The Use of Sends

Time to put in work. Last week I was explaining how to use inputs and outputs on auxiliary tracks in a Pro Tools session. Now today we are going to talk about the use of sends in a Pro Tools session. You maybe asking, what’s the difference? Well the difference is that sends are used more for effects like reverb and delay. Now when you use a send you have more control over the amount of reverb and or delay that is used on that track. Now if you route it through the output to aux input then you are controlling the gain of the track and not the amount of reverb or delay, so it doesn’t work properly. So lets say you want to add some reverb to a snare drum on one of the tracks that you have created. I will do the same in one of my sessions. First thing you want to do is create an auxiliary track Aux track. And name it “reverb.”

Next you want to set a bus input for the reverb to an open bus mine will be Bus 1-2.

Select the reverb that you want on the snare and put it in the inset tab on the Aux channel.

Now go to the snare drum track and click on send and select bus 1-2 so it routes to the Reverb Aux channel.

When you select bus 1-2 an additional fader will pop up like this:

Now put that fader from 0 to unity gain like this:

Now play back the track and adjust the aux reverb to your liking. This helps you control the amount of reverb you want the snare to have. This helps out when reverb is overpowering in the mix. Well that is all good luck and keep mixing.