Logic Pro - Summing Stack + Aux Track Mixing Setup 

In this video I demonstrate my "new" way to structure and route summing stacks and aux tracks for mixing. Enjoy! Note: You must have Logic 10.7.5 or higher to "nest" track stacks. Download my 35-part Logic Course here! ➛ www.logicproguide.com For mixing/mastering work, contact me at my website ➛ carneymediagroup.com Follow MusicTechHelpGuy on Instagram ➛ instagram.com/musictechhelpguy Support the channel on Patreon ➛ patreon.com/musictechhelpguy CHAPTERS: 0:00 Introduction 0:55 Lead Vox Summing Stack 2:57 Lead Vox Aux Tracks 4:51 Time-Based Effects 8:17 Dealing with Automation 9:09 Backing Vocals 10:12 Dry Bus Processing 11:40 Nested Summing Stacks 12:52 Mixing Down to Stems

I just wanna say dude, ur content genuinely brings a smile to my face when I watch it. Your easy spoken manner combined with the fact that for years you have never deviated from your original intent which is to help people learn logic plain and simple, are appreciated. One last thing I will say is I cannot stress enough how much I appreciate the fact that unlike 99% of other audio help content creators, you never fell victim to turning your channel into a secret product promo channel disguised as a help channel. Please never fall into that trap because like I said all other content on RU-vid is all disguised promo content and because of that, all the info ends up being watered down, no substance or downright bad information. We appreciate you brother🙏🏼

Yes! Moving the auxs into the arrange next to the channels is way better organized. Can’t wait to use this! Thanks Josh!!

Great video! Really well explained as usual. Sounds like a nice song too!

Fantastic video Josh, so clever and brilliant arrangement

Outstanding info, soooo clear

The little aux-in-a-stack trick is an awesome way to drive down the plugin count. Your way of making them is way better than what I have been doing. Very nice. Thank you!

Oh my gosh thanks so much for this! So worth watching!

The nested summing stacks is very interesting. I'm going to have to watch this one a couple of times. Thank you!

Thanks. Your videos never fail on me🎉.

Oh my god. This information is invaluable! Thank you so much for this!

Learned so much with you during the last years, thanks!

How did you know exactly what I needed help with at this moment in time, Josh? 🤯 Youre the man!

Masterclass in working in the real world and looking at this process both from a creative and a business model.

Your videos should have like 100,000 likes at least, you have been so helpful to me throughout a few years and still learning from you Joshua. Thank you very much.

Great video, very handy technique this

The Master Boss riding the master bus!

He is by far my favourite logic instructor

Hey Josh , Great Video! Really love that it´s now possible to nest Stacks in 10.7.5 !!! For al long time that was a major downsize for me in Logic. So good it´s available with the new update

You can also select AUX and change to READ. Just found that out couple weeks back. Once you change back it will automatically place the AUX back to the left. I don’t have a flipping clue why Apple won’t allow you to just drag channels around. They’re like freaking narcissists. EVERY OTHER DAW ALLOWS YOU TO DRAG THEM AROUND!!!!!! 🙄 Thanks for all of your videos though brother!

Thanks bro

Genius!

Would love to see a video on dealing with the remaining PDC issues, or any other timing bugs that occasionally pop up in logic. Given your experience, you've probably encountered some interesting ones. Thanks

My track organization is a mess as I´m more a musician than mixing guy. Your video shows me a much better way not to get lost and gives me the security to do the job correctly. Thanks so much for your whole series on Logic, I follow them since years.

Hey Josh! I'm with kiethdo2551 below: What a coincidence! Last night I watched a "masterclass" on scoring for film in Logic and at the end he showed the same technique of "Summing Stacks". What was interesting about the way he provided "stems" was (and I can't explain how he did it - you'd know how) he had empty, labeled tracks below the mix, armed them to record and then played his mixdown. That made ALL the stems at one pass, saving time. Thanks for this tutorial! Gianni♥

Another great video! On your last point about bouncing the stems, I think you can also just select all the tracks stack tracks and do an export as audio files, and it will make the separate stems. As for the Barsamian, this is what I have been doing, and I find it so tedious. Why can’t it have an option to place new aux tracks Into the current stock? We’re just making so much easier. I’m on we’re at it I would love to be able to just type in bus numbers instead of using the pulldown menu.

thanz for a great video .. the gain plugin, cant this be done with a VCA instead?

Thanks for the great tutorial Josh! I’m currently mixing a song in Logic using summing stacks much like you are here and ran into an issue with panning when using them. The song has a lot of tracks and a lot of panning and I noticed that a panned track in solo was coming equally out of both speakers. Testing other tracks out produced the same results and looked into it online and the closest thing I found were people suggesting a bug was causing it with summing stacks. I converted everything to folder stacks and that fixed the problem but now I lose the functions of summing which I liked. Any experience with this?

I really enjoyed watching your work flow here. I have a question - My mix template takes groups of like tracks (e.g. vocals) and then I send the output of those to a bus (e.g. VOX BUS) so I end up with a limited number of buses where I can apply top-down mixing at the bus level (as well as track level mixing if necessary). All my sends though are outside the bus in aux tracks which allows me to use, e.g., a similar reverb on multiple busses limiting the number of instances of the plugin. But it seems to me, I'm losing something relative to what you do. But in essence, aren't my busses similar to your summing tracks, and if I sent the output of the aux tracks to the same output busses as the tracks they pertain to (and created more instances for each bus) would I basically be doing the same thing? Or is there something different going on with summing tracks than my method? Thanks Josh.

hello josh thanks for helpfully video, currently in my logic i cant do as your precisely like my logic settings isn't right when i have track stack (summing) - then i make several track inside stack send to fx track, the fx track doesnt has audio played when i soloed but when i place the send in stack track directly the fx track has normally sounded when it soloed any recommendation setting so i can hear the fx track when it soloed without send via stack track? thank you

How do you create a folder to begin with? The flower you put your lead vocals in

I have been doing this for while but I often have issues with the routing of the aux tracks. Is there a way to get them to consistently route properly when adding them to a track stack? I have been using inst tracks as aux tracks lately because they are better at automatically setting the output where I want it.

Wouldn’t mind a vid going into detail about mixing an EP and your process that you touched on near the end.

Out of curiosity - Can you use this method to group KI & KO > SNT & SNB > TOMS > HH > THEN make a DRUM BUS? Essentially processing both kick mics together & so on & so forth with the rest of the instruments - then just grouping them all together to process them also as a DRUM GROUP? Was hoping you'd open your drum folder to get an idea of your processing, thanks in advanced!

First off thanks for the video. 2ndly. I have a question. I created a summing stack to control 3 different audio sources but every time I try to turn the summing stack volume down I can still hear the instrument. There’s no reverb or anything on it. It’s dry EXCEPT for the fact it came from omnisphere. Tried burning it into the track and everything and it’s still not quieting unless I click the individual track. Any solutions to this? Thanks again. Oh and it works on a different 3 instruments in the same session so I know it’s not a session thing.

How many summing stack can you nest together? From what I understand one can only do 2 layers of summing stacks and I wish that was not a limitation. Is there a workaround? Thank you :)

What's the benefit to using a bus channel only?

I've just moved over from years of Pro Tools to Logic. Working in film and tv, and have a need to have options when exporting stems. I have "Main" Track Stacks for my main groups (Winds, Brass etc) but also sub Track Stacks within them (eg Winds Long, Winds Short, Brass Long, Brass Short). Everything is routed correctly within those sub groups to go out the main group. Metering all fine too. My problem is that when I select the "main" track stacks and command+E to export those main groups they export as silent files. The sub groups export perfectly, but the main groups are silent. The strange thing is when I "export all tracks as audio" the main groups have audio on them and export fine. I just want to know why I can't seem to export the master track stacks I've selected with audio on them (and without having to "export all tracks as audio..."). Is this possible or a known issue?

Random question to @musictechhelpguy what do you use for your mouse in logic? Trackpad, magic mouse, other. THanks!

Thank you. I assume you cannot pan individual tracks using this method?

Awesome video! So in short, what is the true difference between a Folder and a Summing stack?

hi sir much obliged Is ProTools or Logic more suitable for busing arrangements? Do you also mix with Pro Tools? If so, is the perception that Pro Tools yields superior results just that? Please provide a tutorial on this subject as well.

I swear by it.