Understanding the Bus Icons and Processing Status

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Understanding the Bus Icons and Processing Status

Bus icons represent the processing status of a bus as determined by Wwise. The following table outlines the criteria used to determine the processing status of a bus. In general, busses are handled as non-mixing unless the processing they would perform cannot be deferred. This is because non-mixing busses provide a more efficient use of CPU and memory by propagating their properties to their inputs without performing any processing.

Icon

Processing Status

Description

(Audio)

(Auxiliary)

Mixing

A processing status that Wwise can apply to both Audio Busses and Auxiliary Busses. The properties of a Mixing bus are passed down to objects routed to the bus and to child busses. Any Effects defined on the bus are processed, and the result is output in a channel-based format.

A bus is mixing if:

It has a channel-based bus configuration, set explicitly or resolved by the Audio Device for a top level bus
OR
Its bus configuration is Same as parent and the parent has a channel-based configuration
AND any of the following is true:
- It is an Auxiliary Bus
- It is an HDR bus
- It has at least one inserted Effect
- It is mounted with a mixer plug-in
- It has Positioning enabled
- It has an RTPC on the Bus Volume or on the Output Bus's Volume, LPF, or HPF.

	Caution
	When sounds are routed to a Mixing bus, any Metadata associated with the sound will be lost or used in the channel-based mix. This Metadata cannot be restored and will no longer be available for use by any Audio Object Processor, mixer plug-in, or endpoint.

(Audio)

(Auxiliary)

Processing Audio Objects

A processing status that Wwise can apply to both Audio Busses and Auxiliary Busses. All properties of this bus are passed down to objects routed to the bus and to child busses. Any Effects defined on the bus are processed, and the result is output as Audio Objects.

A bus is Processing Audio Objects if:

It has an Audio Objects bus configuration, set explicitly or resolved by the Audio Device for a top level bus
OR
Its bus configuration is Same as parent and the parent has an Audio Objects bus configuration
AND any of the following is true:
- It is an Auxiliary Bus
- It is an HDR bus
- It has at least one inserted Effect
- It is mounted with a mixer plug-in
- It has Positioning enabled
- It has an RTPC on the Bus Volume or on the Output Bus's Volume, LPF, or HPF.

Refer to Understanding Object-Based Audio for further details.

(Audio)

Not Mixing

A processing status that Wwise can apply to Audio Busses. The properties of a Non-Mixing bus are passed down to objects routed to the bus and to child busses, however, no processing is performed and hence the format of the objects and children is not modified. Any properties authored on a Non-Mixing bus are applied to the routed objects at voice level.

A bus is Not Mixing if the following statements are true:

Its bus configuration is set to Same as Parent.
It is not using any of the features listed previously that would cause it to mix or process audio objects.

(Audio)

(Auxiliary)

Processing

A processing status that Wwise can apply to both Audio Busses and Auxiliary Busses. The processing status of this bus will be resolved as either Mixing or Processing Audio Objects when the Wwise sound engine connects to the endpoint and receives information concerning the format(s) supported.

A bus is Processing if the following statements are true:

Its bus configuration is set to Same as Parent and the bus configuration of all of its ancestors is also same Same as Parent.
It is using any of the features listed previously that would cause it to mix or process audio objects.

	Note
	When profiling in Wwise, the resolved status will be displayed in the General Settings tab of the Property Editor, but not in the Project Explorer.

The Effect of Processing Status on the Profiler Views

Non-mixing busses do not appear in the following locations:

The Busses tab of the Advanced Profiler
The Voices Graph tab of the Advanced Profiler
The Audio Object Profiler

Busses that are Mixing, Processing Audio Objects, or Processing do appear in these locations. This is demonstrated by the following figure. Notice the Environmental and Environments busses do not appear in the Advanced Profiler's Busses tab while their child Auxiliary busses env_corridor and env_small_room do. This is because the Environmental and Environments busses are non-mixing busses, while their child busses are Processing.

	Non-Mixing busses do not appear in the Advanced Profiler Busses tab.
	Busses that are Mixing, Processing Audio Objects, and Processing do appear in the Advanced Profiler Busses tab.

The Effect of Processing Status on the Meter

For a non-mixing bus, the meter is not available in the Property Editor's General Settings tab. You will see a message to this effect (as shown in the following figure). In the case of a bus that is Mixing, Processing Audio Objects, or Processing, the meter is displayed.

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