Grouping vs Bussing - differences and use cases

[1nfinitezer0]

Hello! It's been ages since I've posted on this forum but after searching around I cannot find a discussion of this specifically so...

When do you all prefer to use groups, and when do you prefer to manually route audio through busses?

---
(Please talk about your own process if you feel called to, or see those details being useful to others. But here's my process in case it is helpful to the discussion):

I'm working on a live performance set right now, and was just about to switch one of my apc page columns (7ch+1 group track) to a bus rather than a grouping. I had it on a group track because it was easy to set up and the track elements there are always part of their own 'song'.

The reason that I was considering moving it to a bus was to set up some dummy clips for mixing settings (EQ, filters, etc) to allow them to complement with the other 'song' tracks they're going alongside. This would also open up the opportunity for automated effects transitions for the song as a whole.

I'm trying to keep options open for flexibility without increasing the amount of tasks & management actions I need to perform it. I only have one send for this liveset using a multi-knob chain-selector performance rack. The tracks within this song do not have any effects on them and are mostly pre-processed and flattened loops. Volume, sends and play states are all I'm really adjusting on the fly.
---

Groups:
-Pros
- Can launch all the 'group scene' elements inside independently of set-wide scene launch
-Cons
- Cannot use dummy clips on the group track

Busses:
-Pros
- Dummy clips
-Cons
- Tracks coming into the bus still have sends enabled even when bus is muted, making extra actions necessary in performance

---
Questions:
- Has anyone observed latency differences between groups and busses? In theory they should be the same
- Any other pros & cons that I'm missing?

[Stromkraft]

When do you all prefer to use groups, and when do you prefer to manually route audio through busses?

- Has anyone observed latency differences between groups and busses? In theory they should be the same
- Any other pros & cons that I'm missing?

I almost never use groups, except for removing tracks out of sight and audio would still be going to a buss. There's, I believe still, a problem concerning delay compensation on group tracks according to pencilrocket. I've been meaning to test that but as I don't use them…

I find busses (routing) or auxes (effects) way more convenient too.

[jestermgee]

I use both methods for the same thing and for different things and have not noticed any differences myself between one way and another in terms of delay compensation or whatnot but I may not be paying that much attention.

Groups I will use in the same way as Stromkraft to tie things together. I may have multiple drum/percussion kits I wish to group or different layers of the same instrument I would like to common as a group for ease of processing/soloing etc.

A Buss can then be handy to feed multiple groups + individual tracks to if you need to apply a common effect such as a sidechain or filter. It can also be useful to use a Buss simply as another group to allow grouping of groups to a single control track just for simplicity.

I'm always experimenting with different ways to do things like this so it changes for me.