Glue revisited-Bussing reverb and other FX?

There are no rules, but most would use your reverb buss concept.  Where you have a buss with a reverb on it.  This buss would be routed straight to the Master buss (or sub master busses you may have).  Leave the output of the Reverb Buss at 0.  Control the reverb amounts for each track using their individual sends.  You'll want different amounts of reverb for each track (some tracks maybe no reverb?). 

I'll frequently set up two or more different reverb busses, and a couple delay busses.  I send some tracks to multiple reverb busses. 

Thing about delays and reverbs is that it helps set up the sound stage - front to back.  More reverb will set the instrument back on the stage, less will bring it forward.  That's why you want individual control at the track level.  Some tracks (like pads) you want to push way back and soak with longer reverb.  Others, like guitars, you may want very short reverbs.  Your snare may sound good with both short and longer reverbs.  Kick and bass - no reverb (or very little)

Sometimes you may want to add just a small bit of reverb to the entire mix for glue.  However, I never do that.

I like to think of Reverb and Delay buses as "servers" or "stores" -- each track that needs it goes and asks for the amount it wants (via the Send), which the bus happily supplies and sends to the master (or other) bus.
 
Geetar:  "Hey Verbs, gimme 2db of your lush long hall and a smidge of bright room.  And I'll take a little Edgy delay too."
Lexi Long:  "Sure sweetie.  Let me dress you up in some gooey lushness"
Val Room:  "Got yer thwack right here, dude"
Echo Man:  "Could you repeat that?"
 
Bass:  "Reverb?  Psh.  Not going there.  Never touch the stuff.  Makes me feel queasy"
Kick:  "Right on, bro.  We bring the power.  We don't need no stinkin' verb!!" 
Snare:  "Hey, a little tail ain't ALL bad ... "
Vox:  "Slap me if I sound too dry.  Otherwise, I'll have the blue Plate special"
 
OK, I'll stop now.
 
Cheers,
Eddie
 
 

Ok these are good. 
I have it working now and see that I have individual control thru the send. And it does help glue the mix a lot.
I'll be looking fwd to using the same techniques with delay and compression busses, tho I'm aware different instruments need different treatment too.


Thanks guys.

Thanks Geno.
On Reverb:
Do you set up several different reverb busses for the different types?
Reverb is useful for "Blend, Size, tone, sustain and spread" (From Mixing secrets by Mike Senior) but it requires different settings for predelay and tails and even different plugs. 
I'm still confused about whether this is done at the track or buss.

Is the buss/send approach only for mastering?

Glenn - like bristol said, keep the reverbs on the busses - each reverb would get a different buss.  And yes, each reverb buss would have a different type of reverb, and could be different plug-ins, like PerfectSpace and Sonitus, with different settings. 

Make sure you take the time to EQ each reverb as reverb can create mud in the low end, and can cause a "hissing" sound on the snare in the high frequencies (for example).

And like bristol said, the buss / send strategy is not for mastering, it is a general mixing technique.

Since both reverb busses and sidechaining were brought up, maybe it's not too off-topic to mention side-chaining a reverb bus. It's a very useful technique, in which you put a side-chainable compressor on the reverb bus and key it off the lead vocal so that the glue 'verb is lowered while the vocalist is singing. This will allow stronger reverb effects without letting them get in the way of lyric intelligibility.