Here is a question for anyone experienced (or who knows about) the Andrew Scheps REARBUS technique and a SUBMIX. All videos which show the REARBUS technique do not talk about routing with a SUBMIX prior to a MASTER so this is what this question is about.
Details: REAR BUS:
The REARBUS naturally has a dual mono left and right compressor adding <5db of compression on all tracks except drums.
SUBMIX:
My SUBMIX has a stereo compressor adding <4db of compression to “glue” the mix together.
MASTER:
My MASTER has a limiter…
OPTION A:
My REARBUS routes directly into the MASTER.
OPTION B:
My REARBUS routes into the SUBMIX getting a second dose of compression before routing to the MASTER.
I am trying to see whether it is more common to route the REARBUS direct to the MASTER or route the REARBUS through a gluing SUBMIX.
When I use this technique, I use two mono compressors on the left and right channels of the REAR-Bus. You can easily modify the routing of the bus with the editor provided for this purpose in Cubase. The amount of compression is adjusted with the bus level fader, but there are also some adjustments that can be made beforehand on busses routed to the REAR-Bus. Situations are never the same from time to time.
I route the REAR-Bus to a bus I call level mixbus (LVL-MBus). It is only used to control the volume of the Mix and the REAR-Bus. This LVL-MBus is directed to the main bus MIX-Bus which contains the chain of processors necessary for the mix: Comp, EQ, Saturation, etc.
This MIX-Bus is routed to the MASTER Bus where there is no processing, except for a Brickwall Limiter and a dithering processor, both post-fader and which I usually activate only when exporting the mix. The MASTER Bus being free of any processing, it is easy to use a reference track which is directly directed to this place and alternate with the Mix without having to do too much manipulation.
However, there are other ways to use parallel compression, I like this one, but I’m exploring other avenues as well.
