Building your mix

The shape of a five-bus production mix. Pick the buses, declare them at construction, route everything through them.

Pick your buses up front

Most game-style apps land on the same five-or-six buses. Don't over-think this on day one — you can always rename later.

• music — looped background tracks; one voice at a time, occasionally crossfaded.
• sfx — gameplay one-shots, dense, polyphonic.
• voice — VO, dialogue, alerts; usually exclusive (one at a time).
• ambience — looped environmental textures.
• ui — clicks, hovers, modal opens.

Bare-bones declaration

createEngine({
  buses: {
    music:    { level: 0.7 },
    sfx:      { level: 1.0, concurrency: { max: 32 } },
    voice:    { level: 1.0, concurrency: { max: 1, steal: 'none' } },
    ambience: { level: 0.4 },
    ui:       { level: 0.6 },
  },
  master: { headroom: -3 },
});

What it looks like

Add FX inserts

import { Compressor, Reverb } from 'zvuk';

engine.bus('music').addFx(new Reverb(engine.context, { wet: 0.2 }));
engine.bus('voice').addFx(new Compressor(engine.context, {
  threshold: -18, ratio: 4, attack: 0.005, release: 0.15,
}));

Reverb on music is for atmosphere. Compressor on voice levels out dialogue without losing presence. Don't put reverb on SFX — individual hits sound smeared.

Master headroom

// Master gets -3 dB of headroom. Lifts the ceiling for transient SFX
// without clipping. If you hear pumping or clicks, drop to -6.
createEngine({ master: { headroom: -3 } });

Live mixer

What about ducking?

Sidechain a target bus from a source bus — when the source is loud, the target dips. See the ducking guide.

Pitfalls