a possible solution to dry/wet track sending

[jcobb00]

ok, check this out you all.

i may have found a solution to what i am looking for, and maybe everyone already knows about it, maybe not.

after talking on the phone with ableton, reading everyone's posts, and screwing around with live i have come to this solution


1. create 2 audio tracks (or however many you want) and keep their "audio to" as master

2. create a return track (or however many you want)

3. in sends on the master track click the post button so that it reads pre

4. place an audio effect rack on the return track

5. create 3 chains within the audio effect rack. 1 titled dry, 1 titled wet, and another titled invert

6. place whatever effect you want within the wet chain and leave the dry empty

7. place the utility "invert" on the invert chain

8. open the chain zone editor and:
for the dry effect extend both light and dark blue lines from 0-127
for the wet effect drag the dark blue line from 0-127 and the light blue line so that is is only on 127
for the invert chain drag the light blue and dark blue lines from 0-127 so that it is the same as the dry effect

9. click map mode, then click the chain selector, then click map in one of the 8 macro knobs to map it so that you can control the dryness/wetness with 1 knob (or you can keep it all the way wet and get the same effect from the send knobs)

make sure whatever individual effects you chose to place in the wet chain are already 100% wet (if if the effect offers that option)

this allows you to send and track to any return channel in a dry/wet fashion with minimal volume increase due to audio double-up (see below for additional information)

dryness and wetness are now adjustable for 1 track at a time, or as many tracks as you want at 1 time

in my experiences in the last 15 minutes i have not been able to test many different effects with this solution. there are noticeable volume increases when an effect is 100% wet on different effects but this is preventable by reducing the limit of the macro chain knob to something lower than 127 (experiment yourself to see what sounds good)

unfortunately beat repeat and eq3 (my personal favorite efffects to use) do not work great with this because the effect is not replacing the original audio (the cancellation process due to the inverted audio). a solution to this however is to just lower the track volumes of the sending channels so that you can only hear the return channel

i will continue to mess around with this to see what it has to offer, and i'm sure i will run into some problems along the way but i recommend experimenting with it as well and please let me know what you discover

[outsidesys]

Bear with me here, I've read through this a few times, and I still don't understand the reason for this configuration. How are you using this setup in your workflow?

[longjohns]

it sounds like a more elaborate version of the 'magic sends'

[outsidesys]

Thanks. I found the 'magic sends' post. It makes sense now.

[jcobb00]

yea, it seemed like it was working for a little bit but i ran into a bunch more problems, still not the solution i am looking for

i need to be able to put an effect on and take an effect off of multiple instruments in an improvisational manner (for live gigs) but still have not found a solution