So I'm in Pro Tools and I put various things in sub groups on a common stereo aux fader at times(drums, guitars, etc)....then you have your stereo master. What's the purpose of also having a separate stereo aux SubMaster...what's it accomplishing?

Splain me please. TIA!

actually I've been wondering about this too......

Huh? You mean a second master fader? Or are you asking why you would use an aux. track for a subgroup? -- forgive me, but I didn't really understand your question

Exactly.....you have your aux. tracks as subgroups then you bus those to another aux track(submaster) & bus the submaster to the outs w/master fader.

If I'm understanding it correctly that is...just curious what would be the reason.

yeah... don't really understand your question either.

Is it during recording, then it could be for headphonemixes?

For broadcast mixing, TV or Film, "Stems" are often posted of AIFF files for the "client" to dub into their commercial,show or film.

So seperate submixes are often requested. Strings, brass/woodwinds, rhythm section and percussion/electronics or whatever.

Seperate elements could than be mixed with V/O, sound effects etc...

Somebody mentioned it to me, I dunno if it was from the Charles Dye Mix It Like a Record thing or not...so I don't want to spread misinfo on that. I've never seen that but I think I'm understanding it correctly as explained to me(or not). I'm not talking about sending stems outside the box or tracking headphone mixes. It sounds like it's just another Master before the Master ITB.

Just seems like extra bussing to me. Just curious what's the reason but so far it sounds like just I'm making it up.

You mean why would you have one last stereo Aux fader before the master fader?

You don't have to, in fact, you could have nothing but audio files and everything would be fine.

But there are various reasons to have a final stereo Aux before the master. For one thing, the master has no sends on it. For another, there's no panning on the master fader, and that's one way to check mono instead of putting a mono master fader at the end.

in addition to the master faders in PT not being able to have sends, all of the inserts on a Master Fader are post-fader, so if you want to automate a fade on your master without screwing with your bus compression, you have to automate the output of the plug-in... which really isn't so bad, I guess. I'm used to it now.

It would be nice if they gave a couple pre-fade and post-fade insert points on a Master fader, but there's always work-arounds.

nh