Sends and Inserts

What is a “Send”?

A “send” is a connection point that is created inline with the channel’s signal flow; it allows you to send the signal out of the channelstrip, and into something else. You might “send” to another channel, or a plugin sidechain, or a physical output on your soundcard.

Sends are in addition to the mixbus-send knobs in the channelstrip. They provide more flexibility ( for example, sends can be moved “anywhere” in the channel’s signal flow, among the other plugins and sends/inserts. ) However, they operate outside of the Harrison “True Analog” summing & panning engine. These sends are similar to features found in other DAWs and we sometimes call these “DAW Sends” instead of “console sends” or “console buses”.

Aux Sends

Create an “Aux send” by right-clicking in the plugin area, and choosing “new Aux Send”, then choosing the bus you’d like to send to.

Aux sends can only be connected to the input of a “bus input strip” and cannot be sent to an external port, such as a soundcard output.

! As implemented in v4.3, “Aux Sends” from the channelstrip do not have pan/balance controls.

External Sends

When a new send is created, a window for connecting the Send’s output ports will immediately appear. You may connect a Send’s outputs to any connections available in the system.

By default, Sends have no outputs and must be configured as needed. Click “add” to add ports, and connect them to the destination that should receive the output of the send.

• Add/Remove: adds/removes a port to the send.
• Disconnect All: disconnects all ports (does not remove ports).
• Available connections: This is a list of all the available connection ports, with one tab for each application, and one for the system sound I/O (“system”).

*Note: The number of “ports” created will define the channels of the send. Sends can have 1 (mono), 2 (stereo) or more (multichannel) ports assigned.

After a send has been configured, a double-click on the send will launch the Send Editor:

In addition to the output management, The Send Editor also has a volume slider and a panner (if the number of outputs is > 1).

*Sometimes when you mute a track, you still want a Send to remain active (for a headphone feed, for example). It is possible to disable the mute for pre- and post- fade sends separately. To enable or disable the pre- and post-fader send mute, right-click on the Mute button in the editor window.

What is an “Insert”?

An “insert” is similar to a Send, but it both sends the signal out, and then provides a method to return the signal immediately back into the channel. The most common usage of an “insert” is to send the channelstrip signal out of Mixbus and into a hardware device for processing. Then the insert provides a return path from the device, so you can hear its effect. You can enable and disable the “insert” to compare the signal with and without external processing.

Inserts

An Insert incorporates a “send” output and a “return” input. The Insert send/return allows the audio signal to be routed out of a channel and back into it, after performing some external processing. Inserts are often used to “patch in” a piece of outboard gear that is not available as a plug-in (just like you might do with a patch bay on an analog console)

• Measure Latency: Once your insert is connected to an external piece of gear, then click this button to measure the latency. If the Insert is used on a track or mix bus, this delay will be accommodated automatically.

Outputs

• Add/Remove: adds/removes a port to the insert “send”.
• Disconnect All: disconnects all sending ports (does not remove ports).
• Available connections: This is a list of all the available connection ports, with one tab for each application, and one for the system sound I/O (“system”).

Inputs

• Add/Remove: adds/removes a port to the insert “return”.
• Disconnect All: disconnects all return ports (does not remove ports).
• Available connections: This is a list of all the available connection ports, with one tab for each application, and one for the system sound I/O (“system”).* Available connections: This is a list of all the available connection ports, with one tab for each application, and one for the system sound I/O (“system”).

This video demonstrates the setup and use of an insert to an external hardware processor.

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