I've recently started working with a particular workflow that I used to do all the time back when I was on consoles... I have no explanation as to why I've not been doing it in DAW land, I mean, it's not like I just started mixing on DAW platforms last week, LOL... and the workflow I'm talking about is setting up three busses as the last routing before the signal hits the master 2 bus...
Here's what I used to do: I would create a "rear" bus, a "middle" bus, and a "front" bus.
I would bus drums, percussion and bass to the rear bus; guitars, keys, horns, etc., to the middle bus, and then vocals to the front bus ( although sometimes I would buss backing vocals to the middle bus, depending on the song).
This allows adding ( or not adding) processing to just those busses, without effecting the others. I can use one type of bus compressor on the rear buss with drums and bass, and a different bus compressor on the others, without effecting the vocals, or guitars, etc. It also allows specific assignment of things like FX auggies, so that the drum reverb on the rear bus can be adjusted differently from the middle bus, etc.
Am I belaboring the "of course dumbass!" factor here? Is this a workflow that you guys already commonly use?
Let me know if I'm being Captain Obvious on this.
What is puzzling to me is that I used to do this ALL the time on consoles, but somehow, this workflow mix method got lost for me in DAW production... odd.
Any and all thoughts welcome. :)
-d.