How to use Fx Send and Return - Part 2 - Allen & Heath QU series

hi I'm Rob McLaughlin and welcome to sound advice today we're gonna look at part 2 of the FX send and return signal chain when I had to answer a couple of your questions that you've asked and I walked through a set up for FX for a drum kit so let's get started alright so when we talked in our last session we were looking at FX 1 and I had two microphones two singers and so we've got a send on FX 1 we've got a send and a master send and then we were returning if I look at my return FX 1 return in FX 1 we were returning it into left and right we were turning into mix 1 mixed 2 and into mix 9 10 now happened to be before we said that was for an in-ear monitor user alright so let's talk a little bit about going back to the send level because one of the questions someone said again we'll look at the channels because that's where we're sending from we send from our channels and our master send this is on the FX 1 layer someone said how do I make sure that I can adjust the effects on a user's monitor or in ears was the question and still not affect left and right and of course we can return the signal at different levels to different places but one of the things you've got to do or be aware of is that if you change the send level you are changing that level in every place where you return that signal so if I and again this is sort of who would you say being the natural thing to do let's say you know the user whose mix is 9:00 to 10:00 let's say that they happen to be the singer on channel 11 here they say oh I want a little more reverb on my mic in my monitors yeah might be seem natural to come to FX 1 that's this that's the reverb and go to channel 11 and bring up channel 11 because that's that singers microphone and we're not putting a little more effects into it the problem with doing that or at least something you need to be aware of whether a problem or not but something you need to be aware of is if I increase the send here at the affects send I am increasing that reverb on that microphone every place where I returned it so if I go to the returns here fx1 return I have increased that microphone and left and right have increased it in mix one and in mix two and in mix nine to ten so if I change the levels using the ascend faders I'm going to impact the level of that reverb every place has been returned and that was the question how can I change the the level of the return in there in ears which in this case will say as Channel nine nine ten but not in fact impact the level of reverb in left and right well the only way to do that and not impact left right is first of all not make the change to the microphone in on the send side again my suggestion was to start your microphones at Unity and then always make the adjustment on the return side and you can return a little bit more again we'll go to mix nine to ten for that in your monitor I'll go to my layers my effects return I can return a little bit more into mix nine of ten here and you know typically that you will be happy if that's not going to be enough then we got to look at you know how we set things up a little bit differently we might have to use a separate mix for that particular user anyway just be aware if you change the channel levels on the on the sin on the effects send you impact every place where that signal has been returned all right one of the other things we wanted to do was to set up an effects from scratch so let's go ahead we're going to select FX to we're going to assign this to a drum kit so let's go over to our little screen here and if I go to FX - I've selected FX - on my my lair and I see now here's the FX - and I've got the the default happens to be a delay well in this case I don't want to delay I want to set up a reverb for a drum kit to change the reverb here I simply select the function button if that's my library of all of the effects that I have and you see it's currently set to a delay so I can simply select reverbs and again if I touch this column I can use those the knob to move up and down but I'm gonna select a reverb and then I'm gonna come over to the library side and choose the type of reverb I want now again I'm setting up a reverb for a drum kit this is entirely subjective you know you pick what works best for you in my case I'm gonna start with a plate reverb there happens to be a plate reverb for snare there's also one for percussion again you decide what works best for you I'm gonna start with the I'll use the one for a snare because that's that pretty common so I've got reverb I've got my plate snare and that's like a recall and now you'll see here an effects to this I now have a reverb for effects too and it actually says here plate snare okay so let's then go back to our lair now I can go to the effects to layer pardon me there's effects too and in effects too I'm gonna start with my drum kit now my drum kit happens to be set up on the first eight channels so I've got and I'll just run through them here that a kick snare what we got hi-hat three toms two rack toms and a floor tom and two overheads so that's my eight channels of my drum kit then I'm going to assign again I'm assigning them here on the FX to layer again very subjective you do what works best for you my particular case I'm primarily focusing on the snare when I'm doing reverb for drums it's primarily on the snare so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna start to snare at unity I don't really like a lot of reverb on my kick drum I find it makes it really muddy I also don't like an awful lot of reverb on my overheads they're already pretty thin and light as it goes so my snare my hi-hat and then my three toms and again very subjective you mix these as you will but you can set those at different levels okay as opposed to the microphones where we set them all at unity in this case or drum kit because I know I've already got very different to signal levels from my drum kit I want to focus on the snare a little bit less on the hi-hat and maybe on the toms you said it as you choose again the last thing though we've got channel levels you know we've mentioned a fact we've got to have a send master send level again we're on FX - this is sending to the effects - now the return the return works exactly the same way as we returned for those vocal mics I can go to left and right go to my upper layer FX one return or now it's gonna be FX to return pardon me yeah cuz now just get FX to return and I can add the amount of reverb that I want for the drum kit right here and you know on mix one that's that monitor wedge from one of those singers you know I'm probably not going to put any drum reverb in that monitor they're probably standing out that far away from the drum kit they don't really need to hear the reverb same thing with mix too don't need any drum reverb effects to return don't any drum reverb there maybe the in-ear you know wants to hear a little bit of reverb just to create some space and essentially that's how we're going to create effects in return for that drum kit alright a couple of gotchas that you need to be aware of by the way on your returns it's always important to have an eye on your return sometimes that returns will get mused remember these are just input channels so they could be muted just the same as any microphone or any other signal could be muted if you're not hearing your reverb you know make sure that your returns are not muted alright same thing of course could happen on the effects and less likely to happen on the effects send side if I go to effects - there's my drum kit and of course those could be muted they're not very likely to happen but it could happen be aware of mutes on your signal sense alright so that's kind of but the effects send in return hope that was helpful next time we're going to look at something very specific to q16 users and that is how do I use effects 3 & 4 when I have no send layer for FX 3 4 on cue 16 you'll probably noticed if you're a cue 16 user there's only affects one and to send layers how do I use 3 & 4 on a cue 16 we're gonna cover that next time again thanks REOs hope you'll join us that thanks bye [Music]

Channel: Sound Advice with Rob

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Id: woKLRmRlrq0

Length: 9min 33sec (573 seconds)

Published: Fri May 01 2020