Question About Recording With Returns

[penguinpajamas]

Hey guys, so I understand how the idea of sends and returns works but there's something that's causing some issues for me. I'm currently using external audio effects in my return tracks and they're working while I'm recording something but Ableton can't recognize any changes I make to the effects. It's slightly confusing so I'll be more specific:

I'm trying to use one of my delay pedals as an external effect in a return track, and as I'm recording the track I'm constantly changing various parameters of the delay pedal. Unfortunately though, Ableton doesn't seem to record any audio from the return track, so when I try to export the track, it's just using whatever settings are on the delay pedal when I export it, as if that's meant to be the setting for the entire song.

Now I'm not expecting Ableton to record the parameters changes on myu pedal like it would with midi data, but I just want the changes in the delay pedal to be part of the final return track, rather than the fixed settings throughout.

Is there any way to do this? I've had a bit of luck sending the return to an audio track and recording that separately in its own audio track but I feel like there should be a better way. If anyone could let me know if there is such a thing, it'd be highly appreciated.

Thanks,
Charlie

[sounddevisor]

I've had a bit of luck sending the return to an audio track and recording that separately in its own audio track but I feel like there should be a better way.

I don't think there's a better way. You want to record the processed audio coming from your effect pedal - sending it to an audio (rather than a return) track is the right way to do it.

Think of it this way - the audio coming out of the pedal is, from Ableton's point of view, just the same as audio coming from a synth, or a microphone, or any other sound source. So to capture it inside your session, you have to record it the same way you would record any other sound source - on an audio track.