I group my drum tracks. All other tracks go direct to the master bus.

I typically group all the left and right guitar tracks seperately, partially just for ease of volume adjustment, but also because I often put a light sidechain compressor on the guitars, triggered by the lead vocals, and I don't want to run that and route it on every single track (especially when I'm sometimes looking at 20+ tracks of guitars).

I subgroup, or stem just about everything. Because it's time consuming to set this up for each new project, I use a template I created. Subgrouping is very helpful for creating stem mixes as well, clients seem to always want something in addition to the final full mixdown.

AToE, post: 373107 wrote: but also because I often put a light sidechain compressor on the guitars, triggered by the lead vocals...

Just wanted to highlight this because many people will automate a fader for this or try to get this same effect by using a compressor on the master bus. This is a excellent technique, thanks for sharing.

I usually group everything with the odd track(s) going to the master bus. Granted, it depends on the size of the project and how everything sounds at unity but generally, especially with projects with large track counts, I'll group as much as I can.

Furthermore, I have a Dangerous D Box so the groups are then stemmed out to it in four stereo buses:

1-2: Drums
3-4: Bass/Low Synth
5-6: Guitars/High Synth
7-8: Vox/FX

The stereo bus from the D Box is then recorded back into two available AD inputs.

The main advantage for me in all of this is that I have multiple points of processing via inserts and sends at multiple locations within the mix routing topology. There are also more options for automation.

But honestly, I approach all routing in a DAW from the view of a console. I find that if I keep a tangible perspective on the mix, it helps me organize my thoughts so I don't get lost in track lanes and automation lines. I also utilize track colors and expansion and collapsing of tracks that I want to work on and those that I don't at that moment, respectively. That way I can focus on the task at hand and compartmentalize where I am in the mix. This, I believe, is crucial to organizing my workflow.

Cheers :)