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The Master Secondary Bus Hierarchy

The Master Secondary Bus hierarchy is a structure of audio busses used to mix the content that will go in any other outputs than the main (TV or speaker) output. For example, the most common secondary output are the game controller speakers. Like the Master Audio Bus, the Master Secondary Bus can have any number of child busses and auxiliary busses.

Sounds routed to the Secondary Bus hierarchy will be sent to the secondary output using one of the two following approaches:

  • By setting the Output Bus property of a sound directly to any bus in the Secondary Bus hierarchy. This is the preferred method for sounds that are normally tied to only one secondary output instance. For example, player-initiated gun shots, tennis racket whack, PDA sounds, gameplay feedback, and so on.

  • Routing a sound through any bus in the Master Audio Bus hierarchy and adding a user or game send to an auxiliary bus inside the Secondary Bus hierarchy. This is the preferred method if the same sound is going to be heard in multiple outputs and the TV at the same time. For example: spy camera, announcements, and so on.

It is important to know that although there is only one Master Secondary Bus in the project, the bus structure will be duplicated in the game, one copy of the structure for each secondary output (game controllers, companion devices, and so on). Therefore, not all the sounds routed into the Master Secondary Bus hierarchy will be mixed together. Effective routing into which copy of the structure will depend on the Listeners and Game Object associations set up by the programmer.

To try out your sound design for Secondary Outputs, make sure to select the option "Mix Secondary Output to Main" in the Audio menu. This will make the Secondary Output sounds audible while you are using the authoring tool. Normally, these sounds would not be heard, as would be the case if you selected "Mute Secondary Output".


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