Route audio via send effects

You use send effects when you want to isolate effect plug-ins from a channel strip’s signal flow, or when you want to use the same effect on more than one channel strip. By creating a send, you split the channel strip’s signal. The channel strip’s main signal continues its route to the chosen output. The other part of the signal is routed down a parallel path, via a bus to an aux channel strip. You use the Send Level knob to control the amount of signal that is sent via the bus. This is known as parallel routing. You can route the signal back into the main signal flow at a later point, or you can output the signal from the aux channel strip.

The primary advantage of this approach over routing via insert effects is efficiency. This method allows multiple channel strips to be processed by one inserted effect, which saves vast amounts of processing power (and time) when compared to the alternative of inserting the same effect directly into multiple channel strips. Another bonus is that you can quickly switch between wet and dry versions of all channel strips that are sent to an aux channel strip, by simply bypassing the effect on the aux. Similarly, you can completely change the effects configuration for multiple sent channel strips by choosing different effects for the aux channel strip.

The following image illustrates a channel strip routed to multiple aux channel strips via sends—with reverb, chorus, and delay effects assigned to aux channel strips 1, 2, and 3, respectively.

The channel strip’s signal is split and routed to three separate effects, one on each aux channel strip. These three independent signals are then sent back from the respective aux channel strips and combined into an output stream from the original channel strip. You can create up to eight sends on each audio, instrument, or aux channel strip.