Never mind, Slau. As soon as I sent that, I thought a little more about it.
We're not wanting to adjust the dry mix. We want to move the wet reverb. If
we did it on the actual base or drum track, then we'd be adjusting the volume
of the dry signal, which isn't what we want. So, yeah, whoops. Sorry 'bout
that. Now that I thought about it, I do see why we did the send level. That
way, we're not moving the dry signal. And, before you read my mind, we'd not
wanna turn the fader up on the AUX track, nor down, as then, you're gonna be
effecting the wet reverb for both instruments, which would get things totally
outta whack.
So, sounds like, it's more a blending thing than anything. It basically lets
us move the reverb, in this case more or less in the spectrom endependently.
Then, if I needed more or less reverb over all, once both the drum and base
were blended through the sends' levels, that's! where then I'd use the fader on
the actual AUX track being fed the signal. Am I understanding this correctly?
If so, then this is really starting to make a hell of a lot more sense.
---
Christopher Gilland
JAWS Certified, 2016.
Training Instructor.
clgillan...@gmail.com
Phone: (704) 256-8010.
----- Original Message -----
From: Slau Halatyn
To: ptaccess@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2016 2:54 PM
Subject: Re: Understanding Pre, vs. post fader sends
Chris,
One example will suffice for both scenarios. Let's say you had 3 instruments
whose signals you wanted to send to a reverb. Let's say it's drums bass and
guitar. Let's assume you've routed all 3 tracks' first send to the same bus and
it's feeding an aux input with a reverb plug-in. If you change nothing, all 3
instruments will send a fixed amount of signal to the bus and that might be
fine. However, given that bass typically doesn't need a lot of reverb and is
usually quite a bit drier than other instruments, to change the amount of
reverb on the bass, you would turn down the send level of the bass track
feeding the bus. Now the aux input is getting a little less bass relative to
the drums and guitar. Now, let's say you wanted to give the drums a bit extra
on the reverb, you could turn up the send level on the drum track. The aux
input will now be getting a little more of the drums relative to the other two
instruments. So now you have the 3 instruments being sent to a reverb with
varying levels that are independent of what their levels are in the main mix.
You can think of the sends feeding the same bus as a little submixer with
each track's send level as the fader for that submixer. The bus is now carrying
a signal which is a mix unto itself. Rather than hearing that submix, however,
it's only being heard by the aux input which is altering that submix by running
it through a reverb, in this case, digital rather than a rack mount reverb
processor.
Slau
May 18, 2016, at 1:22 PM, Christopher-Mark Gilland <clgillan...@gmail.com>
wrote:
OK, so what is the situation of example where one may would need to adjust
the actual output fader on the send within the send window itself?
I now understand better what's happening with the post vs. pre, and I get
that the output slider within the send window is determining how much signal is
being sent, but I gather, maybe I'm wrong here, but signal doesn't always
indicate volume, does it? So, can you give me to illustrations please? One
where I may would need to turn it up, and another where cranking it down a
ways may help?
You do such a great job, Slau, at explaining this stuff. NO wonder so many
people have such high respect for the way you teach things! Thank you for
working with me through understanding this. I know this kind of goes slightly
outside the relm of PT, but I appreciate you sticking it out with me, and
helping me better understand. It means a lot.
---
Christopher Gilland
JAWS Certified, 2016.
Training Instructor.
clgillan...@gmail.com
Phone: (704) 256-8010.
----- Original Message -----
From: Slau Halatyn
To: ptaccess@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2016 1:02 PM
Subject: Re: Understanding Pre, vs. post fader sends
Yes, exactly. The pre/post fader setting (which is a simple on and off
switch on consoles) determines whether the signal being sent to the auxiliary
track is being sent from before the fader of that audio track or after the
fader of the audio track. Keep in mind that, regardless of whether the signal
is taken from before or after the audio track's fader, the signal still hits
the send level which is essentially a little fader that determines the level of
the signal being sent down the bus.
This discussion is a good illustration why understanding signal flow is
and has been so important in the analog world. One had to study how the signal
came into the console, how it passed through the various components, how it
could be siphoned off to busses and how those signals were eventually brought
together either on the main output or the submix groups. The easiest way to
understand all of that was to look at a block diagram where one could see the
paths graphically. Naturally, a picture's worth a thousand words so it's
difficult to describe things like that but it's not impossible. The thing is,
every console has its quirks and particulars but, for the most part, consoles
follow a similar scheme most of the time. It's no accident that the mix window
in Pro Tools follows the most common format with inserts at the top, sends
below, pans closer to the main fader, etc. There are key differences, however.
Usually, there's a dedicated EQ section with a dedicated bypass. That's not the
case in Pro Tools. That said, one can't compare the flexibility that a dAW
offers to a hard-wired console. Anyway, glad the pre/post question is clearer.
Slau
On May 18, 2016, at 12:34 PM, Christopher-Mark Gilland
<clgillan...@gmail.com> wrote:
Ow'w'w'w'w, Ow'w'w'w, Kayyyy, so the pre and post fader setting isn't
effecting the fader of the AUX track. It's determining whether the send is
happening before or after the fader of the audio! track, not! the AUX track. I
think that's where I was getting confused. I thought it was effecting after it
was sent, then, is it going to be pre fader of the AUX track, or post.
Your example with turning up or down the actual audio track's fader on
that original track, really made it hit home. Putting it that way in
perspective really made it make sense.
Thank you Slau for the incredibly detailed explanation. That really
did help tremendously.
---
Christopher Gilland
JAWS Certified, 2016.
Training Instructor.
clgillan...@gmail.com
Phone: (704) 256-8010.
----- Original Message -----
From: Slau Halatyn
To: ptaccess@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2016 12:08 PM
Subject: Re: Understanding Pre, vs. post fader sends
Chris,
You seem to sort of understand the situation but I think you're
possibly misunderstanding a couple of things as well. In order to put things
very simply, I'll address the pre/post fader issue first and then the reverb
second.
When you're using a send to forward a copy of the signal from a track
to a new destination, the pre/post fader parameter determines whether the
output fader of the track will affect the level of the signal passing through
the send. If the send is set to post fader, if you bring the fader down, that
will also affect the level of the audio being sent through the bus. If you set
the send to be pre-fader, that means that the level of the audio being sent
from the track through a bus to some other destination will not be affected by
the track's fader. It's being sent from a point before the fader. So, if you
were to take down the fader for the track, the signal is still being passed
through the send. The level of that signal is determined by the send level. So,
with a send set to pre-fader, it's possible to send a signal to a reverb, take
the original track's volume all the way down and have only the reverb come
through. That's an explanation of the difference between the two.
Now, your issue with the reverb is related but not entirely due to
the pre/post setting. What I suspect is happening is that your reverb plug-in
is not set to 100% wet. Be aware that certain reverb plug-ins have both a
balance parameter plus a switch that turns the mix to 100% wet regardless of
the balance parameter. So, if your send is set to post fader and your plug-in
is set to, say, 50% wet, you're going to be getting 50% of the dry signal
coming through the reverb plug-in. Thus, boosting the reverb track also boosts
the dry signal because 50% of it is the dry part of the signal. When you set
the send to pre-fader and take the track's output all the way down, regardless
of the wet/dry proportion of the plug-in, boosting the reverb track's output
will only result in an increase of the wet signal because , with the audio
track's signal being pre-fader, no dry signal is coming through your outputs
and you're only boosting the reverb plug-in itself. That said, the proportion
will still be the same and you're hearing the difference in volume of just the
fader on the auxiliary track being boosted.
Here's what you need to do: make sure your reverb plug-in is always
outputting reverb only, set whatever parameters at your disposal to be 100%
wet. This way, when you want to boost the reverb level, you're only boosting
the reverb level and not also bringing up the dry part of the signal which
would throw your mix out of whack. Conversely, if you bring down the reverb
level it will also not change the relationships of the dry audio tracks.
The issue of pre/post is a separate consideration and mostly to do
with other considerations. Here's one example where a person might use a pre
fader send. Let's say you wanted to have the sound of a person walking into a
hall from a distance while speaking or singing and you wanted the perspective
of the listener to be at the front of the hall. As the vocalist enters the hall
and travels closer to the listener, the level of their voice would increase. In
other words, the dry signal level would increase. If you were to put a
post-fader send on that track and sent it to a reverb, when the signal level is
low, it would barely send any level to the reverb and the reverb would not
really be heard. The level of the reverb would be dependent on the level of the
vocalist's track. Now, if that send were to be pre-fader, the level of the
reverb would be independent from the level of the track. With that setup, it's
possible to have the sound of the room be heard as if the voice were coming
from a distance. By adjusting the level of the reverb a bit, it's possible to
make it sound like the person's vocal is filling the room but from a distance
because there's very little direct sound. By slowly bringing up the vocal
track, more and more dry signal will be heard and, proportionately, it would
sound as if the vocalist is getting closer but the listener's position in the
room hasn't changed, only the relationship of the vocalist to the room sound.
This example is more of a post-production technique for film, television, etc.
In music mixing, it's more of an artistic call. sometimes people use pre-fader
reverb purely for effect.
Hope that helps. Let me know if anything still isn't clear.
Slau
On May 18, 2016, at 11:24 AM, Christopher-Mark Gilland
<clgillan...@gmail.com> wrote:
Guys,
Try as I may, I am just! not getting this concept. I have Googled
like crazy, but all articles are going way way over my head.
Basically, here is the scenareo for ya. Let's say I have two
tracks in my session. The first track is called vocal, and it's nothing more
than just a dry raw mono audio track with me singing in my mike.
Now, I have a stereo auxiliary track called Vox Verb. On insert A
of the vocal mono audio track, I add a send. On this send, I leave all the
default values in the send window as ProTools has it natively. I don't turn
the send up or down, I don't mess with the pans, nothing. I just directly
close the send window when it pops up.
Now, on the Vox Verb auxiliary track, on insert A, I add a reverb
plugin of my choice, and tweak it accordingly to my liking.
What I now am finding is, because by default I'm set to post fader
on that send which is up on our actual mono audio vocal track, if I move the
output volume slider on the vox verb auxiliary track up and down, yes, I'm
causing the reverb wet signal to increase or decrease, more simply put in lamon
terms, I'm causing the reverb to become more or less in amount, let's say I
need more reverb wetness. If I turn the fader up on that auxiliary vox verb
track, I get more echo/reverb, but it's also making my vocals louder. My guess
is is that it's turning up the dry mix along with turning up the reverb.
With a prefader, I'm finding on the other hand, given again the
above scenareo, if I turn the output volume slider up on the auxiliary vox verb
track, the volume of my vocals doesn't get any louder at all. Just to over
exagerate things, if I turned the auxiliary track's fader to positive 12DB, not
that I'd normally do that, but I'm trying to make a point here. I would find
that the actual volume level of my vocal hasn't become ear splitting blasting.
All it did in prefader is to make me sound like I'm in the bottom of the grand
cannyon. It seems that in prefader, it's only effecting the reverb wetness
from the plug I put on insert A of the auxiliary vox verb track.
So, this leads me to a few questions. Maybe if you all can address
these questions in full, this'll start to make more sense. I think firstly
though before asking these questions, it's important that you all understand my
logic of thinking for what a send actually is. That may be part of my issue
right there. I was thinking that basically all a send really is is a pathway
for lack of better word to send, quote unquote, signal. Basically, in the
above situation, regardless if it's pre or post, all I'm essentially doing is
sending a copy of the audio from my mono audio vocal track elseware. In this
case, I'm duplicating it by sending it out to an auxiliary track. So now, I
have two instances of the same audio. One from the vocal mono audio track, and
a second instance from the auxiliary vox verb track which are now being played
at the same time.
IN the old days of analog stuff, you'd often hear about bouncing
multiple tracks to one track. I hear that basically was done with sends.
You'd send the audio from say, 3 tracks out to just one track which would
receive the signal from all 3 tracks. Therefore, you now put effects on that
one track receiving all three of the others, and now, you've globally effected
all 3 of the tracks in one shebang. According to the Sweetwater tech I
normally work with, he told me that if you wanna get really really technical,
technically speaking, a master fader is nothing more than a track which has
signal through a send being sent down to it, so you do anything on your master,
it effects the whole session. Again, he said it's not exactly a send, but at
the end of the day, it's the same concept.
OK, so here are my questions, now that you get my logic of what I'm
understanding a send to be.
1. I get that pre fader means the signal is being effected before
it hits the output fader of the vox verb auxiliary track, but in more lamon
terms, what does that mean?
2. I get that with post! fader, the signal is being effected after
it hits the output fader on the vox verb auxiliary track. Again, though, in
more lamon terms, what exactly does that mean is happening in the audio chain?
3. Can someone textually diagram out for me the signal process of
both a pre, and a post fader send, explaining how exactly the audio is getting
from the audio track to the auxiliary track?
4. Finally, why is it that with post fader, if I move the output
volume slider on the auxiliary track, the vocal not only gets more reverb, or
less reverb, but it's also turning up the volume of the vocal audio track at
the same time, whereas, if I'm set to prefader, then turn up or down the fader
of the auxiliary track that the audio is being sent to, the only thing I notice
is that the reverb becomes either more or less intense, as far as the wet mix
goes. It gets either more echo, or less echo, but as far as volume goes,
nothing gets louder, nor softer.
Sorry to put this on you all to answer in so much depth, but I
really just am not getting this concept. I'm trying, honest to God, but it's
just not making sense. The more pre school lamon you can put this, LOL, the
better. Don't use big words, as I'm stupid. LOL! Just kidding. Seriously
though, can someone help me out here please?
Chris.
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