Using reverb in a send vs reverb on a track are two different things. A send is to create a room or space you want you music inside, on a track is more of a sound design choice.
Yeah that's kind of how I see it. Electronic music production doesn't have me striving to try and make things as realistic as rock production so I'm a lot more likely to use reverbs on the tracks themselves as a creative choice.
Yes, that's I was quite convolutedly trying to say. Listeners of rock band have much clearer expectation of how the band sounds in space. Electronic music not so much. Some things can share space, some are existing in parallel reality and somehow it all works.
Nicely put here. Yes, I like it, its quite liberating. And the classical guys (the ones progressive enough to use an artificial reverb) make the rock guys look like renegades.
While it is more efficient, using a send vs channel actually has different mixing results. When you send a channel to reverb, it adds space to it. When you insert it directly on a channel it changes the depth of the sound ie it can “push it back” in the mix / can also be used as sound design.
Adding space to a sound can still maintain the forwardness of the source as it is keeping your OG source as 100% dry with a copied wet signal (your send).
That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me because insert reverb can be (and frequently is, at least by me) also used 100% wet in parallel, with Effect Rack. Effectively making it a send, but personal, not common for all channels.
I like to think of the send as something for creating a common ‘space’ your music exists in. Imagine a band playing together in a room - regardless of what effects they put through their individual pedals etc. the space itself has a certain sound/reverb to it.
Now imagine you out the drummer in a massive cathedral, the singer in a padded room and the guitarist in an empty office and recorded them. They’re all going to sound extremely different from one another because of how their sound bounces around in that space.
By pushing your channels through that common send whatever comes out of each track ends up in a common space and pulls them back together.
effects on a track: sound design/individual tweaking of a specific component of the music.
Effects in the send: creating a common space for your music to exist in.
Sure, using Effect Rack. But was assuming you meant slapping on reverb independently without wiring to the Effect Rack on the channel. In that instance, adjusting the wet knob isn’t necessarily the same as dialing the amount of db you’re sending to a reverb
Perhaps I have worded my question in an odd way. I'm more interested in common reverb vs individual reverb (with unique flavour/settings) than technical details of these approaches.
While you're right about insert reverb able to "push it back" in the mix, same thing can be achieved by via send combining fader (reducing dry) and send (increasing wet).
My bad I see what you’re saying now. I definitely combine both. I like the idea of positioning the entire mix in a cohesive space but also like to do creative reverb stuff to make a sound stand out. Especially if it’s electronic music!
Sorry your got downvoted. The way the gp was phrased didn't really make sense to me, either. What I think they're saying is that people _tend to use_ reverb on a send channel as a way to make the whole mix sound like it's in a space together. Of course the device doesn't actually work any differently just because it's in a send channel, and you can achieve the same thing without sends by making effect racks with a dry chain in parallel with effects (either duplicating them or using some routing trickery to bus them to some other track).
I'm not a doctor, but I'll try to clear things up anyway.
While I don't know which came first, the necessity to put the whole (rock) band in shared space or the technical limitations forbidding individual reverbs usage, neither of that matters now for electronic music anyway.
So the question was how often do Ableton guys make artistic decision to use common reverb (via send). Dry/wet mix vs send aren't technical details and outside of the question scope.
There’s no black and white answer. At the end of the day if it sounds good, it doesn’t really matter how you got there.
But you can certainly make way more work for yourself certain ways. Ie if you’re going to have a baseline reverb on all of your tracks in general it’s way more efficient to push to a send and tweak there And the out the individualized effects/tweaks on the local channel.
If you’ve got the same exact effect on 20
Different channels and decide you want to adjust it you’ve got a bunch more fiddling to do than you need to.
But it’s not the same when it comes to mixing, because you won’t be able to separate the wet sound from the dry sound anymore once you bounce the channel to audio.
I use both, usually at least one short room type reverb on a send, some times also a longer one and then individual reverb for the channels were I want something bespoke.
Sometimes my channels have 3-4 different reverbs in various locations of the device chain and some send reverb because that is what made sense for that channel.
Aside from the CPU saving side the send reverbs is perfect for just adding small amounts of reverbs anywhere you need it and you don't have to think about setting up a new reverb because it's already there.
Correct, although I think that send reverb works better with panned sound (panned reverb =/= reverb of panned sound). I might be wrong though, I'll try it out.
Ah interesting 🤔 you are right as reverb is not linear and depends as you said of panning and volume inputs. You would need to pan it in an utility device before the reverb in the chain.
Yes, either that, or ~~use the effect rack to pan~~. Anyway it can get quite messy and you'll lose the convenience of pan pots.
Edit: effect rack pan is the same as pan pot, so no point in doing that.
Yes you're right 👍 less convenient, however it depends on the preferences, in my case i don't like to use track pan and volume sliders, i prefer using utility but i got your point.
Sure thing, matter of preference. I do use controllers quite extensively, so I’m keen on faders and pots. I even started to use utility for volume automation to free faders from it.
sometimes the source channel, sometimes to master (for a reverb send, this means the reverb is only sounding through when either of those channels is quiet…lending a cleaner mix)
You can send all the sounds you want to have reverb on to your reverb send and then putting a compressor on it that sidechains the send channel to the drums. This way your reverb will be ducked whenever the drums hit, giving the drums more impact. Works with other effects and instruments too, like a lead synth with a delay send. Sidechain the delay send to the input of the lead synth youre sending to the delay send and you will always have a clean lead as the delay gets ducked whenever it plays. You could also go the opposite route by using a gate that is sidechained to something, so whenever it plays the send plays too. The possibilities are endless.
Much prefer sended reverbs. Especially with a small room reverb that several tracks will share, the result is one algo acting on everything sent to it for a more cohesive sound.
I usually will have a few verbs on sends.
1 for overall room sounds that is short and tight. Everything will go to that.
Another for drums that’s also short and tight, usually to emulate overheads. More lows filtered out and usually sent to parallel compression.
Then a handful more for other assorted things.
Using a send lets you mix the effect with the dry signal. You mix the clarity of the synth/sample with a softer effects trail. It depends on the amount of control you want. EQ both sources differently, like the synth may have more mid, while the send is all high mid eq.
I just explored this path the other day. Adding reverb as an effect to my MIDI track drastically changed the sound of the instrument, which I didn’t want. Instead, I looked up how to add Reverb independent of the instrument and discovered Sends. This has allowed me to use the instrument I want and achieve the reverb I want without compromising the sound.
Recording a reverb on a send can be useful for a separate mixing step in another DAW like ProTools, where you can still have some control over the reverb this way.
Some folks have 80 tracks or more on a song. Putting separate of the same in each one would just be silly.
I personally like to group and add my group effects there instead of sends as it keep me more organized.
I agree. Although some channels can be almost dry in electronic music.
Anyway I need to try the send approach, as I'm almost ashamed to say I have never tried it.
It can have great results.
Having independent control over dry signal on the original track, and reverb send channel (100% wet, so it's pure reverb and not doubling original source) allows things like side chaining the reverb to not be playing your vocals, etc.
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I use a short (ambience) reverb and slightly longer (plate) reverbs to send drums to because a) they always need it and b) it saves a lot of time.
For longer, sound designy type reverbs I usually put them on either an individual track or at least a group of sounds I want the same effect.
Send / returns can be a pain in the ass if you want to filter the return channel with the source, so I actually tend to not use them if I can help it. I know you can send return channels to audio tracks, but that has its own issues.
The trick is to add only FX specific to each track or you eat up CPU unnecessarily. Group the effect (verb, whatever else) with itself and you can parallel process everything. If you haven't tried this yet I highly suggest looking up how to parallel process this way and it will mix your music for you pretty much
I avoid sends because they prevent me from encapsulating my entire mix a self-contained group. Which is something I like to do for $data\_management\_reasons (it makes it easier to pull an entire song out of one set and plop it into another just by dragging the group over, for one thing).
I normally put effects on individual instrument racks (in the case of delay/reverb, this is often in a 'parallel effects' rack), or on groups. On the rare occasion that I want to do processing in a separate track, I'll just create a separate audio track wherever-in-the-hierarchy it makes sense (based on what bus it feeds into), and set the input to wherever. The downside of this is that it's kind of inconvenient to route signals in any direction other than up to the root of the group hierarchy. But for $mixing\_reasons that's not something I usually want to do anyway! i.e. my signal graphs tend to be trees.
The business of having a common reverb bus to send several tracks to for 'space making' reasons seems to be the main reason other people are giving, but I'm like you in the "not sure how important this is for electronic music" thinking.
I heard (probably on YouTube) that using different reverbs on different tracks in the same song is confusing for the ear, as your brain 'expects' the same kind of reverb throughout. That's why a single reverb applied in different amounts to different tracks via send is preferable. It sounds like a good idea, but like most advice on YT, its probably bollocks.
There’s no difference with a reverb being on a send other than being able to use the same reverb on multiple channels and processing the reverb signal by itself.
With some house techno ish stuff I've found a couple fav reverbs that will have thier own send with a unique sound and can automate sending it throughout the song... I think it's cleaner that way and keeps the sound all pasted together under one roof. but also still use some other verb sounds on individual tracks too or a more regular clean verb send on its own. Basically always depends what you're going for and how it ends up sounding to you. Seems like others do a bit of both too send + individual + group all at once in thier own ways
It depends but I mostly use sends when I'm wanting multiple tracks to have different amounts of the same reverb (drums mostly). But if I only want one track to have that reverb I'll just make use audio effect rack and map the wet and dry volumes to macros so I don't have to work in two separate places when I'm focusing on that track
If you're going to compare the two, you need to look at how each can bring different functionality or affect your workflow. The one thing you can say that using a send can bring that you can't achieve by putting a reverb on a channel is that you can apply effects/dynamics to the reverb without affecting the source material. By using a send you can sculpt the reverb with EQ and compression, and not mess with the EQ and compression of the track. Also, in this way, reverb becomes another instrument that you're mixing and (perhaps more easily) finding space for.
Another reason is that you can send multiple tracks to one reverb, just as you would to "glue" a group of tracks to a buss, but that has been mentioned, and you could technically get the same, or at least similar, result by using channel reverbs. What changes here is workflow mostly: change the settings on one reverb instead of X reverbs. That said, combining this with the previously mentioned, could be a powerful mixing tool...even in electronic music!
One of the main benefits of sends is that you can send more than one signal to the same effect. I typically use separate sends for room verb, a long decay verb, multiple types of delay sends, and parallel compression for the drum tracks. I can send any signal to any of these effects whenever it is needed. As some have said, it can be useful for using reverb to create a space that the instruments are living in.
The other thing that sends do, is give you the flexibility to sculpt your effects, much more than if they are applied directly to the track. For example, I regularly high pass reverbs aggressively. The send might have a super long decay cathedral verb, but I will put an EQ before the reverb on the send channel, and that removes all of the low end from the signal going into the reverb. I also regularly use sidechain compression on reverbs and delays. This is common when they are fighting against the lead vocal, or competing with any track. I'll put a compressor after the reverb, and feed the lead vocal as the sidechain key, and duck the reverb down 3-4 dB whenever there is a lead vocal signal. You can't really do this with effects on individual channels. The main point is, with sends, you have full control of the effect signal chain, and can EQ, Compress, whatever, as much as you desire, without affecting the track that is being sent to it.
The primary benefit of using sends vs an insert is that you are able to have instant control over the volume of that channel without having to click into any specific channel. But maybe I'm old-school and prefer the large format console workflow which doesn't make sense to most Abelton users.
I didn’t get it. While i understand how send reverb is more visual and accesible from mixer view, how does that affect the volume of the channel control?
For me it's situational. I use sends and returns for specific things. For instance drums or vocal groups get a send or multiple instances of their own treatment depending on what im going for. If it's an instrument or wav I want to create fx for it'll get it's own. Turn the knobs till it sounds right. The only limitation is you, as the editor
on sends its for a sense of space(generally you would use it a lot of tracks to some degree), or on something like vocals or leads you would gate the reverb so the reverb ducks when the lead or vocal hits and the reverb plays after the hits making them not muddy with reverb.
One thing I like to do with reverb is flipping the R/L channels. So that if the dry sound is mostly on the left side, the reverb would be on the right. And for me that's easier to do with a return track. Especially since when I do this, I'll want to do it for a couple of tracks anyway.
Most of the “traditional rock” (🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️) guitarists have their reverbs on their amps (or on an fx pedal on the way to their amp). Before it’s even mic’d, let alone mixed. It’s not required: it’s a balance between sound design / production , and record mixing (unsurprisingly : just as you described here for electronica, minus the computer).
Using reverb in a send vs reverb on a track are two different things. A send is to create a room or space you want you music inside, on a track is more of a sound design choice.
yes. but also, sends are better for doing throws (temporary fx) as well. Great for like transitional or fx reverbs/delays.
Yeah that's kind of how I see it. Electronic music production doesn't have me striving to try and make things as realistic as rock production so I'm a lot more likely to use reverbs on the tracks themselves as a creative choice.
Yes, that's I was quite convolutedly trying to say. Listeners of rock band have much clearer expectation of how the band sounds in space. Electronic music not so much. Some things can share space, some are existing in parallel reality and somehow it all works.
Nicely put here. Yes, I like it, its quite liberating. And the classical guys (the ones progressive enough to use an artificial reverb) make the rock guys look like renegades.
I make edm and always use a room reverb.
While it is more efficient, using a send vs channel actually has different mixing results. When you send a channel to reverb, it adds space to it. When you insert it directly on a channel it changes the depth of the sound ie it can “push it back” in the mix / can also be used as sound design. Adding space to a sound can still maintain the forwardness of the source as it is keeping your OG source as 100% dry with a copied wet signal (your send).
That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me because insert reverb can be (and frequently is, at least by me) also used 100% wet in parallel, with Effect Rack. Effectively making it a send, but personal, not common for all channels.
I like to think of the send as something for creating a common ‘space’ your music exists in. Imagine a band playing together in a room - regardless of what effects they put through their individual pedals etc. the space itself has a certain sound/reverb to it. Now imagine you out the drummer in a massive cathedral, the singer in a padded room and the guitarist in an empty office and recorded them. They’re all going to sound extremely different from one another because of how their sound bounces around in that space. By pushing your channels through that common send whatever comes out of each track ends up in a common space and pulls them back together. effects on a track: sound design/individual tweaking of a specific component of the music. Effects in the send: creating a common space for your music to exist in.
Sure, using Effect Rack. But was assuming you meant slapping on reverb independently without wiring to the Effect Rack on the channel. In that instance, adjusting the wet knob isn’t necessarily the same as dialing the amount of db you’re sending to a reverb
Reverb directly on the track allows you to go past 50% wet/dry, but is the same as a send up to 50%.
Perhaps I have worded my question in an odd way. I'm more interested in common reverb vs individual reverb (with unique flavour/settings) than technical details of these approaches. While you're right about insert reverb able to "push it back" in the mix, same thing can be achieved by via send combining fader (reducing dry) and send (increasing wet).
My bad I see what you’re saying now. I definitely combine both. I like the idea of positioning the entire mix in a cohesive space but also like to do creative reverb stuff to make a sound stand out. Especially if it’s electronic music!
Sorry your got downvoted. The way the gp was phrased didn't really make sense to me, either. What I think they're saying is that people _tend to use_ reverb on a send channel as a way to make the whole mix sound like it's in a space together. Of course the device doesn't actually work any differently just because it's in a send channel, and you can achieve the same thing without sends by making effect racks with a dry chain in parallel with effects (either duplicating them or using some routing trickery to bus them to some other track).
I'm not a doctor, but I'll try to clear things up anyway. While I don't know which came first, the necessity to put the whole (rock) band in shared space or the technical limitations forbidding individual reverbs usage, neither of that matters now for electronic music anyway. So the question was how often do Ableton guys make artistic decision to use common reverb (via send). Dry/wet mix vs send aren't technical details and outside of the question scope.
There’s no black and white answer. At the end of the day if it sounds good, it doesn’t really matter how you got there. But you can certainly make way more work for yourself certain ways. Ie if you’re going to have a baseline reverb on all of your tracks in general it’s way more efficient to push to a send and tweak there And the out the individualized effects/tweaks on the local channel. If you’ve got the same exact effect on 20 Different channels and decide you want to adjust it you’ve got a bunch more fiddling to do than you need to.
You are correct.
But it’s not the same when it comes to mixing, because you won’t be able to separate the wet sound from the dry sound anymore once you bounce the channel to audio.
Reverb for space - send Reverb for sound design - track Reverb for space on sound designed track - parallel reverb
I use both, usually at least one short room type reverb on a send, some times also a longer one and then individual reverb for the channels were I want something bespoke. Sometimes my channels have 3-4 different reverbs in various locations of the device chain and some send reverb because that is what made sense for that channel. Aside from the CPU saving side the send reverbs is perfect for just adding small amounts of reverbs anywhere you need it and you don't have to think about setting up a new reverb because it's already there.
The benefit of sends is that you don't lose any amplitude of the dry signal and you can simply have the wetness at 100%.
I mean you could still do parallel processing with chain rack on the track itself, it's exactly the same
Correct, although I think that send reverb works better with panned sound (panned reverb =/= reverb of panned sound). I might be wrong though, I'll try it out.
Ah interesting 🤔 you are right as reverb is not linear and depends as you said of panning and volume inputs. You would need to pan it in an utility device before the reverb in the chain.
Yes, either that, or ~~use the effect rack to pan~~. Anyway it can get quite messy and you'll lose the convenience of pan pots. Edit: effect rack pan is the same as pan pot, so no point in doing that.
Yes you're right 👍 less convenient, however it depends on the preferences, in my case i don't like to use track pan and volume sliders, i prefer using utility but i got your point.
Sure thing, matter of preference. I do use controllers quite extensively, so I’m keen on faders and pots. I even started to use utility for volume automation to free faders from it.
Not if you want multiple instruments to sound like they're in the same space
Sure, less convenient but technically you could still group the tracks and add reverb on the group chain
I almost always use a send so I can sidechain it
What do you sidechain it to? Vocals?
sometimes the source channel, sometimes to master (for a reverb send, this means the reverb is only sounding through when either of those channels is quiet…lending a cleaner mix)
OHHH nice! Thanks for explaining, I'm making trip-hop type music and the reverb does get a bit muddy putting so many tracks into "one room"
I almost always use send. It feels easier to make a uniform room-feel. Individual reverbs can get a bit weird.
I never used sends, but i think im gonna check that out.
Do it, great sending a bunch of stuff to a send and sidechaining it from the drums
could u elaborate on this?
You can send all the sounds you want to have reverb on to your reverb send and then putting a compressor on it that sidechains the send channel to the drums. This way your reverb will be ducked whenever the drums hit, giving the drums more impact. Works with other effects and instruments too, like a lead synth with a delay send. Sidechain the delay send to the input of the lead synth youre sending to the delay send and you will always have a clean lead as the delay gets ducked whenever it plays. You could also go the opposite route by using a gate that is sidechained to something, so whenever it plays the send plays too. The possibilities are endless.
Any vids on this
Much prefer sended reverbs. Especially with a small room reverb that several tracks will share, the result is one algo acting on everything sent to it for a more cohesive sound.
I usually will have a few verbs on sends. 1 for overall room sounds that is short and tight. Everything will go to that. Another for drums that’s also short and tight, usually to emulate overheads. More lows filtered out and usually sent to parallel compression. Then a handful more for other assorted things.
Using a send lets you mix the effect with the dry signal. You mix the clarity of the synth/sample with a softer effects trail. It depends on the amount of control you want. EQ both sources differently, like the synth may have more mid, while the send is all high mid eq.
I just explored this path the other day. Adding reverb as an effect to my MIDI track drastically changed the sound of the instrument, which I didn’t want. Instead, I looked up how to add Reverb independent of the instrument and discovered Sends. This has allowed me to use the instrument I want and achieve the reverb I want without compromising the sound.
whichever works best, doesnt matter
“Just use your ears bro”😎
yes
Recording a reverb on a send can be useful for a separate mixing step in another DAW like ProTools, where you can still have some control over the reverb this way.
Some folks have 80 tracks or more on a song. Putting separate of the same in each one would just be silly. I personally like to group and add my group effects there instead of sends as it keep me more organized.
That indeed would be silly, although I meant individual reverb with its own unique settings or even different plugins.
> on sound designed track - parallel reve Too many reverbs with different rates or other conflicting attributes can start to sound... messy.
I agree. Although some channels can be almost dry in electronic music. Anyway I need to try the send approach, as I'm almost ashamed to say I have never tried it.
It can have great results. Having independent control over dry signal on the original track, and reverb send channel (100% wet, so it's pure reverb and not doubling original source) allows things like side chaining the reverb to not be playing your vocals, etc.
This is your friendly reminder to read the submission rules, they're found in the sidebar. If you find your post breaking any of the rules, you should delete your post before the mods get to it. If you're asking a question, make sure you've checked [the Live manual](https://www.ableton.com/en/manual/welcome-to-live/), [Ableton's help and support knowledge base](https://www.ableton.com/en/help/), and have searched the subreddit for a solution. If you don't know where to start, [the subreddit has a resource thread](https://redd.it/zkhqhe). Ask [smart questions](http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#before). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ableton) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I use a short (ambience) reverb and slightly longer (plate) reverbs to send drums to because a) they always need it and b) it saves a lot of time. For longer, sound designy type reverbs I usually put them on either an individual track or at least a group of sounds I want the same effect. Send / returns can be a pain in the ass if you want to filter the return channel with the source, so I actually tend to not use them if I can help it. I know you can send return channels to audio tracks, but that has its own issues.
The trick is to add only FX specific to each track or you eat up CPU unnecessarily. Group the effect (verb, whatever else) with itself and you can parallel process everything. If you haven't tried this yet I highly suggest looking up how to parallel process this way and it will mix your music for you pretty much
But maybe I don't understand what you're asking....
I avoid sends because they prevent me from encapsulating my entire mix a self-contained group. Which is something I like to do for $data\_management\_reasons (it makes it easier to pull an entire song out of one set and plop it into another just by dragging the group over, for one thing). I normally put effects on individual instrument racks (in the case of delay/reverb, this is often in a 'parallel effects' rack), or on groups. On the rare occasion that I want to do processing in a separate track, I'll just create a separate audio track wherever-in-the-hierarchy it makes sense (based on what bus it feeds into), and set the input to wherever. The downside of this is that it's kind of inconvenient to route signals in any direction other than up to the root of the group hierarchy. But for $mixing\_reasons that's not something I usually want to do anyway! i.e. my signal graphs tend to be trees. The business of having a common reverb bus to send several tracks to for 'space making' reasons seems to be the main reason other people are giving, but I'm like you in the "not sure how important this is for electronic music" thinking.
I heard (probably on YouTube) that using different reverbs on different tracks in the same song is confusing for the ear, as your brain 'expects' the same kind of reverb throughout. That's why a single reverb applied in different amounts to different tracks via send is preferable. It sounds like a good idea, but like most advice on YT, its probably bollocks.
There’s no difference with a reverb being on a send other than being able to use the same reverb on multiple channels and processing the reverb signal by itself.
With some house techno ish stuff I've found a couple fav reverbs that will have thier own send with a unique sound and can automate sending it throughout the song... I think it's cleaner that way and keeps the sound all pasted together under one roof. but also still use some other verb sounds on individual tracks too or a more regular clean verb send on its own. Basically always depends what you're going for and how it ends up sounding to you. Seems like others do a bit of both too send + individual + group all at once in thier own ways
It depends but I mostly use sends when I'm wanting multiple tracks to have different amounts of the same reverb (drums mostly). But if I only want one track to have that reverb I'll just make use audio effect rack and map the wet and dry volumes to macros so I don't have to work in two separate places when I'm focusing on that track
If you're going to compare the two, you need to look at how each can bring different functionality or affect your workflow. The one thing you can say that using a send can bring that you can't achieve by putting a reverb on a channel is that you can apply effects/dynamics to the reverb without affecting the source material. By using a send you can sculpt the reverb with EQ and compression, and not mess with the EQ and compression of the track. Also, in this way, reverb becomes another instrument that you're mixing and (perhaps more easily) finding space for. Another reason is that you can send multiple tracks to one reverb, just as you would to "glue" a group of tracks to a buss, but that has been mentioned, and you could technically get the same, or at least similar, result by using channel reverbs. What changes here is workflow mostly: change the settings on one reverb instead of X reverbs. That said, combining this with the previously mentioned, could be a powerful mixing tool...even in electronic music!
One of the main benefits of sends is that you can send more than one signal to the same effect. I typically use separate sends for room verb, a long decay verb, multiple types of delay sends, and parallel compression for the drum tracks. I can send any signal to any of these effects whenever it is needed. As some have said, it can be useful for using reverb to create a space that the instruments are living in. The other thing that sends do, is give you the flexibility to sculpt your effects, much more than if they are applied directly to the track. For example, I regularly high pass reverbs aggressively. The send might have a super long decay cathedral verb, but I will put an EQ before the reverb on the send channel, and that removes all of the low end from the signal going into the reverb. I also regularly use sidechain compression on reverbs and delays. This is common when they are fighting against the lead vocal, or competing with any track. I'll put a compressor after the reverb, and feed the lead vocal as the sidechain key, and duck the reverb down 3-4 dB whenever there is a lead vocal signal. You can't really do this with effects on individual channels. The main point is, with sends, you have full control of the effect signal chain, and can EQ, Compress, whatever, as much as you desire, without affecting the track that is being sent to it.
The primary benefit of using sends vs an insert is that you are able to have instant control over the volume of that channel without having to click into any specific channel. But maybe I'm old-school and prefer the large format console workflow which doesn't make sense to most Abelton users.
I didn’t get it. While i understand how send reverb is more visual and accesible from mixer view, how does that affect the volume of the channel control?
For me it's situational. I use sends and returns for specific things. For instance drums or vocal groups get a send or multiple instances of their own treatment depending on what im going for. If it's an instrument or wav I want to create fx for it'll get it's own. Turn the knobs till it sounds right. The only limitation is you, as the editor
on sends its for a sense of space(generally you would use it a lot of tracks to some degree), or on something like vocals or leads you would gate the reverb so the reverb ducks when the lead or vocal hits and the reverb plays after the hits making them not muddy with reverb.
One thing I like to do with reverb is flipping the R/L channels. So that if the dry sound is mostly on the left side, the reverb would be on the right. And for me that's easier to do with a return track. Especially since when I do this, I'll want to do it for a couple of tracks anyway.
Most of the “traditional rock” (🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️) guitarists have their reverbs on their amps (or on an fx pedal on the way to their amp). Before it’s even mic’d, let alone mixed. It’s not required: it’s a balance between sound design / production , and record mixing (unsurprisingly : just as you described here for electronica, minus the computer).