Question about terminology

[manducator]

Hello,

I have a pretty simple question; can someone explain the difference between these words:

- Track
- Channel
- Buss
- Stem

Here's one question in particular: If I route all my drumsounds to one channel (or track?) and the only drumsounds you're hearing in the song go through this channel, it's called a drumbuss, right? One fader controls all drumsounds.

If I do parallel compression on the drums (mix the dry drumsounds with a second channel with a compressor on it), is that second channel also called a buss or is it an FX channel?

EDIT: oh, I forgot about send and return tracks to add to the confusion...

I know how to use this stuff but I never know how to call it, lol.

[MOK19]

- Track

I guess 'best use' would be to refer to the origin of a sound. So if you had a recording you pull into the DAW, you could call it's container a track. But if you then route that recording into an additional container, one that isn't it's origin, I guess it'd be better not to call it a track. Though you could.

- Channel

Like the prior, this one can potentially be used in multiple places/stages. But I figure possibly-best-use would be to refer to the last part in a chain before a single sound source(or a related group of sources) is combined with other sounds. So its kinda like, if you were gonna do a mix-down, where you wanted to control the levels of your sounds from an equivalent-ish stage, then whatever you end up moving faders on could pretty cleanly be described as a channel.

- Buss

Once again, tons of overlap happening here, and theres not much of a problem swapping terms around here and there. But if you wanted to be picky about it, a bus is a stage in the chain that's not the origin. If you combined multiple sounds into one, it's a bus. In short, I think of a bus as an intermediary stage that could happen between the track(origin) and channel(where I mix[which technically is a bus too]).

If you were to make a venn diagram of three circles - Track, Channel, Bus - you'd have the three circles in a row. Channel would be in the middle, intersecting with Track and Bus. But Track and Bus have less overlap, or none if you want to be picky.

- Stem

A bounced-out recording of any of the above three.

Here's one question in particular: If I route all my drumsounds to one channel (or track?) and the only drumsounds you're hearing in the song go through this channel, it's called a drumbuss, right? One fader controls all drumsounds.

If it were me, I'd prefer not equate a drum bus(combined drums) with a drum track(one sound/mic/recording/vst output/etc). But you could call it a channel since if you were in front of a mix board you might like to raise or lower the level on those combined signals as a whole. A good place to use channel, even though the 'drum bus' term is a relatively consistent meme.

If I do parallel compression on the drums (mix the dry drumsounds with a second channel with a compressor on it), is that second channel also called a buss or is it an FX channel?

Either. FX channel is kinda a non-essential term in modern DAW's, since any track/channel/bus might have FX. I guess traditionally though, an FX channel or send didn't go through any more stages, and would generally go straight to the stereo-out. I'm supposing that it's based on the use of equipment; you only have one reverb unit in your hardware arsenal, so you can't go chaining it all over the damn place.

EDIT: oh, I forgot about send and return tracks to add to the confusion...

This relates to the FX channel idea. It's a bit of a holdover from the hardware days, and loses significance in the software world. But if you were to send one signal(X) to two busses(A and B), and both A and B route back together at a bus/channel(Y), then either A or B is a send, or FX channel. You could call Y the return bus or channel.

To further the example, if aforementioned Y is sent to channel Z, who also receives channel W, and routes to the stereo out, and if it would be the go-to place to adjust mix volume, I'd call Z a channel.

But that's all just me. I know a thing or two, but I'm no trained studio engineer.

[manducator]

Thanks, MOK19!!

[Burillo]

Also, an alternative perspective.

Track - basically, a "container" of the sound. A buss is also a track, so is FX send, instrument track etc.

Buss - an "aggregator" for several tracks. Like if you route all your drums into one track - that's a drum buss right there.

FX send - a separate track that is meant to apply a parallel chain of FX for one or more tracks. An example would be a reverb track - not all reverbs have "wet/dry" controls, and you can't apply a single reverb to all of the tracks at once (to obtain a common "space") without having it on a dedicated track. A parallel compression track is also an example of an FX track (to which you route using "send" technique). There is no "return track" as such, "return" is a logical construct to identify where the FX'ed sound is being mixed back into the original sound.

There is no real distinction between "sending" and "routing" the track - it's essentially the same process (you can "route" and "send" tracks Pre-FX, Pre-Fader etc. all just the same, it's just it makes more sense when sending). Generally though, routing tends to be exclusive (i.e. you don't leave the original sound in), while sending is not.

Channel - an individual audio channel within the track. A track can be mono (1-channel), stereo (2-channel), surround (usually 6 channel) or even further (for example, REAPER supports tracks with up to 64 channels). Each track has its own channels and its own number of them.

Stem - a bounced-down track.

[manducator]

@ Burillo; this answers my question 100%, thanks!!