Script: Create mix bus and reroute all top-level tracks to it

[Lokasenna]

I don't know how many people will find this useful, but whatever.

Lokasenna_Create mix bus and reroute all top-level tracks to it.lua
Lokasenna_Create mix bus and reroute all selected tracks to it.lua

Nothing fancy at the moment; it just adds a new track called "Mix Bus", then disables the Master send for all tracks at the "top" level (read: folder parents) and routes them to the mix bus instead. Due to Reaper's sends/receives being a bit complicated to deal with, this only affects channels 1/2 - tracks that were outputting to the Master on 3/4 will get messed up, etc.

Reasons to use a mix bus instead going straight to the Master include:

• Slight performance gain, since the Master can't use anticipative FX processing. Or something. I think.
• Duplicate the mix bus a dozen times, mess with the send faders on each copy, and you can quickly have all of the variants that labels tend to ask for ready to go without having to mess up the actual mix: Vocals Up, Drums Down, Guitars Down, No Vocals, Less Reverb, etc.
• Put your metering and analysis plugins on the Master, your actual mastering chain on the mix bus, and you can A/B the mastering chain by turning the mix bus's FX chain on/off without disabling the meters at the same time.

Enjoy.

Edit: Added an equivalent action for "selected tracks".

[Fabian]

Very useful!
I've been doing this by hand for so long... no more!
Thanks

[Lokasenna]

I keep forgetting about it until halfway through a track and then I don't feel like doing it anymore. :P

[stereolost]

Thanks! Wish i had it a week ago))

[akademie]

Thanks Lokasenna,
it is very useful script

FR - what if master is multichannel? then tracks may also be multichannel and not sending only 1/2 to master... Is it easily possible to modify script to take such cases into account, please?

BTW, I tried to modify the script myself to automatically give a new "Mix Bus" created track specific color (e.g. green)
So, after line 46 I added:
reaper.SetTrackColor(bus, 0x0000FF00)
... seems to work ok, nice

once again - thanks!
akademie

[Lokasenna]

I can look at adding multichannel support, sure.

[SubbaseDnB]

Originally Posted by akademie

Thanks Lokasenna,
it is very useful script

FR - what if master is multichannel? then tracks may also be multichannel and not sending only 1/2 to master... Is it easily possible to modify script to take such cases into account, please?

BTW, I tried to modify the script myself to automatically give a new "Mix Bus" created track specific color (e.g. green)
So, after line 46 I added:
reaper.SetTrackColor(bus, 0x0000FF00)
... seems to work ok, nice

once again - thanks!
akademie

was just going to post about adding a colour to busses

[DynamicK]

Originally Posted by Lokasenna

I don't know how many people will find this useful, but whatever.
Lokasenna_Create mix bus and reroute all selected tracks to it.lua

Thanks for this...very useful for fast creation. Anyway I can modify it so the the MixBus is added at the end of the tracks instead of at the top?

[Lokasenna]

Small update - sends will now override the defaults to be at unity gain, post-fader.

[tapemelancholy]

Hello!
I'm absolutely love this script, it's the main routing instrument for me.
I'm creating several busses in any project every time.

It would be incredibly handy if the script added the name of the receive track after "Mix Buss (drums - for example)"

I don't understand programming, so what do I need to add to the code?

Thanks!

[Lokasenna]

It would be a fair bit of work to modify these scripts for that, since you would need to specify a name for the mix bus first - otherwise all of your sends would just have "(Mix Bus)" after them which isn't very helpful.

However, I've just uploaded Lokasenna_Append selected track names with their first send destination to ReaPack. After creating a bus, rename it, then select the original tracks and run "Append selected track names..." to rename them.

[Joe90]

Amazing script, thank you!