Sends vs outputs

[erin1996]

Having some issues w sends. I have an aux (EXTAUX) with eq/reverb designed for sounds that are happening outside of a cafe (traffic and a conversation between two characters. We as the viewer are witnessing this all from inside the cafe). I have my dialogue stem sent to this aux. I want to automate the send of one track of atmos (traffic) so that I can control how much of it goes to an aux as I don't want to eq it as hard as the dialogue. I don't want to send my atmos stem to EXTAUX because I also have all the atmos from inside the cafe where we, the viewer, are watching the scene from.

Rather than adding the same eq/reverb qualities to the traffic track and copying the automation etc, I just want to be able to send it to the same stem but control my send level.

For some reason if I put my EXTAUX BUS as a send on my traffic atmos audo track rather than as the output, all I can hear is dry signal regardless of how high or low level I send to the aux. On the other hand, if I put the EXTAUX BUS as the output, I can't control the level that is going to that aux and all I hear is the wet signal.

Am I missing something here? If you can't send something through a send, why have sends? Do they only work for aux>aux? Why do sends work for some things but for others are completely overridden by the output? It just feels like it's getting way messier than it needs to. Sure I could just render the eq I want onto the clip itself but what is the point having all these send slots if you can't control the level being sent?

[JFreak]

Hi, welcome to the community.

EXTAUX sounds like you have outboard stuff you wish to use on your mix. The proper way to do it is set up a Hardware Insert in the I/O Setup and then use it as a plugin. That way the mixer is peroperly delay compensating for it. The trick for creating Hardware Insert is that your output and input numbers must match, for example if the sound comes out of A7-8 outputs it must return to A7-8 inputs too.