Run Your Reverb & Effects on Inserts or Sends? Pre-Fader or Post-Fader??

Should you be running your effects in pre-fader or post-fader mode? Are there reasons to do one over the other? How about putting your effects right on the inserts? Justin Colletti gives you the best practices.

[davejohnsonmusic]

I use pre-fader sends on kick, snare and toms and send those to a parallel compression drum aux and use it's fader to blend in with the dry drums. This is so the gain reduction on the compressor will always stay the same. I do the same with parallel compression on vox. Once you have the compressor hitting where you want, you need to keep it there. If you do these techniques with post-fader sends, your parallel aux channel will be all over the place whenever you adjust the dry elements' volume.

[MrLauwersJelle]

Saying this as a teacher: you are GOOD at explaining things, mister! The pace and emphasis is just my groove. Thanks from Belgium!

[mageprometheus]

Thanks, Justin. Pre-fader is good when you want to automate the wet and dry signals separately.

[joho-z]

Thanks! This is so clear. You do a great job explaining it so simply.

[barryzito]

Love the pre fader tip to verbs for FX! Always trying to get the modern washy intro and breakdown sounds in pop. This is HUGE. Especially for some pitches down formant affected vocal samples. 🙏

[jaypetach]

Great episode. Another use for prefader is to generate a cue mix for the musicians. I'm a teacher as well and will add tis episode to my course.

[dougr]

Helpful video, thank you Justin (and good question by your subscriber about pre and post faders).

[akagerhard]

Haven't seen the video yet, but I have a sidenote on this issue that is being overlooked 99% of the time when this topic is discussed: It also depends on the Plugin! Some Plugins only really develop their magic when there is a certain amount/level of signal passing through. These kinds of plugins usually have a "wet/dry button which helps you regulate how much you want to affect the signal. "Space Delay" by IK Multimedia comes to mind. I love the plugin, but while you CAN use it on send-busses, it's best as an insert in my experience. Will watch the video later on.. but since this info is ignored 99% of the time I'm confident this information is worth giving. If this video turns out to be the 1% when I see it, I will formally apologize! :D

[MadaAtoms]

If you do a Vocal bus how can you take the individual tracks and add different reverbs delays without having multiple vocal busses can you simply add a send for reverb to the unprocessed vocal wouldn’t that add reverb to the vocal that’s not compressed eqed?

[StanleyPat]

thx so much - very helpful! Greets from Switzerland

[marvin]

Another badass video, really good at explaining things, Big Thanks!!

[alexwnbrg]

Thank you for the videos! I've been loving them. I use pre-fader when I want to sidechain my reverb to the original source. I'll have two sends, one to an aux with no output with pre-fader, then one to the reverb with a compressor after the reverb sidechained to the first aux, so the verb will duck out of the way when the vocals hit and then swell back in.

[Kambiz.Mahdavi]

Hi Justin, I'm so sorry for my delay Happy new year I hope you will always be healthy and happy with your family,
Yes finally we come to one of the most important part of audio engineering,
Post fader + volume
Pre fader - pan

Tnx a million for this episode

[delvenhamric]

When setting up effects, sometimes it is helpful to use pre-fader to hear the effect only.

[vewilli]

Very nicely explained, for me, a beginner, I would have liked an example for Logic too, as I‘m more a visual type who wants to see how all this is installed and set up (vocal track sent to a bus with a reverb and all this ..., of course you can‘t make a video for me, but perhaps you know a link where this is explained for a beginner).

[Freaky_mix]

Thanks Justin.. Well explained!!...
I have a question!!😆..
I've seen some good mixers who mix "HOT".and what this seems to mean is that their master buses cud b hitting 0db or even red.. In such cases, how do they send it to a mastering engineer, Since there seems not to be any headroom or can you Jus turn down the master bus fader and everything will b ok?

[soundproductionandadvice]

Trying to get my head around this in Logic Pro-X - I've got a vocal and I use volume automation to sort out the more dynamic parts - I then use a compressor as an insert, not Buss send - What is controlling what?

[ckowalski]

Thank you again. What about with parallel compression?

[johngraham]

Taking this one step further, what about when you're using sends to FX that aren't under the bus? For example, If I had seven buses for Drums, Bass, Vocals, Guitars, etc. and used post-fader sends to a reverb not under any of those buses - does that create any balancing issues when I'm mixing the buses against each other? I've heard that I may need to have an instance of each FX (reverb / delay, etc.) under the same bus as my sends to avoid creating issues - is this true? - Thanks, John in Seattle

[paulferrarodrums]

I like pre fader so I can solo the effects , I’m in Logic so I’m not sure if there is another way to stay in post fader and listen to the effects in solo?
Any help