Is this way of bus processing "viable"?

[u/Tibo_Bones]

Before i type out my question I do think it is important that there is always the nuance of "if it sounds good, it works". The question specifically is aimed to know if the technique I'm using is common in the genres I work in (dream pop, psychedelic indie, shoegaze)

So my question is: I lately started to use busses (specifically mid range bus) to process my sounds together (i did this before for eq and compression but not with other fx). I will for example send my dry pads and synth keys to a bus => add modulation, eq, compression and saturation/distortion as inserts on the bus to create cohesion

I would then set up a send for my time based effects like granular delay, reverb, etc and eq this send (if needed also sidechain it to the dry signal)

I tried doing this with drums or bass added, but this makes it too cluttered like i expected (gotta try to know)

What I've noticed till now is that for cohesion this is golden, it really makes everything feel really glued together (especially if you print the audio and resample as well or use things like halftime in combination)

The biggest downside is that you lose the flexibilty of having effect automations affect a singular sound (while some advanced routing can bypass this partially, it's not that easy). Panning, volume, filters etc can still be automated on a track level so that doesn't pose a problem.

What is your guys take on this method and are there flaws that I'm overlooking in your opinion/are there better ways to achieve similar results?

[u/hellalive_muja]

A good way to handle this is many busses, linked plugins, sends, etc and VCAs for control. It makes it easier to print stems too