Should you use Inserts or Send FX? Think smart 😉

hello everyone welcome back dom here and in this video i'm going to answer the eternal question should i use my effects as inserts or as scent effects let's find out right after this [Music] [Music] so i call this the eternal question because it comes up so much why should i use my reverb as an insert effect or why should i use it as a sound effect why is it better to use it as a send effect instead of insert effect and today i'm going to try and answer this question but before i start i want to say that in music there are no fast rules there are no like okay this is how you should do it and this is how you shouldn't do it obviously there is a little bit of a better way to do it in some cases and a worse way to do it in other cases or this way will cause you more problems than that way and this is what i'm going to talk about today because this is something that keeps coming up all the time and still i think that quite a few people don't know why you need to use for example a reverb as a send effect or when you should use it as an insert effect so let me break it down for you i'm going to keep it really really simple and i'm going to give you some practical examples of when you should use reaver for example as a send effect when you should use it as an insert effect and what other things you can use as insert effects or ascent effects the normal way to use a reverb would be as a scent effect why that's the question there are many reasons why reason number one is because the vocal needs to remain at a constant level okay throughout the song now here's what happens when you add an insert effect to a vocal so i'm going to turn off the reverb that i have as a sound effect here and i'm going to add a reverb right here okay so i've added the valhalla vintage verb right here so i can show you how it works now let's play this vocal i don't know and let's start adding the ribbon [Music] now here's the problem that arises when you add your reverb as an insert effect what you're doing essentially here is you're mixing between the dry signal and the fully wet signal so just the reverb okay so while you're doing this what you're essentially doing is you're pulling down the dry signal in terms of level and now they're going to be equal level but if you want to add more reverb okay then you're removing your dry signal which means that now you don't have enough dry signal to drive the track most of the times in normal situation you want to have the dry vocal there and you want to compress it you want to add an eq to it and then you want to make sure that you have a consistent level and then you add the effects on top of it if you do it this way with inserts you don't achieve this because then if you decide to add more river then you're pulling down the dry signal if you decide to add less reverb you're making the dry signal louder so you can make it work but it will cause you problems in the context of a mix okay so i wouldn't suggest you do this i would suggest that you use this as a send effect which is right here this way this controls the level of my dry vocal okay and this controls the level of my reverb now the important thing to remember is that when you do it this way you have to go to your send effect this is my reverb send okay and you want to make absolutely sure that your mix is all the way to 100 so you only get the reverb from your send effect not the dry signal twice okay this is very very important but when you do this and you play the vocal then you can say okay cool now i'm going to play it no reverb first and then i'm going to introduce the reverb but the dry level remains intact remains the same so all my compressors all my cues can work the way they should now the other reason why you might want to add it as a send effect is because you might want to automate your reverb okay and then you might want to say okay i want to create some reverb throws or some delay throws all these things again if you have it as a send effect that's very easy to do you go like this [Music] of our soul see that don't know where you know you can do all this of course you can leave this at zero and then automate the fader of the reverb channel as well this is another technique and this is a completely different topic should i go like all the way to zero here and then automate the fader maybe a topic for a different video subscribe if you want me to do this and let me know in the comments down below if you want me to do a video like this but for now this gives me a lot of control my dry vocal remains where it should be and i have full control of the reverb on top of that control let me show you what else you can do for example if i play this now i can go to my reverb channel here see vox reverb and that contains the reverb found home but i got it wrong fell in love okay and now i can add effects to this channel maybe i want to add a filter okay and get rid of this low end rumble for this reverb don't know where we lost control we gave every inch of our soul and i don't know if i have it in me maybe i went outside eq to let somebody in again oh maybe i want to add a phaser let's add a phaser and i don't know if i really believe and i don't know have it in me again i'm adding this phasor just to the reverb not to the vocal so this gives me a lot of flexibility i can add a de-esser to the reverb okay so that these s's don't get pronounced with the reverb you know there's so much you can do when you use the reverb as a send effect same goes for delays same goes for other effects that have this kind of specialization all these things i would totally suggest that you use them as send effects because of these reasons now would i ever use a reverb as an insert effect yes there are two reasons why first reason would be out of laziness if you want to slap a reverb on a demo really really fast and you don't have time to add like a sound effect you're really pressed for time and you're lazy let's face it then you can add it as an insert effect but there's also creative reasons why you might want to add reverbs or delays as insert effects let me show you one example i'm going to go to this vocal here i'm going to remove this reverb okay and i'm going to add a reverb from eventide black hole and this i might want to use it as an effect now let's say i want to wash this vocal in reverb okay this wouldn't work if i use it as a send effect because the dry signal will still be there instead let me show you what i can do here i can go here and start automating this mix let me show you how it sounds you know it's a very cool effect you hear it on many tracks and for this i would use this as an insert and i would probably automate this parameter and in this case maybe i'd like to do some cool effects as well you know liftoff and so on and so forth it's really creative so like i said there's no right or wrong this thing you couldn't do if you had this reverb as an insert or if you had another river you know it doesn't have to be the black hole it could be any reverb but if you wanted to completely remove the dry vocal it would be much more complex if you tried to do this using a scent effect it wouldn't work this way so i would probably have this reverb right here keep it there mix zero and then when i want to introduce that effect in that specific moment i would just you know automate this and create this beautiful you know kind of spacious effect where the vocal just goes in outer space and so on and so forth so this is just an example the other reason why you'd want to do this is maybe you have i don't know maybe some specific instrument that you want to have this inside a space and maybe you want to do some sound design you know maybe you want to have like a i don't know like a guitar like a vintage guitar with maybe a plate reverb that's really far away and you want to have it as an insert so that you can push it far by reducing the dry signal again it's better if you do it with insert effects you know so like i said there's no right or wrong experiment that's the beauty with music we don't have to abide to rules nobody's going to be offended if you use a reverb as a sand or an insert but make your life easier know what you're doing don't just go blindly you know just think what you want to do and then use the right method i think you'll be happier and more creative so i hope you enjoyed this video i hope this answered your question on when you should use your reverbs or delays all these effects as inserts or as sense if you learned something today hit the like button subscribe to the channel and i'll see you on the next one my friends take care bye bye

Channel: Dom Sigalas

Views: 11,286

Keywords: reverb insert vs send, dom sigalas, cubase, inserts or send effects, should I use my reverb as a send effect, should I use reverbs as insert effects, insert vs send effects, insert fx vs send fx, insert vs aux send, cubase insert vs send, send effects, insert fx, cubase tutorial, aux send, mixing tips, should I use insert or send effects, Delay as an insert or send effect

Id: K1ypjVcoXCA

Length: 10min 31sec (631 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 22 2021