bus questions?

[explody pup]

okay, this is probably basic information that i should already know, but i've searched on the net for a while and i can't really find a clear explanation of what exactly a bus does on a mixing console and what you would use it for. (how's that for a run-on sentence?)

the picture in my head (taking an 8-bus for example) is you have X amount of channels. you can take whatever number of those channels and sum them up in a signal on the bus to send to tape. taking your drum tracks and summing them up into 2 channels of stereo for example. and with 8 of these channels, you send them all to an 8-track. am i close? what would you do in the case of a 24-track? are there consoles that have a 24-bus? how do you use your bus in your studio?

sorry these are such newbie questions, i've been running into brick walls wherever else i look. and i hope this is the right forum to post this question in.

anyhow, thanks much!

[Nutmeg II.]

There are 48 bus consoles out there. You could use them for summing to tape, as a bus for a vocal/drum... sub, to mult tracks, use as aux send...
If you don't need to sum tracks to tape, you will take the direct/tape out of the individual tracks (less electronics vor a better sound).