Carlo Libertini is a Melodyne audio editing specialist with Music Marketing Inc. of North America. He’s also an audio production engineer with twenty years’ experience, and performs trainings, demonstrations, and services for top studios and institutions across the country.
In between production responsibilities he conducts online training seminars, collaborative production meetings, software demonstrations, and video tutorials.
Carlo is Pro Mix Academy’s resident Studio One expert, too! In this tutorial he explains what an effects bus is and how to create one!
An effects bus is an auxiliary track which only passes signal you route to it. A “send” lets you determine how much direct signal is going to the effects bus, essentially giving you control over wet/dry balance.
Effects buses and sends are great for things like reverb—for instance, you can apply different amounts of the same reverb to multiple tracks. You can also further process the reverb on the effects bus with things like EQ and compression to shape the sound even more, without ruining the direct signal if you were using inserts instead.
Creating a bus in Studio One is incredibly easy. All you have to do is select the track you want to “send” to an effects bus and right-click the Sends button from the Mixer window. Choose “Add Bus for Selected Channels,” and Studio One will automatically create a new auxiliary track with your chosen signal routed to it.
Before you make an auxiliary track/effects bus, it’s good to have an idea of how you want to use it. If it’s for reverb, simply add the plugin of your choice to the bus and you’re all set!
