Prog, the sends are nothing esoteric. They're just extra channels, usually with some effect on them. Think of them as being parallel extra lanes to your main mix highway.

You control the levels of your instruments with their faders, and the rotary "send knobs" (in ableton) are also just level controls, they determine how much signal gets sent (copied) to the extra effected lane. The actual effects on the extra lane are tradiitonally set to 100% wet. If you send one instrument into that effect pretty loud (rotary send knob turned up), you get loud reverb from it. If you send another instrument fairly quiet, you get just a touch of reverb for that one, etc.

This way you got a lot of flexibility, you can control which tracks get more effect or less, PLUS you can adjust the level of the extra lane itself to control the overall loudness of "all effects in the mix", getting a Spencer-pleasing blend to sit just right for your ears.

Meanwhile the regular lanes work as they always did, you use them to balance levels and kinda "add in" the effects to taste using this whole structure. They are completely independent from the sends, so you could turn an instrument way down in the mix and yet have it going fairly loud into the reverb, if you wanted to. This is called "sends Pre fader", usually there's a switch to let you say that's what you want - sends not being affected by the main track fader. If you want the opposite where the main fader also affects the loudness of all the sends from that track, put the switch into Post fader. Normally it's Pre fader that you want.

 

Last edited: Nov 20, 2017

Thank you! I get almost everything until the paragraph which starts with Meanwhile

Now in my last post, before yours I pasted my homework assignment I have problems understanding it and setting it in Ableton. I mean if im supposed not to use reverb as insert, I should remove it from that track fx chain. And paste it in bus track. And then what, lol Stuck for the first time in these wonderful 4 days.

Now Im close, but still dont quite get what to do and create... I created three I guess bus tracks, or returns, and pasted reverb in each, and sent tracks to those buses, and not to master channel. But thats not it I suppose..

 

Last edited: Nov 20, 2017

I am working on it.

I have not used Live (I am assuming that's Abelton Live I am looking at) in a long time, trying to fit this in along with the other things that must get done today. I will get it up in a bit. Almost done with the work part of the day. Just 2:30PM here, so stuff still needs doing to pay the bills.

 

Prog - Yep, he wants you to remove the verbs from your tracks and put each different verb on its own Send. Due to obscure technical reasons, those rotary knobs in Ableton are called "sends" and the actual extra tracks/lanes are called "return tracks". Sends/returns, but ultimately it's the same thing we're talking about. Just an extra lane for an effect's 100% wet output. You'll see the return tracks to the right in the ableton mixer, I think there's 2 of them by default. If you don't have any rotary send knobs on your tracks, turn them on in View. Everytime you add a "return" lane, Ableton will add a rotary send knob to every track for it.

When you're turning up the send knob on a track, it is duplicating the signal and sending it off to the return track, where the duplicate hits the fx. The original signal from the track is untouched no matter how much you choose to send.

That's what I meant to put across to you in the "meanwhile" part too, the main faders you mix with are totally separate and not affected in any way by how much you send to the return lanes, where all your reverbs or delay fx are sitting. Spencer likes it, because this means later on he can tell you to EQ the actual return lanes in certain ways that will make them wayyy better. Can't do anything near as cool if your reverbs are all inserts....

 

Last edited: Nov 20, 2017

Hahahah yes the thread is long, but alive Almost seeing the finish line.

Now I get it better. Now, if I solve this tonight, what happens to other effects from chain from, lets say, strings track? I had eq, then toraverb, then sidechain comp on strings. Now Im supposed to delete toraverb from there and use A knob to send to bus track with toraverb. Now how to treat that new reverb, which is not part of chain anymore. Does it come before or after fx chain on track. Also, guitar should go to the same bus, according to instructions and your diagram, but my guitar does not have sidechain, and the question regarding other fx chain effects remains. Thank you for illustration and patience. We are almost there. Just trying to comprehend and visualize this part.

No need to hurry anyone please. Im already bummed I bored you all so much.

Mozee no pressure man, you are helping already.

Satai, yes. I discovered those returns and I paste reverb on them. If I just turn knobs for sends on tracks i increase that wet reverb. If I send audio from track to return channels, I loose track volume if I turn down the knob. I loose dry signal. Now the rest of problems and questions remain in top of this post. Thank you for helping. We will solve this soon, Im sure.

Again, i am very, very sorry for being boring. The response was just great, and people still helping, even more that on first day I posted

 

Last edited: Nov 20, 2017

Yeah man, you're almost there. Remove your manual routings that send the track to the return channels, that wasn't the right thing to do. The individual track outputs should all be going to Master as usual. Use the rotary send knobs to control how much gets sent to the reverbs. Now you will keep dry signal.

Buses are easy in Ableton, select the tracks you want to feed the bus, and hit Ctrl-G. It makes a "group track" that contains all the selected ones. Easy. That's what a bus is in other DAWs.

 

Last edited: Nov 20, 2017

BTW in Ableton, the sends are routed after the track's effects. So signal goes through all of your insert fx on the track first, then gets duplicated and sent to the return track. Meanwhile the original signal goes to the track fader to be adjusted in volume, as it normally would. The track fader doesn't affect what the reverb will see, sitting there on its return track.

 

Not sure about that, I might've switched mine to Pre and forgotten about it. Shows how much Post-fader gets used over here.

 

I wanted sidechain on reverb, too. If thats fine? By standards or if anyone does it?

I didnt understand your question regarding altering. i was only wondering, but satai already answered it. Getting there, thanks guys. More advice more than welcome. Working on it.

No Avenger. That one toraverb confused me at first place. I need to sidechain strings and their reverb with kick. And i dont need sidechain for guitar. Hence the half of confusion, besides the fact i did state im complete beginner in mix, master and dawing. But stuck finally.

 

It's common to have a sidechained compressor on the return track with reverb, Prog. So you can replicate your previous setup that way while keeping the advantages of the sends-style routing. Just duplicate the sidechained compressor, one for the main track, one for the return wih the reverb.

 

Because I think i heard it being done and it sounds nice. If I only sidechain strings, that pumping effect is lost after much reverb. And if I sidechain reverb a bit too, it will not blur the uplifting effect. You can hear in todays version around two minutes when strings come in with everything sidechained that nice pulsating effect. I dont know if people do it, but I swear a God I often hear that sidechained reverb or reverb which appears as soon as note is released, and in that way alowing main instrument to be heard better, or just as cosmetics. Am i completely wrong?

Just read satai's post. Exactly. Exactly. So its fine to create three buses with three seoarate reverbs I can shape the way I want or I am being instructed. And duplicate sidechain and set it maybe differently for reverb. Yes. Yes. Yes. But No Avenger wanted to know why I need that, so i figured if I am trying to do something that noone does.

 

Last edited: Nov 20, 2017