Bus confusion

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1

Hello.

My apologies if this has already been covered.

I’m looking into getting a fully expanded GLD system (ideally AR2412, 2x AR84s, GLD112 and Dante,) and now that the Editor software has come out I can get a better understanding of whether it will suit my needs. I’m confused when it comes to the specifications re the bus count and the mix output count.

Sorry if the following probably seems basic. I’m not intending to sound patronizing, I’m just spelling out my thought process so hopefully someone can tell me where I’ve gone wrong.

According to the specs the GLD can mix 48 inputs into 30 buses into 20 outputs. That sounds like more than enough IO for what I need; headroom is a good thing.

According to a thread I read once a “mix output” refers to “any master channel with full processing.” I understand the GLD has 20 of them, and includes mains, groups, auxes and mtxs.

The 30 available buses are a combination of the above master channels + the FX sends. Although the 8 FX sends count toward the available bus count, they don’t count towards the mix output count because they don’t have full processing. Instead of having eq and dynamics like the rest of the buses, they are instead routed straight to the internal FX processors.

My question is: how can I access the other 2 buses? If there’s 30 in total, a maximum of 20 can be the “master channels with full processing” and a maximum of 8 can be FX sends, then that’s only a total of 28; there are still 2 buses left over. All I can think of is that the other two buses are soloL and soloR. Is that correct, or am I missing something, or just failing at maths?

The configuration I set up to see if the desk would suit me is LR, 6x mono aux (though I only need 5 the GLD seems to want to do things in multiple of 2,) 4x stereo groups, and 2x stereo matrices. This totals 20 mix outputs. This should leave me with 10 buses. I can use 8 of them for FX sends (which don’t have full processing, therefore don’t count toward the 20 mix output limit.) That leaves me with 2 available buses. How can I access them? I can’t have any more FX sends because they’re limited to 8 (which seems sensible, given that there are only 8 fx processors,) and I can’t have any more aux/group/mtx/main because the 20 mix outputs are already occupied.

PS, In the above config (no connection to GLD; I don’t own one yet,) Editor shows that I have “6 buses remaining.” (Setup, Config, Mixer Config.) After some playing around, I’ve found that the number of matrices used doesn’t affect the available bus count, only the mix output count. You can have 10x stereo matrices, 0 mix outputs remaining, but still have 30 buses remaining. Is that normal?

Any illumination on the matter is greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

2

FX sends can be stereo mixes, which use two buses each.

Chris

3

Thanks for the response.

I had just drafted a multi-paragraph reply detailing how confused that made me. By “stereo mixes” I first thought you meant using stereo groups/auxes to feed the FX processors (which I know you can do,) but that didn’t make sense because the auxes/groups would have been part of the 20 mix output count, meaning you’d still be stuck with 20+8.

Thankfully I then had a lightbulb moment, and I realised that in the “Mixer Config” tab I’d been using 8x mono FX sends. Somehow I’d completely ignored the box next to it that allowed for stereo FX sends (as opposed to the stereo groups/auxes.) I’ve no idea how that happened. Whoops.

So when configuring the mixer, it seems I can make use of 30 buses and 20 mix outputs: LR, 4x st groups, 2x mono fx sends, 6x st fx sends, 6x aux and 2x st matrices. At least I think I can. The thing is that although the specs page includes mtxs in the “30 assignable buses” list, and although the mtxs count towards the total mix outputs used, they don’t count for any of the buses used (the reverse of the FX sends.) Is that normal?

I’d have thought that because the mtxs can have signals routed to them and those signals summed, inserts switched in, processing applied, etc, they’d count as buses, just like any other aux or group. This doesn’t seem to be the case though. I can have 10x st mtx (which fills up the 20 outputs,) but still be showing 30 buses available.

4

Good point, I hadn’t noticed that.

I’m not at a GLD but at least in the editor it behaves as you describe. I haven’t noticed if the actual GLD is like this too or if it’s an issue with editor.

Chris

5

This is normal for GLD & Editor, the matrixes are after the mix outputs, so they don’t require any Busses. They do however need Mix outputs.(the mix output contains the graphic eq etc.)

The Fx send are before the mix outputs, so they require a Bus, but no output.

The Fx returns are dedicated ‘FX channels’ which act like normal channels.

In general i’m realy happy they made it possible to re-route groups to mono channels. This finaly makes unlinked comps possible on subgroups, without using double amount of groups. Unfortunatly you have to give up a mix output for a subgroup, that is the last feature i would like to see optional; group with output/group without output; so that it becomes possible to have more matrixes without giving up subgroups. (i usualy have extra busses, but not enough outputs.

edit; @ Chris; i’ve tried “Dave Rat’s” setup like you want to use(if i remember correct at least) By routing stereo groups back to inputs, you can use the (mono)input compressors instead of the group comp, so they are unlinked! The added latency is ok, since you reroute all the groups in the same way. Only you need to change the 'Group’DCA, to the returnchannels on the inputs, as they contain the post-comp signal instead now [8D]

6
quote:
Originally posted by Ashley

This is normal for GLD & Editor, the matrixes are after the mix outputs, so they don’t require any Busses. They do however need Mix outputs.(the mix output contains the graphic eq etc.)

A matrix is after the other buses in the signal flow (because it’s fed by them), but it’s still summing signals together so I can’t get my head around how it’s not a mix bus…

The way I understand your “group with/without output” thing a “group without output” would have no processing and would just sum signals together, because the processing section is the “mix out”. I don’t actually use any processing on my LR bus normally, so this sort of thing might be a nice option.

Chris

7
quote:
Originally posted by Chris93

A matrix is after the other buses in the signal flow (because it’s fed by them), but it’s still summing signals together so I can’t get my head around how it’s not a mix bus…

The way I understand your “group with/without output” thing a “group without output” would have no processing and would just sum signals together, because the processing section is the “mix out”. I don’t actually use any processing on my LR bus normally, so this sort of thing might be a nice option.

Chris

A matrix is not fed by the busses, it is fed by the post fader signal after the bus is summed. You can’t route channels directly to matrixes, hence they don’t require a normal mixbus.(it’s on the other side of the masters if you will)

Basicly a matrix is an “extra” built in mixer that has the group,aux and L/R/M masters as input channels, with a single M/ST output.

Well the idea behind having group without output processing, is saving outputs to be used as matrix. Ofcourse the absolute perfect solution would be to unlink comps on groups(then you would not have to route a group back to a channel). But as it is, it would save up outputs for matrixes, and i normaly have channels to spare anyway.(it remains a workaround for not having unlinked comps. I’m happy at least it’s now possible to do without losing double the amount of busses/outputs.) I noticed on the iLive the Matrixes do not count in outputs/busses. I guess i overlooked that when i bought a GLD…

8
quote:
Originally posted by Ashley

A matrix is not fed by the busses, it is fed by the post fader signal after the bus is summed. You can’t route channels directly to matrixes, hence they don’t require a normal mixbus.(it’s on the other side of the masters if you will)

Basicly a matrix is an “extra” built in mixer that has the group,aux and L/R/M masters as input channels, with a single M/ST output.

“fed by the busses” and “fed by the post fader signal after the bus is summed” seem to be saying the same thing the way I read it, that the matrixes get their source signals from the output of the buses.

My understanding was that anywhere where audio signals are summed is a bus, so a subgroup summing signals from input channels would be a bus, but so would a matrix summing signals from subgroups. This now appears to be wrong…

Why does being on the other side of the masters mean than it doesn’t need a bus to sum those signals?

Thanks,

Chris

9

I’m confused along the same lines as Chris93.

quote:
Originally posted by Ashley

A matrix is not fed by the busses, it is fed by the post fader signal after the bus is summed. You can’t route channels directly to matrixes, hence they don’t require a normal mixbus.(it’s on the other side of the masters if you will)

That makes sense if the matrix is being fed by a single bus, and you were just routing the output of that single bus to some different processing (the mix output.)

If you were feeding a single matrix with a multitude of buses though, in what stage does the summing (buses+buses) occur?

10

That would be a summation of the already summed mix-busses, hence it does not require a normal mixbus to do so. The routing documentation (sheet) may clarify things for you.

11

You may end up at the wrong destination (output) if you mix your busses… Just sayin.

Bob

GLD80, AR2412, 2xAR84, Dante, GLD Remote

12
quote:
Originally posted by BobWitte

You may end up at the wrong destination (output) if you mix your busses… Just sayin.

Get up in the morning, get on the bus…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Q6DYRVN9_I

Bus Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiider…

More seriously, now, what about the following?

  1. DSP resources on buses come in two categories: bus (30 available), and mix processing (20 available).

  2. FX sends tie up buses but not mix processing. They also don’t have any dynamics or delay available. This suggests that the mix processing section has a fairly significant chunk of DSP resources available, for the dynamics and delay.

  3. Matrixes (Matrices??) tie up mix processing but not buses. This would make sense if the mix processing section of the DSP were capable of summing up all of the signals which could potentially be routed into a matrix. And in fact, there will never be more than 19 signals into a matrix (up to 18 aux/group/main plus the direct output)–that’s considerably fewer to sum than in a bus, where there could be all the inputs, all the FX returns, and even a bunch groups if the bus is a main or aux.

Of course, you only see the benefit of matrices not tying up buses if you run out of buses before you run out of mix outputs… I guess if you run all your FX buses in stereo?

13
quote:
Originally posted by jcarter
  1. Matrixes (Matrices??) tie up mix processing but not buses. This would make sense if the mix processing section of the DSP were capable of summing up all of the signals which could potentially be routed into a matrix.

So it is a mix bus, but it’s not being called one because it’s less powerful (as a mix bus) than the “mix buses”?

quote:
Originally posted by jcarter

Of course, you only see the benefit of matrices not tying up buses if you run out of buses before you run out of mix outputs… I guess if you run all your FX buses in stereo?

I’d have about 3 -4 of them stereo, when I pan something I normally like the reverb to stay centered around the dry signal. [:smiley: ]

Chris

14
quote:
Originally posted by Chris93

So it is a mix bus, but it’s not being called one because it’s less powerful (as a mix bus) than the “mix buses”?

That’s my guess (and it is purely a guess).

GLD-80, AR2412, 1xAR84