#015 - Resample Bus Chains to Commit Decisions and Free CPU

By bar 64 of a session, you've got drum buses running 6 plugins, bass buses running 8, synth buses running 12. CPU usage is climbing, decisions are stacking up, and you're hesitant to commit because each plugin is still tweakable. The fix is to resample whole bus chains to audio once you're happy with the sound. The audio file plays back at essentially zero CPU, the bus is committed (no more endless tweaking), and the session weight drops dramatically.

The technique

1. Solo the bus you want to resample (drum bus, bass bus, synth bus)
2. Create a new audio track
3. Bounce or record the bus output to the new audio track at full song length - Ableton: drag the bus to the audio track; Logic: bounce in place; FL: Edison or render
4. Mute the original bus and its source tracks (don't delete - keep for reference if you need to come back)
5. Play back the new audio track in place of the bus
6. Add any additional processing to the audio track if needed

Particularly valuable on busses that contain heavy effects chains - reverbs, distortions, parallel compression, saturation. The CPU saving compounds across multiple busses, often dropping session usage from 80% to 30%. The mental clarity of committed decisions compounds across the whole arrangement.