JPF Home Page Forums Musician Gear and Techniques Recording Studio and Gear Forum Sends / Reverb / Wet & Dry

I tried using Sends to Bus backing vocals to an Aux track with Reverb on it
The 'book' says the Send Faders control the signal (Volume?) to the Aux Track (AT) and to set the Reverb on the AT to "100% Wet" and adjust the Effect using the AT fader.

I am confused by the use of the Send pre/post-fader button and the send faders do not seem to control the volume that much.
Is it possible to explain the use of these controls and in particular the logical way to approach the issue of mixing 'wet' and 'dry' signals.
Does the use of the AT fader controlling a 100% Wet Reverb Effect signal mean the Main Out s (1 & 2) with the Dry signal are cut off?
I also copied the example in the David Franz book and Bussed 4 Mono Tracks to a Stereo Aux Track. How are the mono tracks separated when being received by the Stereo AT?
Its very confusing for me
Thanks
Tony

Hi Tony!

I'll throw out a few things,

Why use sends to a Aux fader? In a DAW, it saves proccessor recources. Instead of having 6 seperate instances of a reverb unit on each drum sound, you have one instance of reverb for all the drums. In addition to this, reverb, is often used to "place" an instrument in a front to back position as opposed to left and right. This gives your mixes "depth". A little reverb on the drums, for instance, puts them "aurally" behind the other instruments as our ears percieve ambience as a distance thing.But! having a "hall" on the snare, "closet" on the hi hat and a "cathedral" on the toms would never happen in the real world! As always, there are exceptions. What I'm getting at is that having the same reverb patch on a drum kit, or horn section etc. adds some cohesiveness to the "section"!

Enter effect sends and aux master. By choosing an effect for the drums and inserting that on a aux channel, you can now send all of the drums to be proccessed in the same space. But the amount of reverb you might want on the snare would, in most cases, be different then the amount you'd want on the kick (if any), By having the send knob on the kick at 60% and the kick send knob at 3% etc. you can control the amount of signal sent to be processed. Once you have the relative amounts for each instument that you want, you can now maintain those relationships while still changing the overall amount of reverb with the aux fader.

The effect on the aux fader should be at 100% because you just want the effect, not the original signal. Now you can adjust how much effect is applied to the mix by adjusting that fader.

The "pre" button, when engaged means that the send is unaffected by the fader of the original signal. In other words, if you at some point pulled the fader doen for the snare, the send would still be sending signal to the aux fader and you'd hear only the reverb from that track. If the "post" button is engaged, when you pull down the fader for the snare, you are also pulling back the send to the aux, when the fader is off, there is no send to the aux and you don't hear the reverb or the snare.

Using an aux for effects is added to the mix, ie, the unaffected track is still routed to the main outs. (if thats where you routed them).

About the four mono tracks, again, the mono tracks are still going where ever you sent them but in addition, you can add stereo effects for track1, track2 etc. to the mix.

Rob


[This message has been edited by RJC (edited 03-26-2003).]

Rob
Excellent explanantion thanks
I understand now. The AT becomes a Reverb channel ONLY and the Send faders regulate the amount of signal to be 'wetted' and mixed with the original signal which is still going to the exit channels.
Great
For the Mono Tracks. If I have 2 Mono panned to the Left side and 2 to the Right
does the Stereo Aux Track maintain their positions in the mix. The AT Stereo Fader does not indicate to me if this is so and I cannot isolate the AT sound thru my Earphones to check.
I have added to that excellent advice you gave me on EQ Carving a while ago and it all seems to be coming together very slowly. I have been Remixing my old songs using the info - it worries me that as I learn more I will go back and Remix them again and again and I will eventually be discovered by the cleaner dead (or worse) over the computer after years of constant never-ending Remixing!
Many thanks
Tony

Hi Tony,

In that scenario, no. The panning positions of the source track has no relationship to the aux track. The stereo aux track will send out left and right effect to the master bus, depending upon it's pan position.

You could achieve this though by having two instances of reverb on two mono aux returns. Send 1 & 2 to aux 1 and send 3 & 4 to aux 2. then you could maintain there pan positions. This is still using the same cpu recource. Alternativly, if you are panning 1 & 2 left and 3 & 4 right, you could pan the effects for 1 & 2 right and effects for 3 & 4 left. This can create an interesting stereo image.

Rob

[This message has been edited by RJC (edited 03-27-2003).]

Thanks for your valuable time and the clarification Rob

Very helpful indeed

Tony