Creating and Mapping Busses to Outputs

Any available bus can be mapped to any of the available output paths of the same channel width or greater. For example, a mono bus can be mapped to a mono output path, a stereo bus can be mapped to a stereo output path, and a 5.1 surround bus can be mapped to a 5.1 surround output path.

You can unmap busses from outputs at any time.

To create a bus and map it to an output path:

1 On the Bus page of the I/O Setup, click New Path.

2 In the New Paths dialog, specify the number of new paths you want to create, the channel width for each path, and the path name.

 

New Paths dialog

3 Click Create to create the new paths.

 

Unmapped “MAIN” output bus

4 Enable Mapping To Output for the path.

5 Select an output path from the Mapping To Output selector.

 

Mapping the “MAIN” output bus to output path “A 1–2”

Any signals from tracks or sends sent to the bus are now sent to the hardware outputs assigned to the corresponding Output paths.

To map all output busses of the same format to an output path:

Option-click (Mac) or Alt-click (Windows) the Mapping To Output selector and select an output path (mono or stereo).

All mapped output busses of the same format (such as stereo) are all assigned to the same output path. For example, you can assign all stereo output busses to output path A 1–2.

To map all output busses of the same format to one output path:

1 Do one of the following:

Shift-click to select contiguous Output busses.

– or – 

Command-click (Mac) or Control-click (Windows) to select noncontiguous Output busses.

2 Option-Shift-click (Mac) or Alt-Shift-click (Windows) the Mapping To Output selector for one of the selected Output busses and select an output path (mono or stereo).

Only the selected mapped output busses of the same format (such as stereo) are assigned to the same output path. For example, you can assign only the selected stereo output busses to output path A 1–2.

To map all busses of the same format to unique ascending output paths (cascading):

Command-Option-click (Mac) or Control-Alt-click (Windows) the Mapping to Output selector of the top-most output path and select the first output path.

All busses of the same channel format are automatically assigned to unique output path assignments in ascending order. For example, for stereo output paths, output bus A 1–2 is assigned to output path A 1–2, A 3–4 to A 3–4, A 5–6 to A 5–6, and so on.

Mapping Mono Busses to Surround Paths

(Pro Tools HD and Pro Tools with Complete Production Toolkit Only)

You can map a mono bus to any channel of a surround output path, for example, route a dialogue track to the center channel of 5.1 output path. (This capability is available for all output channel widths except Stereo and Quad outputs.)

To map a mono bus to a channel of a surround output path:

1 On the Bus page of the I/O Setup, click New Path.

2 In the New Paths dialog, specify Mono channel width for the bus path, type a path name, and click Create.

3 Enable Mapping To Output for the path.

4 Select a multichannel output path from the Mapping To Output selector. The mono bus indicator changes to “C” (Center) by default, and a pop-up menu becomes available.

 

Selecting a multichannel output path

5 To assign another channel, click the mono bus indicator and select the channel from the pop-up menu.

 

Assigning a channel to a mono bus

To assign the same channel to all mono busses mapped to a multichannel output path:

Option-click (Mac) or Alt-click (Windows) the mono bus indicator and select the channel from the pop-up menu.

To assign the same channel to all selected mono busses mapped to a multichannel output path:

1 Do one of the following:

Shift-click to select contiguous monobusses in the Name column.

– or – 

Command-click (Mac) or Control-click (Windows) to select noncontiguous mono busses in the Name column.

2 Option-Shift-click (Mac) or Alt-Shift-click (Windows) a mono bus indicator and select the channel from the pop-up menu.

To assign ascending (cascading) channels to all mono busses mapped to a multichannel output:

Command-Option-click (Mac) or Control-Alt-click (Windows) the mono bus indicator of the top-most mono bus and select the first channel from the pop-up menu.

To assign ascending (cascading) channels to all selected mono busses mapped to a multichannel output:

1 Do one of the following:

Shift-click to select contiguous monobusses in the Name column.

– or – 

Command-click (Mac) or Control-click (Windows) to select noncontiguous mono busses in the Name column.

2 Command-Option-Shift-click (Mac) or Control-Alt-Shift-click (Windows) the mono bus indicator of the top-most mono bus and select the first channel from the pop-up menu.