Yes, exactly. The pre/post fader setting (which is a simple on and off switch on consoles) determines whether the signal being sent to the auxiliary track is being sent from before the fader of that audio track or after the fader of the audio track. Keep in mind that, regardless of whether the signal is taken from before or after the audio track's fader, the signal still hits the send level which is essentially a little fader that determines the level of the signal being sent down the bus.
This discussion is a good illustration why understanding signal flow is and has been so important in the analog world. One had to study how the signal came into the console, how it passed through the various components, how it could be siphoned off to busses and how those signals were eventually brought together either on the main output or the submix groups. The easiest way to understand all of that was to look at a block diagram where one could see the paths graphically. Naturally, a picture's worth a thousand words so it's difficult to describe things like that but it's not impossible. The thing is, every console has its quirks and particulars but, for the most part, consoles follow a similar scheme most of the time. It's no accident that the mix window in Pro Tools follows the most common format with inserts at the top, sends below, pans closer to the main fader, etc. There are key differences, however. Usually, there's a dedicated EQ section with a dedicated bypass. That's not the case in Pro Tools. That said, one can't compare the flexibility that a dAW offers to a hard-wired console. Anyway, glad the pre/post question is clearer. Slau On May 18, 2016, at 12:34 PM, Christopher-Mark Gilland <[email protected]> wrote: > Ow'w'w'w'w, Ow'w'w'w, Kayyyy, so the pre and post fader setting isn't > effecting the fader of the AUX track. It's determining whether the send is > happening before or after the fader of the audio! track, not! the AUX track. > I think that's where I was getting confused. I thought it was effecting > after it was sent, then, is it going to be pre fader of the AUX track, or > post. > > Your example with turning up or down the actual audio track's fader on that > original track, really made it hit home. Putting it that way in perspective > really made it make sense. > > Thank you Slau for the incredibly detailed explanation. That really did help > tremendously. > --- > Christopher Gilland > JAWS Certified, 2016. > Training Instructor. > > [email protected] > Phone: (704) 256-8010. > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Slau Halatyn > To: [email protected] > Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2016 12:08 PM > Subject: Re: Understanding Pre, vs. post fader sends > > Chris, > > You seem to sort of understand the situation but I think you're possibly > misunderstanding a couple of things as well. In order to put things very > simply, I'll address the pre/post fader issue first and then the reverb > second. > > When you're using a send to forward a copy of the signal from a track to a > new destination, the pre/post fader parameter determines whether the output > fader of the track will affect the level of the signal passing through the > send. If the send is set to post fader, if you bring the fader down, that > will also affect the level of the audio being sent through the bus. If you > set the send to be pre-fader, that means that the level of the audio being > sent from the track through a bus to some other destination will not be > affected by the track's fader. It's being sent from a point before the fader. > So, if you were to take down the fader for the track, the signal is still > being passed through the send. The level of that signal is determined by the > send level. So, with a send set to pre-fader, it's possible to send a signal > to a reverb, take the original track's volume all the way down and have only > the reverb come through. That's an explanation of the difference between the > two. > > Now, your issue with the reverb is related but not entirely due to the > pre/post setting. What I suspect is happening is that your reverb plug-in is > not set to 100% wet. Be aware that certain reverb plug-ins have both a > balance parameter plus a switch that turns the mix to 100% wet regardless of > the balance parameter. So, if your send is set to post fader and your plug-in > is set to, say, 50% wet, you're going to be getting 50% of the dry signal > coming through the reverb plug-in. Thus, boosting the reverb track also > boosts the dry signal because 50% of it is the dry part of the signal. When > you set the send to pre-fader and take the track's output all the way down, > regardless of the wet/dry proportion of the plug-in, boosting the reverb > track's output will only result in an increase of the wet signal because , > with the audio track's signal being pre-fader, no dry signal is coming > through your outputs and you're only boosting the reverb plug-in itself. That > said, the proportion will still be the same and you're hearing the difference > in volume of just the fader on the auxiliary track being boosted. > > Here's what you need to do: make sure your reverb plug-in is always > outputting reverb only, set whatever parameters at your disposal to be 100% > wet. This way, when you want to boost the reverb level, you're only boosting > the reverb level and not also bringing up the dry part of the signal which > would throw your mix out of whack. Conversely, if you bring down the reverb > level it will also not change the relationships of the dry audio tracks. > > The issue of pre/post is a separate consideration and mostly to do with other > considerations. Here's one example where a person might use a pre fader send. > Let's say you wanted to have the sound of a person walking into a hall from a > distance while speaking or singing and you wanted the perspective of the > listener to be at the front of the hall. As the vocalist enters the hall and > travels closer to the listener, the level of their voice would increase. In > other words, the dry signal level would increase. If you were to put a > post-fader send on that track and sent it to a reverb, when the signal level > is low, it would barely send any level to the reverb and the reverb would not > really be heard. The level of the reverb would be dependent on the level of > the vocalist's track. Now, if that send were to be pre-fader, the level of > the reverb would be independent from the level of the track. With that setup, > it's possible to have the sound of the room be heard as if the voice were > coming from a distance. By adjusting the level of the reverb a bit, it's > possible to make it sound like the person's vocal is filling the room but > from a distance because there's very little direct sound. By slowly bringing > up the vocal track, more and more dry signal will be heard and, > proportionately, it would sound as if the vocalist is getting closer but the > listener's position in the room hasn't changed, only the relationship of the > vocalist to the room sound. This example is more of a post-production > technique for film, television, etc. In music mixing, it's more of an > artistic call. sometimes people use pre-fader reverb purely for effect. > > Hope that helps. Let me know if anything still isn't clear. > > Slau > > On May 18, 2016, at 11:24 AM, Christopher-Mark Gilland > <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Guys, >> >> Try as I may, I am just! not getting this concept. I have Googled like >> crazy, but all articles are going way way over my head. >> >> Basically, here is the scenareo for ya. Let's say I have two tracks in my >> session. The first track is called vocal, and it's nothing more than just a >> dry raw mono audio track with me singing in my mike. >> >> Now, I have a stereo auxiliary track called Vox Verb. On insert A of the >> vocal mono audio track, I add a send. On this send, I leave all the default >> values in the send window as ProTools has it natively. I don't turn the >> send up or down, I don't mess with the pans, nothing. I just directly close >> the send window when it pops up. >> >> Now, on the Vox Verb auxiliary track, on insert A, I add a reverb plugin of >> my choice, and tweak it accordingly to my liking. >> >> What I now am finding is, because by default I'm set to post fader on that >> send which is up on our actual mono audio vocal track, if I move the output >> volume slider on the vox verb auxiliary track up and down, yes, I'm causing >> the reverb wet signal to increase or decrease, more simply put in lamon >> terms, I'm causing the reverb to become more or less in amount, let's say I >> need more reverb wetness. If I turn the fader up on that auxiliary vox verb >> track, I get more echo/reverb, but it's also making my vocals louder. My >> guess is is that it's turning up the dry mix along with turning up the >> reverb. >> >> With a prefader, I'm finding on the other hand, given again the above >> scenareo, if I turn the output volume slider up on the auxiliary vox verb >> track, the volume of my vocals doesn't get any louder at all. Just to over >> exagerate things, if I turned the auxiliary track's fader to positive 12DB, >> not that I'd normally do that, but I'm trying to make a point here. I would >> find that the actual volume level of my vocal hasn't become ear splitting >> blasting. All it did in prefader is to make me sound like I'm in the bottom >> of the grand cannyon. It seems that in prefader, it's only effecting the >> reverb wetness from the plug I put on insert A of the auxiliary vox verb >> track. >> >> So, this leads me to a few questions. Maybe if you all can address these >> questions in full, this'll start to make more sense. I think firstly though >> before asking these questions, it's important that you all understand my >> logic of thinking for what a send actually is. That may be part of my issue >> right there. I was thinking that basically all a send really is is a >> pathway for lack of better word to send, quote unquote, signal. Basically, >> in the above situation, regardless if it's pre or post, all I'm essentially >> doing is sending a copy of the audio from my mono audio vocal track >> elseware. In this case, I'm duplicating it by sending it out to an >> auxiliary track. So now, I have two instances of the same audio. One from >> the vocal mono audio track, and a second instance from the auxiliary vox >> verb track which are now being played at the same time. >> >> IN the old days of analog stuff, you'd often hear about bouncing multiple >> tracks to one track. I hear that basically was done with sends. You'd send >> the audio from say, 3 tracks out to just one track which would receive the >> signal from all 3 tracks. Therefore, you now put effects on that one track >> receiving all three of the others, and now, you've globally effected all 3 >> of the tracks in one shebang. According to the Sweetwater tech I normally >> work with, he told me that if you wanna get really really technical, >> technically speaking, a master fader is nothing more than a track which has >> signal through a send being sent down to it, so you do anything on your >> master, it effects the whole session. Again, he said it's not exactly a >> send, but at the end of the day, it's the same concept. >> >> OK, so here are my questions, now that you get my logic of what I'm >> understanding a send to be. >> >> 1. I get that pre fader means the signal is being effected before it hits >> the output fader of the vox verb auxiliary track, but in more lamon terms, >> what does that mean? >> >> 2. I get that with post! fader, the signal is being effected after it hits >> the output fader on the vox verb auxiliary track. Again, though, in more >> lamon terms, what exactly does that mean is happening in the audio chain? >> >> 3. Can someone textually diagram out for me the signal process of both a >> pre, and a post fader send, explaining how exactly the audio is getting from >> the audio track to the auxiliary track? >> >> 4. Finally, why is it that with post fader, if I move the output volume >> slider on the auxiliary track, the vocal not only gets more reverb, or less >> reverb, but it's also turning up the volume of the vocal audio track at the >> same time, whereas, if I'm set to prefader, then turn up or down the fader >> of the auxiliary track that the audio is being sent to, the only thing I >> notice is that the reverb becomes either more or less intense, as far as the >> wet mix goes. It gets either more echo, or less echo, but as far as volume >> goes, nothing gets louder, nor softer. >> >> Sorry to put this on you all to answer in so much depth, but I really just >> am not getting this concept. I'm trying, honest to God, but it's just not >> making sense. The more pre school lamon you can put this, LOL, the better. >> Don't use big words, as I'm stupid. LOL! Just kidding. Seriously though, >> can someone help me out here please? >> >> Chris. >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Pro Tools Accessibility" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected]. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Pro Tools Accessibility" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Pro Tools Accessibility" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Pro Tools Accessibility" group. 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