Reverb: Insert or Send/Return

[mr_es335]

Good day,

First a question: "Is the primary reason for using reverb as a Send/Return effect over and insert effect one of convenience or of conserving resources? Or indeed, could it be for both reasons?

If I prefer to have full control over the reverb plug-in being used at that time, would it be better suited instead to use the reverb as an insert effect? What if I choose to use different reverbs for different tunes? Would this situation be better suited to insert usage?

In my particular situation, I do not believe that resources would be a concern in any way whatsoever.

Any recommendations and/or comments would be greatly appreciated?

[Cary B. Cornett]

Good day,

First a question: "Is the primary reason for using reverb as a Send/Return effect over and insert effect one of convenience or of conserving resources? Or indeed, could it be for both reasons?

The short answers are "maybe both" and "it depends". Your situation, as I picture it, involves a relatively simple mix with only a few channels, in which case I would agree that resource conservation is probably not that important. There is likely a convenience factor if you want to vary how much reverb you want in the course of your performance, in which case it may be easier to have send and return levels available in the console.

If I prefer to have full control over the reverb plug-in being used at that time, would it be better suited instead to use the reverb as an insert effect?

First of all, whether the reverb is going into a channel path or a send/return path, you are inserting it into whichever path, using the same method. and "full control" in what way? If we are talking about control of how much drive the reverb gets and how much reverb is in the mix, and having such control out where you can "grab" it, I suspect the send/return route may be more convenient in operation (during the performance). If you are talking about control of certain internal parameters of the reverb plugin, that's in the UI of the plugin itself, which you would need to access directly no matter which type of connection path you use.

What if I choose to use different reverbs for different tunes? Would this situation be better suited to insert usage?

I am trying to picture how you would make these changes during the course of the performance. IIRC, you have six send/return paths available in your mix. This could allow up to six different effects, each assigned to its own send/return. I'm guessing you might set up different scenes for different songs or groups of songs, and then you could have different sends/returns on or muted in different scenes. To me that might be the best way to make switching to different reverbs (or combinations thereof) convenient during a performance.
I am not at all sure that you could use scenes as a way to swap out reverbs in a given channel insert path, as you can't "re-patch" signal paths with the engine running.
HTH

[mr_es335]

Cary,
I am a solo guitar performer, using electric guitar with TH3 and backing tracks, nylon-strung, steel-strung and Emcee in a totally live performance environment. Therefore, no recording is taking place - if matters in any way whatsoever?

For the electric guitar, all effects processing is handled entirely by TH3.

For the nylon-stung and steel-strung guitars, all effects processing is handled entirely by that channel.
* Different arrangements will use different reverbs entirely, or will use the same reverb with a different preset.
* I never use the same reverb for both the nylon-stung and steel-strung guitars - they each will use different reverbs and therefore, different presets.

For the Emcee, I have one reverb and one preset that I use.

All of these changes are handled completely by Scene changes. Though I have had no reason to do so, it IS possible to change types of reverbs and/or presets when the engine is running - that is, during an actual performance. In this situation, I see using reverbs being no different than using TH3 along with scenes to change presets during a performance when using backing tracks.

In such cases, I know precisely what reverb, preset and configuration I am using for that instrument at that time - using the MIX control on the reverb to set the wet/dry mix.

In all of the research that I have done, the general consensus is: "Inserts are only for compressers and eq type effects. Time based effects should always be on a separate track" - with no explanation as to really why this is the case.

Another comment is: "INSERTS are (mainly) PRE-fader, (time-based effect) SENDS are (mainly) POST-fader. So if you have it as an insert (pre) then you can't control how much of the signal is sent to the reverb. If you have it as a send, you can control this. Also think about what happens when you move your volume fader. If you've got your 'verb as an insert, when you pull the fader down you're pulling down the sum of the wet and dry, therefore not changing how much you're "exciting" the reverberant space (this makes more sense if you think off your reverb as a echo chamber with a physical loud speaker and a physical mic). When you pull down your fader with a post-send, you're exciting the room less."

In all honestly, I have not be able to hear the difference what the latter comment is intimating - let alone understand just what this person is really-and-truly stating.

[Cary B. Cornett]

Cary,
I am a solo guitar performer, using electric guitar with TH3 and backing tracks, nylon-strung, steel-strung and Emcee in a totally live performance environment. Therefore, no recording is taking place - if matters in any way whatsoever?

I did not assume any recording was taking place. I don't think that matters to this discussion, since we're dealing strictly with the mixing process.

For the electric guitar, all effects processing is handled entirely by TH3.

For the nylon-stung and steel-strung guitars, all effects processing is handled entirely by that channel.
* Different arrangements will use different reverbs entirely, or will use the same reverb with a different preset.
* I never use the same reverb for both the nylon-stung and steel-strung guitars - they each will use different reverbs and therefore, different presets.

For the Emcee, I have one reverb and one preset that I use.

All of what you describe fits with the way I picture you working (based on things you have posted in the past).

All of these changes are handled completely by Scene changes. Though I have had no reason to do so, it IS possible to change types of reverbs and/or presets when the engine is running - that is, during an actual performance. In this situation, I see using reverbs being no different than using TH3 along with scenes to change presets during a performance when using backing tracks.

One detail I would like to clarify: in a scene change, are you ever taking a plugin out of the signal chain and initiating a different plugin? Or is the plugin always the same one, with only program selections within said plugin being switched or altered?

In such cases, I know precisely what reverb, preset and configuration I am using for that instrument at that time - using the MIX control on the reverb to set the wet/dry mix.

In all of the research that I have done, the general consensus is: "Inserts are only for compressers and eq type effects. Time based effects should always be on a separate track" - with no explanation as to really why this is the case.

I can tell you that I have, at times, used delays and/or reverbs in channel inserts in SAW with no ill effects whatever. I am, of course, careful about gain staging, but my guess is that so are you.

Another comment is: "INSERTS are (mainly) PRE-fader, (time-based effect) SENDS are (mainly) POST-fader. So if you have it as an insert (pre) then you can't control how much of the signal is sent to the reverb. If you have it as a send, you can control this. Also think about what happens when you move your volume fader. If you've got your 'verb as an insert, when you pull the fader down you're pulling down the sum of the wet and dry, therefore not changing how much you're "exciting" the reverberant space (this makes more sense if you think off your reverb as a echo chamber with a physical loud speaker and a physical mic). When you pull down your fader with a post-send, you're exciting the room less."

In all honestly, I have not be able to hear the difference what the latter comment is intimating - let alone understand just what this person is really-and-truly stating.

My guess is that this particular bit of procedural discipline comes from the old Analogue world, which is where us older guys first learned our craft. We had to be careful to stay well above the noise floor of every device/process while not overdriving anything. Also, have you ever been listening to the return from an actual plate reverb when a loud noise gets picked up directly by the plate? This never happens in a purely digital reverb.

When I moved from analogue recording and mixing to working in the DAW world, there were certain tricks I had to "un-learn" to fit the way the digital world works. I suppose some designer of plugins somewhere might go to the extreme of emulating more of the noise and distortion/overload characteristics of real plates, springs or chambers, but short of that we can be a little bit less touchy about gain structure than we had to be back in the day.

There are some cases where following some of the old "rules" does no harm, and I suspect the example you just cited is one of those. But some of the reasons underlying the original formulation of those rules have at least partially gone away.

Then again, there were some "old school" engineers who deliberately violated or ignored certain rules in recording. One guy taped covers over all of the level meters so he wouldn't see them, making him do things by sound instead of sight. Sometimes he would really crush recording levels because of this. His ears must have worked, because he kept getting hired.

[cgrafx]

Cary,
In all of the research that I have done, the general consensus is: "Inserts are only for compressers and eq type effects. Time based effects should always be on a separate track" - with no explanation as to really why this is the case.

Its not really a question of Compressors or EQ vs Time-based, as much as what in the signal chain is being effected.

Forget analog vs digital, that doesn't play into this.

If you insert into a channel the effect only applies to the individual channel you are connected to.

if you use send/receive more than one channel can share that effect. In your particular situation because your channel count is minimal it won't make much difference, but imagine 6 vocal channels instead of one. You don't want separate reverb or delay effects on each channel, you would generally want all of those voices to be processed through the same reverb/delay so they behave as a common source (echoes and tails all line up together).

The added benefit in the digital side is using less resources (one reverb instead of six).

With compression and gates it will depend on what your trying to accomplish.

Typically those would be handled on each channel separately to tame the incoming audio source, but group compression is also used across mix busses and even complete mixes like the levelizer when doing mastering.

In the case of your guitar(s) and TH3. If you have a single guitar then it makes perfect sense to put TH3 directly on the guitar channel. If you have more than one guitar than it might make more sense to use TH3 as a Send/Receive AUX setup as you can have both guitars plugged into different channels and still process them through a single instance of TH3 (you would have to pay a little more attention with this arrangement to keep the direct guitar signal out of the output chain and only use the AUX TH3 processed audio)