Is there a way to easily identify AUX and Bus that are not being used in the project?

[Zeh]

Hi All,

As a one-man-everything (who work from the composition to mix) I'm not an expert and the fact is that my projects are kind of messy. Some of them I began using a template or previous projects that carries some AUX/BUS. Now I have a lot of channels, track stacks, bus and aux... and I'd really love to clean those that are not being used. But I don't know which are they and I'm afraid to delete a used by mistake.

Does anyone know if there is a way easier/faster than look one by one?

Besides that, does anyone has suggestion of a good video or tutorial talking about recommended workflow in logic? something that helps me to create a method to all new projects.

 

Thanks all 🙂

[des99]

I'd create a system based on your needs and use cases - eg, busses 1-31 are used for FX, busses 32 - 63 are used for general purpose routing (parallel paths etc), busses 64 onwards are used for subgroups etc. You can always name the start of each group as a reminder in the list.

Generally, being more careful, disciplined and structured in your projects and mixer layout is beneficial in the long run, as it makes managing the complexity easier.

Edited June 18, 2023 by des99

[heavypop]

I had some old starters and ideas that I wanted to pick up and make a full production with.

Some of these old ideas where created with DMD kits. The factory DMD kits sound good for ideas.

But when importing them to in a fresh project using my general logic template, it will be a  little messy regarding busses. The way I clean it up:

1. Drag the separate drums from the DMD instrument to new stand-alone tracks and renaming them.
2. Delete the DMD busses. This is done by opening the mixer and select "All Tracks", identify alien busses and delete them.
3. Delete the now empty DMD instrument.

This goes for other stuff imported from other projects as well.

These days I don't use DMD kits or stacked instruments, but rather think of separate drums/instruments one by one, track by track.

My logic template consists of:

A Kick track where I will put one of several pre-made channel strips with Kick sampler instruments.
A Snare track, same as above.
Hats
Bass
Synth
Guitas track with a pre-set input with some basic plugins.
A Vocal track with a pre-set input, low cut, compressor.

I just duplicate tracks of a specific kind if I want to add more tracks with other sounds/drums.

My summing busses:
Drums tracks are routed to a DRM bus.
Bass tracks to the BAS bus.
Lead Vox tracks to LVO bus.
Backing vocals to a BVO bus.
Synth tracks as well as piano/strings etc to the SYN bus.
Guitar tracks to the GIT bus.

Other than this there are 8 reverb busses with nothing on them but I generally only use Space Designer. There are so many great Impulse response's out there that I find this sufficient.

8 Delay busses for native delay plugins.

I use sends on tracks to the effects busses.

There are a set of misc technical busses for sidechaining etc.

All summing busses as well as effects busses goes to an END-bus where I put compressor, limiter, eq etc... But they are all turned off by default.

If an effects bus is for vocals for example , I route it to either the LVO or BVO bus - or directly to the END bus.

I hardly use 3:rd party effects because I find it a waste of time and money. Everything I need is already there i Logic.

3:rd party stuff I use is Omnisphere and Nexus. These basically I regard as sample libraries. At the end of a project I use the autosampler to put them in i sampler instrument - or just bounce them to audio files.

My basic rule is, keep it simple but organised. Keep the complicated stuff away from you to make room for and focus on the production.

I'm sure you already have it organised but I hope that some of my workflow could be an answer to some of your questions?

All the best

/Bjorn

Edited June 20, 2023 by heavypop