Aux Send/Return levels

Kyle Ashley · 2nd October 2006

Here a basic question:

If you're sending a vocal, through an aux bus to a verb or delay, do you usually set the send level at 0 and adjust volume at the return, OR, set the return fader at 0 and adjust the send level to get the desired amount of effect?

Just curious to know the most accepted practice here.

gwailoh · 2nd October 2006

You're talking about gain staging, which is a great engineering art. It's all about what the verb/delay/eq/whatever sounds like when you hit it hard versus soft. Or, whether it has a makeup gain stage that you really like, for instance tube makeup gain that gets fat when you turn it up.

Gain staging is probably one of the things that most distinguishes great engineers from the rest. That and mic placement. I realize how pompous that sounds, but it's really true!

2nd October 2006	#1
Kyle Ashley Lives for gear Joined: Oct 2003 Location: Tampa Bay/Cape Fear NC Posts: 1,041 Thread Starter	Aux Send/Return levels Here a basic question: If you're sending a vocal, through an aux bus to a verb or delay, do you usually set the send level at 0 and adjust volume at the return, OR, set the return fader at 0 and adjust the send level to get the desired amount of effect? Just curious to know the most accepted practice here. __________________ Kyle Ashley www.kyleashley.com

2nd October 2006	#2
gwailoh Lives for gear Joined: Apr 2005 Posts: 812	You're talking about gain staging, which is a great engineering art. It's all about what the verb/delay/eq/whatever sounds like when you hit it hard versus soft. Or, whether it has a makeup gain stage that you really like, for instance tube makeup gain that gets fat when you turn it up. Gain staging is probably one of the things that most distinguishes great engineers from the rest. That and mic placement. I realize how pompous that sounds, but it's really true! __________________ "Go back and re-mix your fav test mix making sure that at every place in all chains (including between all plug-ins) level never gets bigger than -6dBr. Make sure your final output also never peaks beyond -6dBr. Now do the comparison between this ITB mix and a similar OTB mix. You might have a big surprise." - Paul Frindle

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