We've been doing something similar to this in live touring sound and analog studios for years. We basically return all of our global effects, less inserted effects, to open channels, then assign the channel out to either the L/C/R Master Out or to an open subgroup, then to the master out. The technique works well because it gives us much greater control of the signal i.e. Gain, EQ, Compression, etc. than when using the effects return knob. Which is very limited and requires a painful amount of setup in each individual effect processor, which is difficult to change on the fly. It's a good idea to use in Reason for the same reasons we use it and because it does save on CPU usage as opposed to inserting an effect or effects on each channel for more control. Good video.
@1:26 you can combine the first effect you create, and chain effects inside the combinator to avoid the connection to the second send effect. If you don't like the combinator, you can always remove it at the end :) @4:06 If you wanna make the return knob works, you can connect the DIRECT OUT of the individual mixes channel to the Mixer FX Return IN. In alternative you can use the Parallel OUT but you will double the fx signal i think :p BTW good content :). Good luck with your channel!
That's an interesting title, as there is really no right or wrong way to do it. It's a matter of preference as we've seen in the past comments. This technique reminds me of the old analog days for boards that had limited FX returns. We would just use one of the monitor aux sends to an extra FX box and ran it into an unused channel on the board. That worked great live, because you could easily mute the FX when someone needs to just talk to the crowd. Thanks for the video!
It's definitely the old school way, but I think it's more "right" to do, because I find it easier organizationally, and unlocks additional power (like you can send sends).
Thank you.Ive been racking my brain lately to get this right. I can bus the efx bus into a pre stereo bus. I like to do some dynamics control before the stereo bus. Awesome job!
Brilliant, thanks. It took me a while to realise why I was getting a delay on the send effects. It was latency, I changed audio driver and the setup worked perfectly. So if anyone else gets the effects a beat behind, check that.
+William Harper thanks Will! I'll say that Reason gets pretty frustrating when you've got sessions with a lot of tracks, so I wouldn't get rid of the old daws just yet.
How do we address the delay caused by this? If you run the reverb 100% dry and trigger a snare hit, you can hear there is a maybe 30 ms differentiation between the snare mix channel and the FX master channel. This delay does not occur when you use the default FX returns on the master rack.
Great tips and technique, thanks! It's quite similar to the way Reggae dub effects are used. You can even apply the effect on itself and create feedback
I've been doing this in other DAWs, however, in Reason there is no solo defeat/isolate to keep from muting the EFX when you solo other channels. I've been asking for that option strictly for routing fx to mix(er) channels... since forever.
The way you do it is the obvious old school way but it has one huge drawback, there is no solo safe in Reasons mixer so if you solo a mix channel that is using a send effect you won't hear it. Of course you can then solo the fx bus but again that adds an extra step.
You're totally right Dennis! Hopefully Reason 10 adds a more feature-rich mute/solo section. During the mixing stage, I really prefer being able to control everything from the mixing board without having to drop back into the rack, which is why I think this send effect technique still has legs!
First of all: good tutorial, thanks. I followed every step but there is a BIG problem. There is a Delay added that the "delay comp" button can't solve. Is it only me ?
It is 100% accurate for every possible plugin out there. But it should work for hte vast majority. There are sample delay plugins out there you can use to manually set things, but they're a real pain.
This method also works nicely if you are using your sends for headphone mixes. If you have your effects set up this way you just click the send that your separate headphone mix is on for each effect you want to hear in that headphone mix. It is great when you are tracking multiple players who all want there own headphone mix.
cool video, but question, you didn't connect the direct outputs of the mix channels into the fx returns. is that not supposed to be connected? or what is difference between connecting or not connecting to fx returns?
Hey, bother. I appreciate you elucidating this alternate & superior approach within Reason. It allows you to get creative, doesn't it? Subscribed :). Also, you've got a great voice for narration, and I liked how you humbly asked for the subscribe. PEACE!
This is an interesting method, but i have found that its easier to just load one Combinator with FX running directly from the RE to the sends bus and then Use A Parallel channel to add the FX too. The first reason this is good is that your parallel channel will already have EQ, filtering, compression, gating, and routing for your FX. The Second you don't end up changing your source while customizing your FX. This method gives you far more control, while not breaking the way the Reason deals with the FX sends. It also add interesting dynamics to what would be a flat sound.
I definitely see some those advantages. For me a lot also has to do with organization. I use parallel channels for a specific effect (like NY Compression or adding a touch of grit), but for broader filtering I find my method helpful just because I can see things at a glance on my larger projects.
Sweet method!! I've been looking for a way to solo FX channels. I know this video is from 5 years ago, so is latency still an issue with this method? I noticed lots of people complaining about that in the comments.
Glad it helped! And great question John - latency is no longer an issue (since Reason 10, I think), if you use the delay compensation button on the bottom right.
How is this different than making a normal reverb send, creating a parallel channel of the sound you want to process, to which you put the send effect and then process it with EQ as an insert on that parallel channel?
Because you can send multiple instruments to this reverb send and process everything the same AFTER the reverb (or before depending on the signal path on the send).
Evan. Thank you so much for your videos. I have returned to this one several times. One thing I haven't been able to do is at 5:14 which is to solo my effects. Whenever I hit solo, reason mutes the source canceling the signal to the effect. If I solo the source also, I hear the source and the effect. Am I doing something wrong? Would like to hear just the effect. I did get to this sweet spot by turning the volume on the source way down, but who wants to touch the faders once you have them set. I also am able to print the effect to an audio channel and then solo, but that is a lot of work and time. Any help is appreciated.
Scott what you describe is one of the shortcomings of the way sends are implemented in reason. I believe if you set the send effect to pre-fader, it still passes through when muted, but honestly, I don't like using pre-fader sends. To make up for this, I tend to boost the volume of my effects channels when I'm trying to dial them in.
There’s really not an easy way. You can use parallel busses a bit, but ultimately, Reason only allows 8 send effects, so it’s not truly professional grade
@@StockMusicMusician Thanks you for your answer.indeed, I find it unfortunate that this daw does not give this possibility of having several shipments.
@@StockMusicMusician to be honest I'm not sure how to do that I'm kinda embarrassed to say, I've been teaching myself this whole time so any bit of info helps thanks again man your vids are great and easy to follow :)
im getting a bit of a delay on the signal when i setup my sends like this. i cant find the delay compensation knob you speak of in one of your comments
I don't think they added delay compensation until Reason 8 or 9 or maybe even 10. If you're using an earlier version it won't be there. Otherwise, it's on the bottom right.
There's a problem here. If you do this, it will create a slap delay on the mix channel. I tried his and spoke to proellerhead. The plugins latency isn't corrected since it's is detected as unusual routing.
Using the main mixer in Reason, the answer is no, unfortunately. You could set up sub mixes using parallel channels and some of the utility mixers to do a work around that is a huge pain and not really worth the effort.
Hi, i have a question. In a blank template where I created 8 mix channels where I would put my effects. Now how can I assign my instruments such as kong or synthesizer to send effect from those mixed channels?
Try doing it a few channels at a time. My guess is that you may have accidentally selected the master channel, which can’t be routed, preventing you from rooting all the others
Thank you for the video! Much appreciated. I just got Reason 10, so this certainly helped me out a bit. But how would you route these effects in conjunction with an audio track? In Logic I just create a bus and that's where my effects go. In Reason however, this seems to work entirely different. Could you perhaps point that out to me? It's probably very similar, but I haven't managed to get it right yet. Cheers!
Hey so Jw could you do a video on setting up a screen capture program and how to record the audio from reason. I have an interface and sound flower. And want to use QuickTime, but my issue is that I can only seem to record the audio coming from the built in mic on my Mac
Couldn't you just hook up the combinators to the send/return to avoid the auto-route issues you mention in the beginning while still using them as sends on a per-channel basis?
would i have my drum tracks bus to the fx bus? i noticed when i have it set up the way your showing in the vid i solo out the snare and i cant hear any of my fx the are sent to that track unless i un solo or if i have my tracks bus to the fx bus i have solo the fx bus and the snare to hear the fx if i want to audition the track if that makes sense. thanks
+DJ Noriega you're totally right! You also need to solo either the effect channel or the effect bus. It kind of sucks, but ultimately I think this method is still more powerful.
+macho beats the send knobs and buttons still work! But the return knobs don't. Instead, you use the volume faders to control the return volume. Then buss all the fx together, into a master fx buss to control ultimate level.
Hi there .. nice vids very useful... I'm a tribal funky techno producer . I used to do it 10 years ago . Made some tracks but not as good as the material I'm coming up with now as I'm studying dance music and basic music production mixing arranging programming (as I like to make everything from scratch ) and in the future learn in depth mastering.. I fancy a crack at that ... I was wondering if you would be willing to exchange idea's.. more me learning from you lol .. I'm very serious about where I'm going with my life and what I'm going to do music wise
Hey Dan, thanks so much for your kind words - and you're passion for music totally comes through! If you look at my Patreon channel (www.patreon.com/stockmusicmusician), I offer one-on-one coaching, mix critiques, and group lessons there and would love to work with you to help you achieve your music goals!
Hi, great video thanks. However, when I tried to replicate what you did at around ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-b7WioPzKFwo.html - whereas your Reason session has shown that the Return slots are filled in automatically (in the mixer view) once you have attached the respective mixers to the master section - this isn't happening when I try that? It only does so (auto fills in the return slots) when I attached (in the Rack view) the return cables: but that then just makes the effects act like a normal send/return rather than the system you are achieving whereby one effect goes to another all then going to a single output mixer? Any ideas on why I am not able to replicate what you are doing would be gratefully received! :) Many thanks, Roger
Thank you!!! One other question I have is, is there a way to "solo safe" your Effects Mixer Channels? i.e. to still have them be active (not muted) when you hit solo on another instrument? That would make this method idealll
A few words would suffice!!! 😬 Is this for individual tracks? So I can route each instrument track too? Or for mastering? I'm not a newbie to this but I am far from you in knowledge lol thanks for the videos I am subscribed!
Leroy Jones it's for individual tracks or for busses [for example it could send just the snare to reverb or you could send all the drums]. I do so the master bus through insert effects, though.
+Dev Illion not really. It can actually use less dsp than the traditional way of using send fx in reason, because you don't need to create separate effects for eq and compression!
