setting up your mixer!

[edub357]

I just wanted to know how you guys set up your mixer to: 1.record vocals 2.send effects to different tracks/busses i.e. compressor, delay,reverb. 3. what percentage of wet/dry do you use per effect? 4.set up a buss for just vocals/effects and how to send the tracks to that specific buss

I mainly do hip hop/r&b and i run cool edit pro 2.0

[whomper]

one size fits nobody

use as much f/x as you need for that specific recording

[garageband]

The configuration sounds about right.

[edub357]

I think i might have confused you alittle, i actually wanted to know how to specifically set up my mixer to have a dry vox track and have an effects track to send my dry track thru, see my problem is that when i would record vox i would just dump all my effects onto that original dry track and im trying to do it the correct way by sending for the effects instead of piling it ontop of each other. hopefully that staightens it out.

[garageband]

That's the way it's best done. You are correct not to load up fx on the channel inserts, but rather set up an AUX and route some signal to it.

[ryanoliver]

I can give you some of my personal starter settings.

I have 3 standard Aux tracks, a long reverb, a short reverb and a tempo delay with a dotted quarter repeat in one channel and a whole note repeat in the other. All of these FX should have their mix set to 100%.

I'll send for these as I go. The vocals might get -20db from the delay and -20db from the short reverb. I'll send those drums off for some long verb. Not much, just enough for some depth. Guitars might send for -15db of that short verb for thickening.

Don't forget to HPF your reverbs or you could be awash with low end mud.

I always have an L3 set up on an Aux with an EQ for parallel compression.

Sometmes I have GTR RIG 3 on an aux, and I'll send some stuff in there for some grit/color.

[edub357]

I hate to ask but when you guys say you send for it what excatly do you mean by send? lets say my main vocal is on track 1(dry), when you say your sending for it do you mean your telling your software "mix track 1 with whatever track your effects are on?" or am i completely off on this? how excatly do you set up an aux and route signal thru it?

[ryanoliver]

I ripped this from some other forum...sad I know.

Click on the OUT button (on the channel strip at the left hand side) and click on NEW BUS. Give it a name, (or leave it as Bus 'X'), assign the output device, add an effect (like Quickverb or Flanger, Compression or Delay, etc) and click OK. Back in the playback device window, choose the appropriate bus for the track output and click OK. Now, click on OUT for each track that you want to assign to the bus, select the bus and click ok.

Just above Track 1 (in the channel strip) you'll see three tabs...Vol/EQ/Bus. Click on the BUS tab. You will now notice that you have two fields...Wet and Dry. The WET controls the amount of signal that is sent to the bus as processed. So, if you have effects on the bus, this is essentially your 'post' aux send. You can then use the DRY field to increase just the direct signal. This signal is actually routed to the same device output as the bus, but is bypassing the bus itself.

NOTE: Because each of the Wet/Dry fields can be individually set from 0-->100%, balance them carefully to avoid clipping (ie, 80/20, 30/70). You can go even higher, just watch your master output level...

The nice thing about this bus Wet/Dry setting is that you have the ability (in the case of multiple harmony vocals sent to the bus) to adjust the 'send' level on each track, so certain tracks can have more effect than others. If you need more 'direct' sound from a particular track, increase the Dry level.

[fortyseven]

Simply add/insert a new bus (lets call it bus A). Go to the audio track you want to 'send' and change the output of that track to bus A.
Now you can add/remove effects to the bus track and every audio track you assign to it will be affected by the effects you use on the bus track. Quite easy really.

[edub357]

Thanks alot everyone! I must of been looking too in depth with this. Thanks again for your help.