Ableton Forum

What is the point of putting an effect on a return track and bussing a signal to it when you can just put the effect straight on the original channel? is there a difference or any benefits of using send and returns? can someone please help me out?

1 - have a global reverb/other effect
2 - easily e the amount of signal feeding to it from all your channels independently
3 - conserve CPU
4 - ability to send return channels themselves onto other sends (and a little back again) gives you dynamic control over effect routing.
5 - king tubby

Using a return track enables you to bus multiple tracks to the same effect. Usually best to do when using delays and reverbs to control the effect level of each individual track. If you are putting the same reverb on many tracks, you only have to adjust the settings for one plugin. Also you have isolated control over the return track output if you want to EQ only the effect and not the source track.

would there be any difference between bussing channels to an effect channel and grouping a bunch of tracks and putting an effect over the group?

Jimmyprice wrote:would there be any difference between bussing channels to an effect channel and grouping a bunch of tracks and putting an effect over the group?

Only that you don't get to keep the Dry signal separate.

thanks! i get it now

there's a distinction between signal processing that is usually used as an insert to process the whole signal on a track (e.g EQ, compression, gates) and effects that only process a part of the signal (e.g. reverb and delay). in the latter case, the amount of the dry signal feeding into the return channel is controlled via the send, processed and then mixed into the dry signal on the master.
secondly, as already mentioned, signals from various tracks can be processed with the same effect on the return track (to create an homogenous room with a reverb, for example)

flippo wrote:5 - king tubby

+1

Funnily enough these days with freeze it's better to put stuff on individual channels sometimes. I am running UAds on my machine and their plate verbs on sends plus stuff like the roland fx and fatso pretty much kill my rig. better to put em on the individual tracks and freeze. . .

Just another way of looking at it. . .