• Techniques
  • Question about effect returns and reverb
2015/07/23 00:09:59
sharke
I've never been clear about something, at least about "standard practice" when it comes to effect returns and reverb. 
 
Let's say a delay bus in place, as well as a few types of reverb. 
 
Now I know it's standard practice to use reverb buses as common reverb for multiple tracks. But what about when you're also using, for example, delay buses in the same way? 
 
Let's say you have a synth track with a reverb send. You also have a delay send on the track. You're sending the dry signal to the reverb and the delay buses separately. So the signal to the delay bus is going to end up without reverb on it. You want this delayed signal to sound like it's in the same space as the source track, so you make a send from the delay bus to the same reverb bus you used for the source track. At least this is what I do. 
 
But what happens when the source track has multiple reverb sends? You might be sending a little to a room reverb and a little to a hall reverb. The delay send, however, goes to a delay bus which may be used by other tracks. You could make the same two reverb sends from the delay track, but what if this is not what you want for the other tracks using it? Is this when it's time to forget about shared delay sends and either create a delay bus that's exclusively for that track, or just insert individual instance of the delay on the track itself without using sends? Not sure how other people approach this. 
2015/07/23 05:21:44
Bristol_Jonesey
I'm sure the  common answer will be - it depends.
 
An option which might be of benefit would be to direct the outputs of your reverb busses to yet another bus and send that to the delay (or vice versa). But, it depends(!) on what else is feeding the reverbs.
 
Yet another option would be to place your delay/reverb in series in the same Fx bin. you can change the order to get either delayed reverb or reverb'ed delay.
 
But neither of these options caters for your scenario where only some of your tracks need this global treatment.
 
In a busy mix these concerns may not turn into a problem due to masking etc, but in a sparse mix a need for finer control would be important.
 
(A sparse mix would be a good case for separate instances of your Fx due to a lower CPU/Ram overhead)
2015/07/23 13:32:21
tlw
It depends :-)
 
This is one of those times when dropping a reverb or delay in on the source track rather than on a bus comes in handy.
 
For example, I might have a single "main" room reverb on a bus. Then create a track for recording guitar, and I want a delay and spring-style reverb on that track only. So I add the relevant delay and reverb plugs to that track, but might also create a send to the main room reverb bus as well just to make everything sound like it was recorded in the same acoustic space. Needs a bit of care because it's adding reverb to reverb, but works. 
2015/07/23 15:20:52
batsbrew
IS THIS A STEREO EFFECT, OR A MONO EFFECT?
 
2015/07/24 11:18:31
codamedia
I'm a big fan of common delays and reverbs. My song templates have 2 delay bus tracks (a short and a long) and 3 reverb bus tracks (short, long, plate). All tracks have the ability to send to these bus tracks as needed. This is just old school mixing and for me I can accomplish at least 95% of what I am after with this setup.
 
If I have a track that needs a special effect path... then I'll set that up as needed. I will usually have one or two tracks like this on a project... but nothing I can really pre-define into the template.
2015/07/24 11:42:11
gswitz
It depends. Just piling on. :-P
2015/07/24 15:24:24
sharke
Yeah I figured I'd get "it depends." I guess it just bothers me a little that sometimes my neat and tidy practice of using common effect buses, which appeals to my sense of efficiency, doesn't always work as needed. I like to keep things simple, which obviously doesn't apply to every situation.
2015/07/24 18:02:52
sausy1981
I always thought that if you send a vocal to a reverb buss and a delay buss, and the reverb buss is to the left of the delay buss, then the reverb send is on top and the delay send is underneath in the sends section of the track, I thought that some of the vocal is sent via the send to the reverb and returned with the reverb to the track then the vocal with the reverb is sent via the delay send to the delay buss and returned with with the delay on the vocal which had reverb on it to the track, thus you have the reverb feeding the delay. Was I wrong to think this, and is each send a dry send?
2015/07/24 18:10:08
gswitz
Messy only lasts until the final bounce.
 
Then you start all fresh and clean on the next one.
2015/07/24 19:08:43
TheMaartian
sausy1981
I always thought that if you send a vocal to a reverb buss and a delay buss, and the reverb buss is to the left of the delay buss, then the reverb send is on top and the delay send is underneath in the sends section of the track, I thought that some of the vocal is sent via the send to the reverb and returned with the reverb to the track then the vocal with the reverb is sent via the delay send to the delay buss and returned with with the delay on the vocal which had reverb on it to the track, thus you have the reverb feeding the delay. Was I wrong to think this, and is each send a dry send?

As near as I can figure, Track sends are all dry (parallel) and not chained (serial). Consider:
 
https://www.cakewalk.com/...mp;help=Mixing.07.html
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