How to Route Mixer Tracks in FL Studio

Once you have more than a few sounds, you need to control where each one goes. Learning how to route mixer tracks in FL Studio means sending channels to mixer tracks, grouping them into buses, and setting up sends for shared effects. Get this right and mixing becomes far simpler. This guide covers the routing you’ll use on every project.

Sending a channel to a mixer track

By default, channels in the Channel Rack play through the Master mixer track, which gives you no individual control. To process a sound on its own:

1. Open the Mixer and select an empty mixer track (e.g. Insert 1).
2. Select the channel in the Channel Rack you want to route.
3. At the top of the channel’s settings, set its mixer track number to match — now that channel plays through that mixer track.

Give the track a name and colour. Doing this for every sound gives you a clean, controllable mixer instead of everything piled on the Master.

Grouping tracks into buses

A bus lets you control several tracks at once — for example, all your drums on one fader. To build one:

1. Pick an empty mixer track to act as the bus (call it “Drums”).
2. Select each drum track, then click the routing arrow at the bottom of the Drums track to route them into it. They now flow into the bus instead of straight to Master.
3. Add compression or EQ on the bus to process the whole group together.

This is the foundation of a tidy mix and makes balancing far quicker. Our EQ and compression fundamentals guide explains what to put on those buses.

Sends and returns for shared effects

Rather than putting a reverb on every track, use one reverb on a send track and feed multiple tracks into it:

1. Add a reverb (set fully wet) to an empty mixer track — this is your return/send track.
2. On each track you want reverb on, click the small send knob/arrow pointing to the reverb track and dial in how much signal to send.

This keeps reverb consistent, saves CPU, and gives you one place to adjust the space. The same principle applies in any DAW, as our cross-DAW guide on sends and returns explains.

Routing for sidechaining

Sidechaining relies on routing one track’s signal to another as a trigger. In the Mixer, select the source (kick), then right-click the routing arrow on the target track (bass) and choose Sidechain to this track. The full workflow is in how to sidechain in FL Studio.

Keep your signal flow clean

• One sound per mixer track wherever practical, named and coloured.
• Group related tracks into buses (drums, vocals, synths).
• Use sends for shared effects like reverb and delay.
• Mind your levels at each stage — read gain staging explained so nothing clips on the way to the Master.

Related FL Studio guides

Good routing supports the whole production — see how to arrange a song in FL Studio and the mixing and mastering hub for what to do once your signal flow is sorted.

Frequently asked questions

Why do all my channels play through the Master in FL Studio?

Channels default to the Master mixer track until you assign them. Set each channel’s mixer track number to an individual insert so you can process it separately, then route groups into buses as needed.

What’s the difference between a bus and a send in FL Studio?

A bus carries the full signal of several tracks so you can process them as a group, replacing their direct path to Master. A send copies a portion of a track’s signal to an effect track (like reverb) while the original still plays through its own path.

How do I route multiple tracks to one fader?

Pick an empty mixer track as the bus, then route each source track into it using the routing arrow at the bottom of the bus track. Adjusting the bus fader then controls all of those tracks at once.