User Manual

Table Of Contents
Now that you understand how tracks work on the Fairlight page, the next important concept
you need to understand in order to unlock the power of the Fairlight page is the audio bus,
which lets you combine multiple audio tracks in different ways.
What Is a Bus?
In audio postproduction, a bus is essentially a destination channel to which you can route
multiple audio feeds (typically the audio tracks of the Timeline) so they are mixed together into
a single signal that can be controlled via a single channel strip. For example, by default a single
bus called a Main (named Main 1) combines the levels of every clip edited onto every track of a
timeline into the signal that’s output to your speakers.
Mains are one kind of bus, but there are other kinds of buses with which you can organize the
output of tracks in a timeline. For example, if you have five audio tracks into which have been
edited all of the dialog audio clips for a particular program, you can route the output of all five
dialog tracks to a Submix bus, which combines them so that the combined levels from all dialog
tracks can be adjusted (or mixed) using a single set of controls.
Ultimately, you’ll use multiple levels of buses to mix programs in an organized fashion. For
example, individual tracks can be routed to Submix buses, as described above. Then, multiple
Submixes can be routed to one or more Mains. For example, you could have four submix buses,
one for German dialog, one for English dialog, one for Music, and one for Effects. You could
route the German, Music, and Effects submix buses to Main 1 to output the German version of
the program, and route the English, Music, and Effects submix buses to Main 2 to output the
English language version of the program.
Audio tracks from the Timeline are routed to buses via each channel strip’s multiformat surround
panner, so buses are configured to accommodate specific audio formats such as mono, stereo,
LCRS, 5.1 surround, or 7.1 surround.
Types of Buses
There are four types of buses in DaVinci Resolve.
Mains
Main buses are typically the primary output of a program; each new project you create starts
out with a single Main called M1, to which all tracks are routed by default. You can add
additional Mains, and you can use them however you like, as either full or partial mixes of the
program you’re working on. Mains can be directly output in the deliver page.
Sub (Submix)
Sub buses are often the means by which multiple tracks of audio that belong to the same
category (dialog, music, effects, ambience, and so on) are combined together so that
everything in that category can be mixed as a single audio signal. Multiple Sub buses can be
themselves routed to Main buses, or they can be directly output in the deliver page.
Aux (Auxillary)
Each channel strip includes the ability to expose up to 12 auxiliary bus sends, which are
typicallyused to route audio to software or hardware effects of some kind. Typically, an audio
signal is sent to the effect (or hardware) applied to that bus and then is routed back to the
channel it came from. Auxiliary send signals can be connected either immediately before or
after a channel strip’s fader, based on a Pre setting. Each auxiliary bus can also be configured
to accommodate specific audio formats such as stereo, LCRS, 5.1 surround, or 7.1 surround.
Chapter – 150 Setting Up Tracks, Buses, and Patching 3159