Third Take

A lot of home studio recorders seem to mix as they go. After a tracking session, I like to put a rough mix together and hear how the tracks are working. I also think there’s a lot of utility to doing some preliminary mixing before you record additional instruments - especially in the case of drums. Fixing minor timing issues with AudioSnap before recording other instruments can have a huge impact on the overall “tightness” of the track.

However, I often get into a situation where I’m reluctant to change the panning and levels of some elements in my preliminary mix to set up the monitor mix for tracking a new instrument. Muting isn’t a problem, but if I’m recording bass next and the player wants to hear more kick drum, I hate having to upset the drum mix I spent several hours perfecting. As a solution, I’ve begun using Sonar’s excellent routing tools to create something I’m calling the Monitor Bus.

The Monitor Bus isn’t a new concept by any means, as “real” consoles have had AUX sends for decades and engineers have used them to create different monitor mixes for performers. However, in my home studio DAW that’s outputting all audio to a single stereo out, tracking is usually done to the mix coming out of the Master Bus.

The Monitor Bus is essentially a duplicate Master Bus - it outputs to the stereo outs on the audio interface. The trick is that, when tracking, you mute the Master Bus and output from the Monitor Bus. All the tracks that you want in your monitor mix are routed to the Monitor Bus via pre-fader track sends. This way, you can create a custom monitor mix without affecting the mix-in-progress that’s routed to the Master.

Each track can have it’s level and pan adjusted for the monitor mix through the track send. You can even add another send to a subgroup bus, like your drum mix, that routes to your Monitor Bus. When you’re done tracking, mute the Monitor Bus, unmute the Master Bus, and start working your new tracks into your mix-in-progress.

It’s a simple idea, and I can’t believe I didn’t think of it sooner. It’s already saved me a lot of time in my current project.