Buses and sends in pt 9

[ksg]

Hi, i am a little lost and after some help.
I am confused as to the difference between a bus and a send, they both take a signal and send it else where? that is what i have picked up so far?!?

I have an acoustic type track and i would like to set an overall reverb on the drums to make them sound more natural together. Do i use a send? and if so how in PT9?

[PD-John]

A bus is what carries the signal to a location; a send is what gets signal onto the bus. If buses were buses (real buses with wheels), then sends would be like bus stops where people (audio) get on. The bus has a specific destination i.e. the output e.g. aux track, subgroup etc. Several people can get on the bus at different stops along the way i.e. multiple sends across different tracks. But eventually, no matter what stop they get on at (send), they will end up at the destination.

I hope that didn't confuse you..

With reverbs, you can use a send by first creating a stereo auxiliary track, inserting a reverb plugin on it and setting the input to a stereo bus. Then on your drum tracks you can put sends to the same stereo bus to get the signal to the reverb. Adjust the send level to set how much reverb you want to apply on the track.

[ksg]

That makes more sense than the pages and pages i have read on it, thank you!! Will have a play around with it now i understand it a little more! Thanks again

[albee1952]

Here's another analogy. Think of audio as water that can flow thru pipes. Buses are pipes inside the program. Outputs are pipes into and out from the interface. Aux sends are faucets to feed the pipes

[ksg]

Thank you, the analogy helps!
Is all working beautifully and i get it. Cheers guys

[ksg]

one more question tho. With the buses, do i have to set the level of reverb on each buses on each track? I have set the level on the kick, but I seem to have to set the level again for the snare, then again for the high hat etc.
I have created a 'group' for the drums where i can change the volume, say click on the kick drum to decrease volume and the the other drum tracks change together as well.

[PD-John]

Originally Posted by ksg

one more question tho. With the buses, do i have to set the level of reverb on each buses on each track? I have set the level on the kick, but I seem to have to set the level again for the snare, then again for the high hat etc.

Yes. You may want to have different send levels for the different tracks e.g. more reverb on the snare than on the hi-hat.

Groups can control send levels if you want: right click on the group in the Group window (bottom left) and say "Modify". Then check the "Send Levels" box.

[albee1952]

Another detail; in Preferences, you can choose whether sends(when you add one to a track) will default to turned all the way down, or to default to -0.

[zedhed]

Bare in mind too that sends can be used to either isolate the signal or blend it.

In other words if you create a send on a channel and leave the output of that channel selected to Main out (Mix Bus), the other channel where you are sending the signal to will be blended in the mix with the original signal. Hence the need for varying the send levels of say a reverb Auxilliary channel.

Whereas if you select the channel output to assign it elsewhere, say a sub mix of the drums (in which case you may or may not require a send depending on where else you want the signal to go), the signal is then isolated to the channel/bus it's being sent to therefore will not be blended with the original channel signal.

Both methods have their uses within a mix.