An audio bus (also called a group, submix, or aux) is a routing channel that combines multiple audio signals so they can be processed together. Buses are fundamental to both DAW mixing and game audio architecture.
Common bus structure in games:
- Master bus — final output, all audio passes through
- Music bus — all music tracks
- SFX bus — sound effects
- Dialogue bus — character voices
- Ambience bus — environmental sounds
- UI bus — interface sounds
This structure allows players to adjust category volumes independently, and lets designers apply bus-level processing (compression, EQ, reverb sends) to entire categories at once.
In Wwise and FMOD, bus hierarchies can be deeply nested with sophisticated routing options.