Send parameters and Output parameters

Hi Guys...
 
Hope everyone is doing well. I have some questions regarding the send parameters. What is the main purpose of of the 'Send Assign' parameter? I notice that whatever one can assign to this parameter is almost the same as you would assign to the 'output' parameter(the output does have a few more options though). Will it be right to say that the 'Send Assign' should be used soley for the purpose of routing the singnal to buses for effects processing, rather than to also send it to the master bus (like the output parameter) to achieve an increase in volume, since 'output' is already being send to master?
 
regards
glisando

In X1 a send goes to a buss.  We think of a buss that receives a send as an auxiliary buss as it would be on a hardware mixer. In X1 its just another buss.

What this allows one to do is split the signal to go to two or more buses. 

What you do with them is up to you.  Normally a send is most often use to pass through an FX such as reverb in the FX bin of the sent buss and then on to the master buss. This allows one to control the amount both going to the buss from the track independent from the track fader and also from the amount coming from the sent buss going to the master via the fader.

The way X1 handles tracks, sends and buses is very straight forward and versatile.

glisando

... What is the main purpose of of the 'Send Assign' parameter? I notice that whatever one can assign to this parameter is almost the same as you would assign to the 'output' parameter(the output does have a few more options though). Will it be right to say that the 'Send Assign' should be used soley for the purpose of routing the singnal to buses for effects processing...

FastBikerBoy and the others really have answered you well, but I know it can take some head re-arranging to really get what's going on.

You sed, "...I notice that whatever one can assign this parameter to is almost the same as you would assign to the 'output' parameter..."---Yes, that's right, because the destinations available are the same.  That bottom slot you're talking about is where the track is basically going to.  Often it's going straight to the Master.  But you might have a project where you have the different sections of your song going to different buses - Drums is a good example.  You might have 8 tracks of drum parts, but you want the whole drum kit's volume to be linked together - so you send them to a Drum bus.

But it's not right to say that the "Send Assign" is Soley for the purpose of routing the signal to buses for effects processing.  As others have said, buses and tracks and their relationship to each other can be set up in a virtually infinite number of ways.  You'll find that some projects call for configurations you've never used before, because the needs of the song dictate a different, specific approach to the mix.

But yes, the vast majority of the time, we're sending parts of the signal in tracks via Sends in order to be processed by FX we have parked on buses dedicated to Reverb, Chorus, Flange etc.

So that means we often have buses dedicated to FX, and others dedicated to sections of instruments - like if you're doing an orchestral piece, you can have the need for a bus which groups all the brass together, another for the strings, another for the woodwinds and so on.  Those will be straight buses, no FX necessarily - they exist in order to control the volume of those instrumental sections as units.

And so forth.

RB