Buses

A bus is a mix of sources that goes somewhere: to a sound device, a call, the stream, the recording. Every show has three buses that fill themselves. You add a bus when a destination needs a mix of its own.

The three standard buses

Bus	Carries	Typical output
Program	everything on the program	the call’s microphone, the room speakers
Preview	everything in the preview	the operator’s headset
Audition	only what you play privately	the operator’s headset

You never connect sources to them. The recording carries the Program bus, and each stream target plays the Program bus unless its Sound setting names another bus.

Audio follows video

A source is heard on the Program bus while a shot that contains it is live, and it fades with the transition. This holds for sound-only sources too: an audio input is opened by a shot of it on a layer. Audio Follows Video in the Audio Routing toolbar sets this for the whole show.

A source can override it with Heard: While Its Shot Is Live or Always. A shot can override the source with Sound (On or Muted) and Level in Shot in the element’s Sound section.

Extra buses

Add one with Add Bus in the Audio Routing toolbar. There are two kinds:

• Chosen Sources: only the sources you send to it, while they are on program (or in preview, if it follows Preview). Drag from a source’s port to the bus, or tick the bus under Also Send To in the source’s … menu.
• Everything on Program, Minus…: everything the program carries except what you leave out. This is the mix for a call, so its people do not hear themselves. Tick what to leave out under Leave Out in the bus’s … menu.

Takes and Follows in the bus’s menu change its kind and its feed later. Double-click an extra bus’s name to rename it.

Levels act at once

Edits inside a live shot reach the program on Take, like every edit. Source level and mute, and bus level and mute, act immediately, as on a mixing desk.

Read more

• Send a bus to an output
• Audition a clip