How to Create a Submix in Pro Tools

A submix is an essential concept to understand when mixing in Pro Tools. Submixing can come in handy when you have a limited number of tracks or when you want to avoid making redundant changes to tracks containing similar material; for example, a group of drum or vocal tracks. This article will show you the steps necessary to create submixes in your own Pro Tools sessions.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Pro Tools hardware
• Pro Tools software

1. Create a new track in Pro Tools. Choose "File - New Track" from the main menu in Pro Tools. This will be your submix track.

2. Set the input of your submix track to one of the buses in Pro Tools. Click the input on the track and select a bus from the list. For this example, try using Bus 1 for a mono submix. You must choose a pair of buses if you want your submix track to be stereo. If your track is stereo, choose Bus 1 to 2.

3. Set the outputs of the tracks that will be part of your submix. The outputs of the tracks that will be sent to your submix track must match the bus or buses of the submix input that you set in Step 2. Click the output for all of the tracks that will be part of your submix and select Bus 1 for mono or Bus 1 to 2 if your submix track is stereo.

4. Arm your submix track for recording. Press the record button on your submix track to make it ready for mixdown.

5. Press "Record." Once your inputs and outputs are set, press the record button on the transport to begin the mixdown process. When you are finished, press "Stop". Your submix is now complete.

Tips & Warnings

• When you create a submix, you will be saving a lot of processing power. For instance, if you mixed down three vocal tracks and wanted to apply effects, you would now only have one track to apply effects to instead of three. Submixes are great for saving processing power in a complex mixing situation.
• Watch the gain levels. When you send tracks to your submix track you need to make sure that your levels are not too high.
• If the submix track begins to overload, you will need to adjust the levels on the tracks that are being sent via the Pro Tools buses. This is because the volumes of the tracks you send to the submix will all be added together and combined once they reach the new submix track.
• Make sure your track is not clipping or overloading before recording. This will save many headaches down the road.