Ableton Question?

[Gurnumsbug]

What is the point of using Send & returns in Ableton Live, when I could just add the effect straight into the channel I want it in?
Reason why I'm asking is because I never quite understood how the send & return functions actually work.
Am I missing something by not using them?

[hxczach]

Well for one you could effect multiple instruments with the same effect with only one instance of it running. i.e. a compressor on the return track.

[Gurnumsbug]

^true I could! But let's say I wanted to parallel compress both my drums and basslines, I could just group them and add one instance of the compressor to the group! Whats the advantage is what i'm really trying to ask?

[hxczach]

Beats the hell out of me. Maybe someone else can provide some knowledge. I know i do exactly what you probably do and just group things.

[Gurnumsbug]

ha it's kool man!

[bibbyj]

Isn't it because you can pass signal out to the send as much, or as little, as needed, say for instance to a Reverb on a send, which is setup as you want it, but some signals will need more of it than others. whereas if you just grouped everything, and dropped a Reverb on the group, everything in the group would pass 100% of signal to it

[Izomorph]

I always thought the best thing about sends and returns is that it saves mad CPU, which is important both in the studio and onstage. It would pretty embarrassing if your computer crashed just as the bass was about to drop.

I never slap reverbs onto my effect chains, I always use sends. The reason being that reverb is one of the most CPU-draining effects, and yet one of the most essential (imo).

To put in into another perspective:

Imagine an actual synthesizer for every instrument rack in your Live set. Then imagine physically adding a reverb on each instrument, compressors, phasers, delays, etc. etc all from one source. It gets taxing. If you're using the same effect on multiple instruments I would use a send & return and use the knobs to control how much of the effect is sent to each instrument.

Yes, there is the aforementioned benefit of having more control over how much of the effect filters onto the instrument, but you can do that with the dry/wet knob too, just so you know.

[billybuxton]

Basically its just so you can "share" the effect with everything else in your track

Say you had 100 tracks in Ableton and you wanted to add a reverb to 50 of them, its easier to just put one on a send track than use 50 separate reverbs

[123kidd]

+1 on saving cpu. I use it because it keeps consistency in the effects i'm using. Taking reverb as an example, it saves from making a preset, and copying that preset over a number of times and then adjusting the dry/wet individually. Also as someone stated earlier, it allows more control over dry/wet settings affecting each channel. Could be wrong tho.

[hxczach]

Or you could always just go without using sends and just freeze them bitches.

[Sparxy]

In Ableton, grouping tracks is basically like bussing them. It allows you to re route things back into a single track and put effects on groups of tracks.

A send is different, it is like a duplication of a track. You're sending the signal of one track to another so effectively it is playing twice. This is useful when you want to put an effect on something (like reverb) but you dont want to take the power out of the sound. You might want to put a bit of verb on your snare for example, but by putting the reverb on the send track rather than the original, you can keep the sound of the reverb effect without changing the impact and hit of the original. It's also useful for stuff like paralell compression so its more like a wet/dry mix.

You might use both techniques if you're resampling. You might have a bass noise being routed to 5 different sends and returns with different effects chains on each. You may then want to group those sends / returns (effectively bussing them back into one) to add compression and "glue" them together

There are shitloads of applications for them basically

[Sparxy]

^true I could! But let's say I wanted to parallel compress both my drums and basslines, I could just group them and add one instance of the compressor to the group! Whats the advantage is what i'm really trying to ask?

That's not paralell compression because by grouping them you are bussing them. You are losing the original sound (pre-compression) and replacing it with the compressed signal. Paralell compression is a wet/dry mix of the compressed sound signal with the uncompressed, original sound signal

[Sparxy]

Of course everything ive said depends on how you've got your routing setup on your sends and returns

[Anne Droid]

bussing everythign to one send channel lets you put the same effect on mulitple inputs, which helps merge sounds and save cpu power, and you can reallocate the amount you arent sending to the original input channels effect chain, so you have a mixture of both.

[Sparxy]

bussing everythign to one send channel lets you put the same effect on mulitple inputs, which helps merge sounds and save cpu power, and you can reallocate the amount you arent sending to the original input channels effect chain, so you have a mixture of both.

The ideas here are correct but you are a bit confused - bussing and sending are 2 different things

Like I said earlier "bussing" is for grouping multiple audio signals into one track
"Sends" are used to route an piece of audio to another, duplicate track

[Gurnumsbug]

Yeah I got it now guys Thanks a ton! If anyone else is confused by this at all then read the posts here.
Also here's a video if anyone else is having trouble!
Cheers guys

[blinx]

In Ableton, grouping tracks is basically like bussing them. It allows you to re route things back into a single track and put effects on groups of tracks.

A send is different, it is like a duplication of a track. You're sending the signal of one track to another so effectively it is playing twice. This is useful when you want to put an effect on something (like reverb) but you dont want to take the power out of the sound. You might want to put a bit of verb on your snare for example, but by putting the reverb on the send track rather than the original, you can keep the sound of the reverb effect without changing the impact and hit of the original. It's also useful for stuff like paralell compression so its more like a wet/dry mix.

You might use both techniques if you're resampling. You might have a bass noise being routed to 5 different sends and returns with different effects chains on each. You may then want to group those sends / returns (effectively bussing them back into one) to add compression and "glue" them together

There are shitloads of applications for them basically

this