Mixing With VCAs Question..

[tomhartman]

So you have a drum group, assigned to a routing folder, which has a send to reverb.

Let's say the snare also has it's own send to a delay.

Now I want to create a VCA for drums.

Is it best to simply include the drums' routing folder, or JUST the individual tracks of drums, and NOT the routing folder/buss?

Trying to get a handle on what to select for the VCA.

Thx
TH

[its2loud]

Originally Posted by tomhartman

So you have a drum group, assigned to a routing folder, which has a send to reverb.

Let's say the snare also has it's own send to a delay.

Now I want to create a VCA for drums.

Is it best to simply include the drums' routing folder, or JUST the individual tracks of drums, and NOT the routing folder/buss?

Trying to get a handle on what to select for the VCA.

Thx
TH

This depends entirely on your signal processing chain, signal flow, and you want the VCA to adjust.

Do you have other processing happening on the routing folder?

Having the VCA control the drum group will affect any processing on the routing folder since this will all happen Post fader of the drum group.

If you have the VCA control the Routing folder then you’re only changing levels post fader of the routing folder. Any incoming signal to the routing folder stays the same. VCA controlling the routing folder will not have any affect on the snare delay. It will only affect the reverb send.

[tomhartman]

Well yes...my routing folders often have EQ and compression, and a send to a reverb.

So I suppose my VCAs should only handle the individual tracks (via a group they are in).....

[originalscottyg]

EQ wouldn't be an issue (unless it's dynamic EQ), but if your VCA controls the tracks that are feeding the routing folder, then you would be changing how hard they are hitting the compressor, which you may or may not want.

[tomhartman]

So what do most people do in general? It seems like there are good and bad points about using them at all...?

I generally have a template that has an AUX or Routing folder for Strings, Guitars, bass, drums, Woodwinds, etc, etc. ......basically any track in a session goes to a subgroup of the correct type, no individual tracks go directly to the main outs...

[its2loud]

Originally Posted by tomhartman

So what do most people do in general? It seems like there are good and bad points about using them at all...?

I generally have a template that has an AUX or Routing folder for Strings, Guitars, bass, drums, Woodwinds, etc, etc. ......basically any track in a session goes to a subgroup of the correct type, no individual tracks go directly to the main outs...

VCAs were designed with the idea to control groups of source tracks that feed into a sub. That being said, the world is your oyster how you want to use them. They're not really meant for broad strokes but for rather small, minute changes to the source tracks. These small changes may not make noticeable difference to whatever processing you have on the Routing folder. However, it could have a small affect on whatever reverbs, delay sends you might have on that routing folder. Just keep in mind the signal flow of things so you know what to adjust if using VCAs