

  1. Click the label on the multipurpose slider and choose the desired bus from the menu. The label changes to reflect the name of the bus.

    TIP If you can't see the multipurpose slider, drag the bottom edge of the track header to increase its height.

  2. Drag the fader to adjust the level of the track sent to the bus.

You can also use the Sends control region in the Mixing console window to configure bus sends. For more information, please see Audio Track Channel Strips.

TIP Tips:

  • Bus sends are pre-volume (and pre-mute) by default. When bus sends are pre-volume, you can create a cue mix that is independent of your main mix. To change to post-volume, right-click the bus fader and choose Post Volume from the shortcut menu.

  • If you want to apply track panning to bus sends (including pan position and panning mode), right click the bus fader and choose Link to Main Track Pan from the shortcut menu.

    When Link to Main Track Pan is not selected, the track sends a center-panned stereo signal using the track's current panning mode.

  • Select the Use legacy track send gain check box on the Audio page of the Preferences dialog if you want to configure audio track sends to behave as they did in Acid 6.0 and earlier. When the check box is selected, you can open projects created with earlier versions of Acid and be assured they will sound the same as they did in earlier versions of Acid.