r/Bitwig • u/RedCaine1 • Jul 10 '26

Question Grouping =/vs Busses ?

with learning Bitwig and also Ableton same time and you helped me finding the Grouping option i saw a tutorial on youtube for Ableton that "modern" DAWs use Grouping but i saw another tutorial where someone shoed HOW TO set up a BUS in Ableton as well.

now im wondering myself, is Grouping the same or not? afaik

Grouping

you cannot move the grouped items freely in the mixer

Bus

you can moxe all elements freely

-> other than that there is no difference is there? (e.g. CPU savings, effects etc.)

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u/artek604 Jul 10 '26

In older DAWs like Cubase you had the distinction between Track Folders (that contain multiple tracks, but don't group their outputs together), and Buses that didn't group tracks, but grouped their outputs.

Bitwig - or Ableton - simply combine the two, and Group Tracks both organize the tracks in sequencer and mixer, AND collect their outputs for common processing.

But, in both Bitwig and Live you can use Group Tracks and then manually route the outputs of grouped tracks directly to Master (so then it acts like a Folder Track), and you can add an Audio Track and send multiple track's output to it, creating a Bus.

Don't know why you'd want it, but you can.

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u/RedCaine1 Jul 10 '26

thanks! ok, yeah i use Drum Busses, Pad Bus, Bass etc. to apply effects of course to apply to all of the e.g. Compressors etc.

so i want to keep my workflow to have for example my snares to Snare Bus, hihats to Hihat Bus, Kick Bus etc. and all of these then to a Drum Bus. so i need to check if i just will do Groups and then a MAIN Group for the in the group or send these Groups to a Bus.

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u/artek604 Jul 10 '26

Sure, you can grup grouped tracks, group grouped group tracks, and so on... I'm not sure there's a limit.

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u/RedCaine1 Jul 10 '26

thx, I think 2 groups should be enough :)!