About Connections & Routing

Please note that this is a topic of extreme importance in Buzz. Understanding this principals is key to working efficiently in Buzz.

Routing is the most powerful and unique feature in Buzz. Due to this fact, understanding it is extremely important to working efficiently and creatively with Buzz. Routing could be defined simply as the flow of audio as it is led from its source, through various filters, and finally on to the output of your audio card. Routing is a blueprint. To conquer this understanding, the following has been separated into general genres of user: Studio Musicians Musicians accustomed to traditional gear and studios could easily relate Buzz routing to a room with many synths, routing into many effects, finally routing out to a single destination (a mixing board leading to an amplifier). In a sense, routing in Buzz is exactly like a traditional studio; only it allows much easier routing then physical, which is usually tied to wire-crowded patch bays. Any studio musician will quickly realize that buzz is by far the lightest and most portable "studio" ever devised. Trackers To many of the tracker-scene, Buzz is an overly-complex beast. You are most likely well situated in older DOS based software such as IT or FT2. This is expected to be your history - and basically a thriving underground culture. What you need to understand is that Buzz is simply the next generation of what you are already accustomed to. Buzz offers nearly everything you are familiar with, yet including the addition of a modernized modular architecture allowing it to grow and expand unlike any tracker to date. To explain buzz to you would be to consider Buzz an endless amount of trackers (such as FT2 and IT) side by side in one framework. Yet rather then considering a track to do nothing more then play samples, Buzz allows different sound-sources to produce completely unique sounds, not based on samples in any way - but completely synthesized mathematical. Of course, Buzz includes sample based tracking as well. You should think of sequencing much like original tracker packages as well, only in a much more powerful fashion. Rather then having a single column by which to sequence patterns, Buzz adds the ability to sequence a virtually unlimited number of trackers, synths, and effects side by side - all at once. Throw on top the ability to connect in a modular fashion to hundreds of effects, and the ability to script any parameter of any of these effects or synthesizers - and you have something more powerful then any of the original Tracker creators could have ever imagined - and on top of that, you still have your sample based trackers in a familiar format (Cubase will never offer that!). Newbies Those of you new to digital music may at first find the concept of Buzz a bit strange. Well, it is. To you, there is little to say other then, "continue to experiment". Buzz is built based on many concepts - all of which are listed throughout this user guide. Read everything and continue to experiment. Also, some experienced buzz users set up useful sites like http://go.to/buzzfaq. To get into the scene a bit more, check out some url's on the buzztracker webring, start at www.djlaser.com. If all else fails, download an IRC client, and jump into #buzz on Efnet. Someone will be glad to help you. Everyone Just keep in mind that generators may connect to effects, effects may connect to effects, and everything can connect to the master. Beyond these basic rules, you are free to be as creative as you wish. If you would like a Jeskola O1 to connect to a Raverb, and that Raverb to branch into both an EQ-10 and Jeskola Flange, which both output to the Master - feel free. Buzz lets you be as creative with your audio routing as you wish.