bus-mix

# Bus Mix

One lonely music loop and a pile of clip volumes is not a mix. Route groups. Speak in dB. Duck what fights. Let music react. Gaming audio architecture — not a DAW class.

Inspired by gamedev-skills/awesome-gamedev-agent-skills audio-design (Apache-2.0). Original Grok remake. Complements juice-pass (visual hit feel), stick-map (trigger from actions), hud-stack, branch-talk. Not godot-teacher.

Read `references/mix-rules.md` before you design. Fill the three templates under `templates/`.

## When to use

- Bus / mixer tree and group volumes in decibels
- Duck music or ambience under voice / big impacts
- Adaptive music: vertical stems and/or horizontal segment swaps
- SFX pitch/sample variation so repeats don't machine-gun
- Beat-sync hooks driven by the audio clock

## When NOT to use

- Concrete Godot/Unity audio node walkthroughs → use godot-teacher (or the engine's audio skill)
- Hit juice, damage numbers, screen shake → use juice-pass
- Input rebinds that fire sounds → use stick-map for the map; call back here for the bus
- Dialogue graph content → use branch-talk
- Full DAW production / mastering tutorials
- Cheat overlays, aimbot audio tells, ESP injectors, malware

## Inputs

- Platforms and voice budget (mobile vs console vs PC)
- Buses needed (default: Master ← Music, SFX, Ambience, UI, Voice)
- Settings sliders that should map to buses
- Adaptive needs: intensity states, layers vs segments, BPM if known
- Pain: clipping, flat loop, robotic footsteps, music fighting dialogue

## Procedure

1. Read `references/mix-rules.md`. Refuse cheat audio hacks and engine-API dumps.
2. Draw the bus tree. Every clip plays into a named bus. Player volume sliders drive buses, not hundreds of clip gains.
3. Work in dB. Map 0..1 sliders through a linear-to-dB curve. Never treat the slider number as raw dB.
4. Leave Master headroom (aim under 0 dBFS; many games sit near a −14 to −16 LUFS-ish target). Limiter on Master is a safety net, not the mixer.
5. Duck: sidechain Music (or Ambience) from Voice / critical SFX, or tween bus volume. Fast attack, slower release so it dips cleanly without pumping.
6. Adaptive music — pick or combine:
   - Vertical: same-length stems start together; fade layers by intensity.
   - Horizontal: queue section changes; crossfade at bar/phrase boundaries. Optional bridges and stingers.
7. Smooth intensity from gameplay with hysteresis so layers don't flicker at thresholds.
8. SFX variation: sample pools + small pitch/volume wobble; free one-shots when done (or pool them).
9. Beat sync: read audio playback position, not frame delta; quantize to next beat/bar; note output latency.
10. Fill `templates/bus-tree.md`, `templates/adaptive-card.md`, and `templates/verify-mix.md`. Tiny original pseudocode only if asked — engine-neutral.

## Output format

- Bus tree (routing, dB policy, ducking, slider map)
- Adaptive card (layers/segments, intensity map, beat sync)
- Verify mix checklist (headphones + speakers, no clip, no pump, transitions on beat)
- One line: game audio mix worksheet; not a cheat overlay or DAW tutorial

## Safety

- Follow `references/mix-rules.md` with no exceptions.
- No aimbots, audio ESP, wallhack cues, injected overlays, or account theft.
- No CSAM in sample naming or mock content.
- Engine-neutral notes only. Not a Godot tutor.

## Stop conditions

- Three templates delivered, or refused for cheats / wrong scope (godot-teacher / juice-pass / DAW deep-dive)