Methods, systems, and devices for replacement scheme for a pulse amplitude modulated bus are described. A device may receive a signal indicative of a set of data associated with a multi-level modulation scheme that includes three or more levels. The device may determine, based on the signal, a first quantity of symbols corresponding to a first level of the multi-level modulation scheme and a second quantity of symbols corresponding to a second level of the multi-level modulation scheme. And the device may modify the signal, based on a sum of the first quantity and the second quantity satisfying a threshold, to replace one or more of the symbols corresponding to the first level with a respective symbol corresponding to a third level of the multi-level modulation scheme.