Inserts or Sends?
 

This may seem dumb but, what's the difference between an Insert & a Send? I know I can use them both for plugins, but whats the actual difference? Ihave been using a Bus to Aux track to apply plugins than bussing track to it to save my CPU, what if I insert the tracks to the Bus? and what if I add a plugin to a send and not a insert, is there a differance in sound? or just where it goes and when? HELP!

Re: Inserts or Sends?
 

I not exactly sure what you jsut said, but maybe this will help.

Even if you buss a track to an aux send. You still have to put the plug-ins on that aux tracks insterts before you can hear the effects. What an insert does is put the plug-in directly into the signal path of that channel. An aux send busses an exact replica of that channel to an auxillary track so it can be manipulated without affecting the original channel in any way. The most common reasons for doing this are so you can blend the original signal (the dry signal) with the auxillary signal (the wet signal, and to save processing power. You can save big-time processing power by bussing multiple tracks to one auxillary track that contains a specific effect (most commong would be reverb). Instead of opening up a reverb plug-in for everything that you want to add reverb to, you just buss whatever level you'd prefer to the reverb aux track.

Aux tracks are also used for things like bussing your entire drum mix to one aux track so you can control the volume of your entire drum mix with one stereo aux fader. Hope this helped.

Re: Inserts or Sends?
 

Insert- puts the device (plugin or hardware) before the fader/eq, inline on the channel or group.
Send-continiously variable (via fader) output pre of post fader.