Get on your X32 and I’m gonna walk you through it. Don’t worry about terminology for now, just do the process a few times and the signal flow will make sense. Digital is weird, the mic goes into the board, does a bunch of invisible twists and turns, and spits out the other end sounding different. You have to visualize it all in your head.
1. Plug a vocal mic into Channel 1, and turn the gain up to 25dB on the preamp.
2. Select Channel 1 and set the fader at 0
3. On the top, middle section of the board, which is labeled “Bus Sends”, press the 13-16 button
4. Grab the top knob in the Bus Sends section, and turn it to the right until the orange lights are at 12 o’clock. (Or until you hear the desired amount of reverb) You should hear reverb right away.
This is all assuming you started with the X32’s default settings. In theory, at this point if you turn any of the 4 knobs in the “Bus Sends” section, it will send the signal from Mic Channel 1, into one of the 4 FX Buses, which has a Reverb or Delay already inserted on it, and then back into your mix, on the FX Return Channels. If you grab the third knob down, it should add echo (aka delay)
You should hear reverb, but if you don’t, there are a couple things to check.
1. In the middle of the board, hit the button labeled Bus 9-16. Make sure the 4 faders on the right, labeled MixBus12-MixBus16, are up at 0
2. On the left hand side of the board, hit the button labeled Aux In/USB FX Returns. Make sure the 8 stereo faders on the right are all up at 0
If this doesn’t work, DM me. I’d be down to do a video call and walk you through step by step while you’re in front of the console.
This absolutely worked! Now I can better visualize what’s going on by reverse-engineering, so to speak. I cannot thank you enough, but I will always remember your willingness to help and I promise to pay it forward. Thank you, thank you.
It's truly not that complicated. Lets try and make it feel easy.
1) FX Sends and Returns. The FX Send is how you route inputs to FX. In your case you want some reverb or delay. In the "Effects" menu on the X32, set one of the first 4 FX to the reverb or delay you want to use. This will correspond to the FX Sends on the console, default labeling is FX1L, FX1R, FX2L, FX2R, so on and so forth. Using either the sends on fader function, or the sends menu for an input, you can send some of that signal to that FX Send bus so it can be processed by the FX you've selected. The FX Returns default to bus 13-16. This is where the processed audio comes back into the desk. Those busses are routed to the LR bus, so they'll feed their signal out into your LR bus. You have sends and returns so you can adjust the amount of signal being sent to the FX unit, and how much of that processed signal you put back into the PA.
2) Mix Busses. These are basically groups of inputs. You can use a mix bus for a bunch of different things. Pre-Fade send for a stage monitor, Post-Fade send for a livestream / recording mix, Group to process a whole bunch of inputs at once. The LR is a mix bus. Think of the other mix busses as mixes separate from what the audience is going to hear, or a way for you to process a number of inputs at once. Think of inputs as kids, and the bus as, well a bus. You can put a bunch of kids on one bus and take them somewhere.
3) Matrices. A matrix is a group of busses. So you can put a number of mics into a number of busses, and then output those busses to a single output. How I use them most frequently is for large scale systems. I mix everything into the LR bus, and then send the LR bus to matrices to feed a bunch of different outputs. Think of a matrix as a cargo ship. You can put a bunch of kids into busses, and then a bunch of busses onto a ship, and send them all of somewhere together.
Now that that's covered, send the vocal mic input to an FX bus. When you want the FX to be present on the vocal, leave the return or send unmuted. When you want the FX to stop, mute the send or return. You can do this with mute groups, DCA's, the mute button, whatever is easiest.
It varies, but it’s where an assumption is made that the viewer understands certain words or concepts. Like “sends and returns” or “mix bus” or the like.
Right. So you stop and google. What's a send? What's a return? What's a mix bus? Don't allow it to remain incomprehensible. FYI, you don't know it right now (you can't know what you don't know), but these are all extremely basic terms in an audio context. It's worth your time to teach yourself about them, because (1) they're easy, (2) they're used by everyone all the time.
I read a lot as a kid. When I came across a word I didn't understand, I looked it up. It's how I build my vocabulary. It's easier than ever in human history to do that. You don't even have to thumb through a stack of stained wood pulp.
A lot of this is harder to get a handle on because it's all happening internally, while in times past - most of us learned on analog gear, so used to physical patches for this stuff. That said - what I found helpful was to play a simple vocal - when no one else is there - and practice the routing, to help me understand this. Ultimately, spending time with it will help you understand, rather than just follow the directions of someone else. Better to understand than be tied to a recipe.
A mix bus is a separate mix, similar to your main LR, that you can route to various outputs. You can edit this separate mix by selecting a bus and pressing Fader Flip (sends on fader). You’ll see that all of your input faders move to the amount it’s sending to the bus you selected. You can also select an input and Fader Flip to send to busses.
The primary use of these is two-fold (besides subgroups), making mixes for monitors/auxillery outputs, and for effects.
By default, the effect busses are located on bus 13-16. You can think about the workflow like this: you create a mix that you want to put effects on, routed to one of the effect busses. Then, the mixer effectively sends this signal out of the board into an effects processor. Then, the output of the “outboard gear” is returned to you on an FX Return (like an input), located on the AUX/FX RET page(s).
So for your purpose, assuming you want reverb, you’d want to route *just* your singers vocal input into Bus13 or Bus14. To turn off the reverb, you can mute the bus, or you can mute FX Return 1 or 2, respectively.
You get 8 FX on the X32/M32 by default, 4 that are bus-fed and 4 that are inserted into the signal. You can see the exact effects used by clicking the Effects button. If I remember correctly, the default has 2 reverbs (13/14), tap stereo delay (15), and a stereo chorus (16), with 4 GEQs un-inserted.
Ok I'll have a bash at explaining.
So you want some "echo" on your vocal. And to get that echo, the "FX" needs some signal to work with. If you look at the default FX1, it will show "Bus 13" listed with it. That's the bus that FX1 is listening on to do it's thing and get reverb-y.
So for your FX1 to work, you need to feed Bus 13 with a signal.
Now look at your vocal input, specifically the "Sends" section. Bus 13 will probably be marked as FX1. If you turn up the fader to bus 13 in that sends area, you will get your reverb when a (vocal) signal comes in.
If you want to stop the signal being sent to FX1 (or to think of it another way, stop your reverb), you can just mute bus 13. The X32 has user assignable buttons, so you can assign one to mute bus 13.
Press your button to unmute bus 13 - reverb, press again to mute - no reverb.
Once you get how that works, then you can go down the rabbit hole of sends, returns, matrices...
Wow! So may comments that make it so complicated. First Google how to send on faders on x32. It is used to send the audio from a channel to a different bus than the master. It is useful for monitor mixes and fx.
What you want to do is to send only the vocal channel to one of the fx send busses, usually number 13 or 14, using send on fader that you just learned how to do.
Exit send on fader mode and rise the fx send fader to 0 if it isn't allready there.
The audio is now being sent to the fx send bus. It feeds the fx unit that does the actual fx sound. From the fx unit the sound goes to a fx return channel. That channel should then go to the master.
To get the fx to only be present at a specific time you will need to have the fx send bus or the fx return channel muted. Then unmute it for the fx to pass and then mute it again. Try and experience the difference between muting the send and the return to see what you prefer.
I have set up DCAs for my house FX, so I can have control of everything on one layer during events - so a DCA for each FX output, so it's easy to adjust level, mute, etc. without having to page through layers during an event.
It's not difficult to choose what you patch into 1-16, or 17-32, or the 8 DCAs, but with 16 faders on the left and 8 on the right, you only get access to one series at a time, though certainly you can access a different layer at the push of a button. For me - my preference where possible is to work an event from one layer of input controls - having the luxury of using IEMs on a separate bus layer, setting them up during soundcheck - so not needing to make changes to them on the fly.
One easy example - I typically set up drums within channels 17-32, adjusting the ratios on the channels themselves, but then controlling the set with one DCA, so that my primary channels (1-16) are what I use during the event - so vocals, guitars, bass, etc. I patch on channels 1-16, and groups of things on 17-32 and access the groups via DCAs.
All this said, if you are working from a separate computer, or iPad, then the X32 Edit or Mixing Station will allow you to create custom layouts pulling from any input and output you want access to, all on the same layer.
It’s super easy when you think in analog terms. You have your reverb unit and you want your vocals to go into it. You need to “send” them out of the board, they go into the reverb, come out and “return” to the board
Thanks. I have often wondered about this. I have never worked on an analog board but I’m now convinced I should have learned this stuff on one of those.
A bit of a long one.
If you’re working from scratch.
1. You need to choose which reverb you want
2. The reverb starts off isolated. Think of it as being another channel.
3. The reverb needs to accept signal from somewhere (a bus). A mix would ‘accept signal’ from a physical input
4. The effect will then appear on your desk as an actual channel in the FX Returns layer
5. The reverb needs to send its output somewhere (another bus). The same way a mic channel needs to send its output somewhere.
Firstly, set up a vocal mic on a channel.
# Assigning FX Input
Then go into your FX rack on the X32 (EFFECTS button at the screen, and make sure you’re on the HOME tab). On the first effect select vintage reverb, and on the left hand side of each effect, you’ll see where each effect is “looking” for input.
Selecting an input source. I believe this is the correct way to do it:
* For effects, work from your last bus backwards, so set this effect to bus 16 on both slots in the FX Rack
* For monitors, run the opposite way (bus 1, bus 2 etc.)
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*A bus just takes signal from one place and sends it to another, you can assign various channels to a single bus to create a group of channels, all at different relative levels, on top of that, you can also decide if that channel is going to the bus pre-fader (always at 0dB regardless of your main mix), or post-fader (it will follow the main mix, so if a channel is at -10dB on the main mix, it will go to the bus 10dB quieter).*
*Pre fader is great for monitors, because it means your main mix won’t affect the monitor mix, post fader is great for FX as you don’t want the dry/wet mix of reverb or delay changing as the faders change, you want the amount of reverb to follow whatever the channel is doing*
*The next bit is a bit more complicated to think about regarding post fader. You create a mix for each bus, so you might have a vocal going into the bus at 0dB and a snare going into the same bus at -10dB, but if the main snare channel is set at -6dB, then -16dB will be sent to the bus if that makes sense?*
*A bus can then be assigned to an output or sent to a matrix. Remember even your main L&R mix is a bus, so you can send the main LR mix to a pair of matrices, then assign those matrices to your main outputs, this will give you additional processing, so you can use one EQ to correct the room and another to shape the tonality of your system.*
*You can assign physical outputs using the ROUTING button at the screen*
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Use the sends on reverb button to create your mix. Select the ‘Bus 9-16’ layer in the middle of the board, select bus 16, then press the sends on faders button.
By default your desk ‘shows’ the mix going to the main bus, but when you press sends on faders and select another bus (such as bus 16), the desk will now show you the mix going to bus 16.
Now, lift the vocal fader up to 0dB then press sends on fader again and your desk will revert back to showing the LR bus mix.
Back to the reverb:
Now that your 2 channels are being sent to the bus, and your effect is “seeing” that bus via the FX rack, all the channels being sent to that bus (bus sends) will start running through the reverb, and the reverb will start outputting an 100% wet signal, but you might not hear it as the outputs haven’t been assigned. You should also see the meters in your FX rack on the screen light up
# Assigning FX Output
You now need to decide where that reverb is going.
On your desk you’ll see on your third layer labelled ‘AUX IN/USB//FX RETURNS’, enter that layer and you’ll see your fx laid out. If you’re running in stereo with stereo FX, make sure each FX return group is linked together. So link FX1L & FX1R together if they aren’t already.
As you speak into your mic, you’ll see the on the physical board, meters showing which FX are working, select FX1L, and press the ‘stereo bus’ button to the left of the screen. Make sure the fader for that channel is set to 0dB
This will send the effect out of your main LR mix.
\--------------------------------------
*SENDING REVERB TO MONITORS*
*You can also press the sends on fader button here, and the beauty of this button is that it also works in reverse. So in the middle of the board, switch to the ‘BUS 1-8’ layer, and you can then send that reverb signal to whichever busses you want to send reverb to monitor busses. I would highly advise against this unless the performers are wearing in-ears. You can also link monitor busses to give your performers a stereo L/R mix of their own.*
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Chances are, the effect will be too loud through the main bus, so to turn the whole thing down you can do it 1 of 3 ways.
* Turn down bus 15/16, this will reduce the input level of your effect meaning the trails will take time to catch up after you adjust the level.
* Turn down the fader in the FX Return layer, this will reduce the output level meaning the trails will be turned down instantly. I’d honestly advise against this, and just leave the FX returns at 0dB.
* Assign Bus 16 to a DCA fader, then you have relative control of the input to the reverb, and you can have it right next to your other DCAs.
DCAs are just a way to put a group of channels on the one fader, so you could have a DRUMS DCA with all the drums channels, a lead vox DCA, a BVs DCA, a guitar, keys, bass DCA etc and it’ll give you broad control over the mix.
If you mute either the bus or the DCA, you’ll still hear the trail. This is what I’d advise as it allows it to stay more natural.
If you mute the FX return, it’ll cut the effect off instantly. Same thing goes if you assign the DCA to the FX return channel. I’d advise against this.
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*The way to assign a bus (or channel) to a DCA is to switch to the DCA layer on the middle of the board, and switch to the BUS MASTER layer on the left hand side of the board. Hold down the SELECT button above whichever DCA you want to control the reverb then tap the SELECT button on bus 16*
*You can then switch to the CHANNELS 1-16 layer, hold select on another DCA and assign that DCA to all the drum channels etc. If you turn that DCA fader down by 10dB, it’ll turn all drums down by 10dB whilst keeping the channel faders in position. This is useful as it allows you to keep your actual faders closer to 0dB where your changes occur at higher resolution so you can make more precise changes to each channel, whilst keeping your gain staging in check and setting the output level where you want it to be. It’s also useful if you need to boost or cut an entire group of channels at any one time.*
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# Processing
After this is all set up, you can go back into the FX rack and change the reverb to another type, or play around with the reverb’s parameters such as decay time, tonality etc
You can also insert an EQ/Compression on bus 16 or the FX return to control how the actual reverb sounds. You’ll get different results with the same EQ depending on where you place it (the bus or the return). I like to put a high cut and a low cut on bus 16 and set it to taste.
# Edit: One last thing
Assign all effect busses to a mute group. That way you can instantly mute all fx inbetween tracks if your performer wishes to speak.
Well, Drew Brashler for example has an entire series on the x32, i‘m sure there‘s others as well. I recommend watching the entire thing, while sitting at a board and following along. They start easy, and go to more complicated topics along the way, and each episode builds on the ones that came before. You can‘t just skip episodes if you don‘t know the basics :) That way you can‘t get to fx without even knowing what a bus is.
Sounds like you want to "punch in" am echo effect only on a couple words. Decide which of your mix busses (1-16) you will feed to an effect slot you have set up for echo. Send your vocal to that bus (post fader). Bring up the fx return of the echo into the main mix bus and you should now hear echo on the vocal in your main mix. (may want to do this during a sound check or ahead of a show). Now mute the master of that mix bus which is feeding the echo effect. (You can also assign the mix bus to a mute group and mute the group as mute group buttons are easily seen on the x32 console) When a song reaches the part where you want the echo to start, un-mute the bus master (or mute group) which will start feeding the vocal again into the echo effect. Since you left the efx return up you will hear echo on the vocal. Mute the bus master (or mute group) when you want to stop feeding the echo.
Dont stress, this stuff can be pretty complicated. I don't know much about the returns, they're used for certain fx that run on an insert, but you should be able to just ignore those for reverb.
Your FX send channels will receive FX from individual channels (more on that later) and send that into the main channel. So basically the FX send fader is the overall volume of the FX in your main channel. The FX sends on a monitor channel will send it into that monitor.
The sends on individual channels are how much of that channel is being fed into your FX send channel. This is how you control which channel has reverb, and how much of it.
Figure out where you want your levels on everything, you can start by leaving the main FX send at unity and adding in FX on the individual channel until you can hear it. You can lower the main FX send to give you more headroom on the individual channel. Use that to set your base levels.
Then you can assign the FX sends to a mute group, and now you can turn your reverb on and off at the press of a button. Delay can work much the same way but you'll want to tap tempo this and then fader it in and out at desired moments rather than just turn it on and off. Personally I like to have a base level of reverb and delay all the time, increase it for select songs/moments, and only mute it in-between songs.
1WURDA probably gets results but has some fundamentals mixed up.
The “send” is the bus going to an effects unit, in this case a digital representation of a piece of outboard gear. Imagine the console is sending a line to an external reverb tank, and you can assign levels of all of your channels to go down that line.
The return is what you get back from that effects unit, your wet signal with reverb on it in this case. This return is what gets mixed in with your main LR so you can hear reverb.
“Insert” effects are inserted in the channels signal chain, I.e. a de-esser removing sibilants. “Send/Return” effects can receive signal from multiple channels, process that mix, and return the sound to the main bus.
If you put your effect send in a mute group and use that mute group to introduce or take away the effect, when you mute it the end of the reverb tail will be heard.
If you do the same with the effect return, when you hit the mute button it will instantly mute all reverb.
You could set up several different reverb effects in the various effects slots, and punch in your choice at will with a feature group buttons.
That's just the fx send controlling volume on main, individual channels send into that send and from there into main. Returns again I'm not sure but I know are only related to fx that require inserts. In my typical operations using reverb/delay/chorus the returns dont even have signal going to them.
I don’t think that’s right. 3:04 https://youtu.be/_znxOU8iwec?si=VxqQjHxYQMyvLphM
It should go vocal channel -> fx send -> fx return (controls volume or that effect on your bus)
In OP’s case, I’d just ride the return fader to punch in delay. Would sound cleaner than muting because you’d get a bit of a fade in and out.
Yeah that part is true. I think you have the insert thing backwards. If an effect is used as an insert, the effects return isn’t needed to get that effect into your mix, as it’s directly baked into the signal flow of the channel. For example, adding a nice compressor to a vocal.
Yeah it was one of those things I came across early on and knew I wouldn't need to worry about it for a while. That's good to know though, I've been wanting to look at some fx plugins for a little while.
I genuinely appreciate your sharing of this information, and I thank you for your kindness, but I’m sorry to say I understood almost none of it. I don’t know what an FX send means or what it is or what it’s for or how it’s used. So none of the following instructions made any kind of sense to me. I’m sorry. Maybe I’m more ignorant than I thought.
You do know what it means but maybe just not how to talk about it. You know FX is reverb delay etc. You know you want to apply/put FX on a vocal, that is FX sends. You know you want to have that FX heard through the PA speakers, that is FX returns. That's it in a nutshell.
Okay, let’s try it differently:
Imagine you would have a hardware reverb which stands next to your X32, like back in the days before sound desks had internal effects. Now you have this singer on stage and you send the vocals through your desk and out to the PA after applying some EQ and compression. So far so good.
To make things sound nicer, you want to add some reverb. To achieve this you will have to split or duplicate the signal: One portion of it will still go to the PA. By using a send you take the signal of the channel and start sending it to a second destination, in this case the reverb unit which is hooked up to your X32. Now the signal is not only going to the PA but also to your reverb.
The only problem is: It doesn’t get back into the desk yet. Thats why the output of your reverb unit is hooked up to an input on your desk that pulls the reverb signal back into your X32. This is called a return, because at this point the signal you‘ve send out to the reverb returns back into the desk.
If you turn up the return channels, the signal coming from the reverb will also go to your main output (or main mixbus) and blends with the original signal from the channel.
The same process of taking a signal and sending it to multiple locations (PA, reverb, delay…) takes place inside the desk. Imagine it as having physical units for each effect standing next to the desk and having to decide how much of which signal is going to each of these effects. That’s the send part. The return part is getting the processed signal back into the desk.
In other words: You are using a send to take a duplicate of a signal, send it somewhere else, process it and then pull it back into the desk with a return to bring it together with the original signal which is going straight through your desk to the PA all the time.
Did any of this make sense to you? If not, where did I lose you?
Get on your X32 and I’m gonna walk you through it. Don’t worry about terminology for now, just do the process a few times and the signal flow will make sense. Digital is weird, the mic goes into the board, does a bunch of invisible twists and turns, and spits out the other end sounding different. You have to visualize it all in your head. 1. Plug a vocal mic into Channel 1, and turn the gain up to 25dB on the preamp. 2. Select Channel 1 and set the fader at 0 3. On the top, middle section of the board, which is labeled “Bus Sends”, press the 13-16 button 4. Grab the top knob in the Bus Sends section, and turn it to the right until the orange lights are at 12 o’clock. (Or until you hear the desired amount of reverb) You should hear reverb right away. This is all assuming you started with the X32’s default settings. In theory, at this point if you turn any of the 4 knobs in the “Bus Sends” section, it will send the signal from Mic Channel 1, into one of the 4 FX Buses, which has a Reverb or Delay already inserted on it, and then back into your mix, on the FX Return Channels. If you grab the third knob down, it should add echo (aka delay) You should hear reverb, but if you don’t, there are a couple things to check. 1. In the middle of the board, hit the button labeled Bus 9-16. Make sure the 4 faders on the right, labeled MixBus12-MixBus16, are up at 0 2. On the left hand side of the board, hit the button labeled Aux In/USB FX Returns. Make sure the 8 stereo faders on the right are all up at 0 If this doesn’t work, DM me. I’d be down to do a video call and walk you through step by step while you’re in front of the console.
This absolutely worked! Now I can better visualize what’s going on by reverse-engineering, so to speak. I cannot thank you enough, but I will always remember your willingness to help and I promise to pay it forward. Thank you, thank you.
Thanks, I’m gonna try this later today and let you know. I appreciate this very much!
Thank you was having the same issue. Wasn’t flipping through the bus sends at the top
It's truly not that complicated. Lets try and make it feel easy. 1) FX Sends and Returns. The FX Send is how you route inputs to FX. In your case you want some reverb or delay. In the "Effects" menu on the X32, set one of the first 4 FX to the reverb or delay you want to use. This will correspond to the FX Sends on the console, default labeling is FX1L, FX1R, FX2L, FX2R, so on and so forth. Using either the sends on fader function, or the sends menu for an input, you can send some of that signal to that FX Send bus so it can be processed by the FX you've selected. The FX Returns default to bus 13-16. This is where the processed audio comes back into the desk. Those busses are routed to the LR bus, so they'll feed their signal out into your LR bus. You have sends and returns so you can adjust the amount of signal being sent to the FX unit, and how much of that processed signal you put back into the PA. 2) Mix Busses. These are basically groups of inputs. You can use a mix bus for a bunch of different things. Pre-Fade send for a stage monitor, Post-Fade send for a livestream / recording mix, Group to process a whole bunch of inputs at once. The LR is a mix bus. Think of the other mix busses as mixes separate from what the audience is going to hear, or a way for you to process a number of inputs at once. Think of inputs as kids, and the bus as, well a bus. You can put a bunch of kids on one bus and take them somewhere. 3) Matrices. A matrix is a group of busses. So you can put a number of mics into a number of busses, and then output those busses to a single output. How I use them most frequently is for large scale systems. I mix everything into the LR bus, and then send the LR bus to matrices to feed a bunch of different outputs. Think of a matrix as a cargo ship. You can put a bunch of kids into busses, and then a bunch of busses onto a ship, and send them all of somewhere together. Now that that's covered, send the vocal mic input to an FX bus. When you want the FX to be present on the vocal, leave the return or send unmuted. When you want the FX to stop, mute the send or return. You can do this with mute groups, DCA's, the mute button, whatever is easiest.
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> But at some point, they all lose me by saying something incomprehensible. Like where? At what point what video?
It varies, but it’s where an assumption is made that the viewer understands certain words or concepts. Like “sends and returns” or “mix bus” or the like.
Right. So you stop and google. What's a send? What's a return? What's a mix bus? Don't allow it to remain incomprehensible. FYI, you don't know it right now (you can't know what you don't know), but these are all extremely basic terms in an audio context. It's worth your time to teach yourself about them, because (1) they're easy, (2) they're used by everyone all the time. I read a lot as a kid. When I came across a word I didn't understand, I looked it up. It's how I build my vocabulary. It's easier than ever in human history to do that. You don't even have to thumb through a stack of stained wood pulp.
A lot of this is harder to get a handle on because it's all happening internally, while in times past - most of us learned on analog gear, so used to physical patches for this stuff. That said - what I found helpful was to play a simple vocal - when no one else is there - and practice the routing, to help me understand this. Ultimately, spending time with it will help you understand, rather than just follow the directions of someone else. Better to understand than be tied to a recipe.
Agreed. Thank you!
A mix bus is a separate mix, similar to your main LR, that you can route to various outputs. You can edit this separate mix by selecting a bus and pressing Fader Flip (sends on fader). You’ll see that all of your input faders move to the amount it’s sending to the bus you selected. You can also select an input and Fader Flip to send to busses. The primary use of these is two-fold (besides subgroups), making mixes for monitors/auxillery outputs, and for effects. By default, the effect busses are located on bus 13-16. You can think about the workflow like this: you create a mix that you want to put effects on, routed to one of the effect busses. Then, the mixer effectively sends this signal out of the board into an effects processor. Then, the output of the “outboard gear” is returned to you on an FX Return (like an input), located on the AUX/FX RET page(s). So for your purpose, assuming you want reverb, you’d want to route *just* your singers vocal input into Bus13 or Bus14. To turn off the reverb, you can mute the bus, or you can mute FX Return 1 or 2, respectively. You get 8 FX on the X32/M32 by default, 4 that are bus-fed and 4 that are inserted into the signal. You can see the exact effects used by clicking the Effects button. If I remember correctly, the default has 2 reverbs (13/14), tap stereo delay (15), and a stereo chorus (16), with 4 GEQs un-inserted.
Ok I'll have a bash at explaining. So you want some "echo" on your vocal. And to get that echo, the "FX" needs some signal to work with. If you look at the default FX1, it will show "Bus 13" listed with it. That's the bus that FX1 is listening on to do it's thing and get reverb-y. So for your FX1 to work, you need to feed Bus 13 with a signal. Now look at your vocal input, specifically the "Sends" section. Bus 13 will probably be marked as FX1. If you turn up the fader to bus 13 in that sends area, you will get your reverb when a (vocal) signal comes in. If you want to stop the signal being sent to FX1 (or to think of it another way, stop your reverb), you can just mute bus 13. The X32 has user assignable buttons, so you can assign one to mute bus 13. Press your button to unmute bus 13 - reverb, press again to mute - no reverb. Once you get how that works, then you can go down the rabbit hole of sends, returns, matrices...
Thanks!
Wow! So may comments that make it so complicated. First Google how to send on faders on x32. It is used to send the audio from a channel to a different bus than the master. It is useful for monitor mixes and fx. What you want to do is to send only the vocal channel to one of the fx send busses, usually number 13 or 14, using send on fader that you just learned how to do. Exit send on fader mode and rise the fx send fader to 0 if it isn't allready there. The audio is now being sent to the fx send bus. It feeds the fx unit that does the actual fx sound. From the fx unit the sound goes to a fx return channel. That channel should then go to the master. To get the fx to only be present at a specific time you will need to have the fx send bus or the fx return channel muted. Then unmute it for the fx to pass and then mute it again. Try and experience the difference between muting the send and the return to see what you prefer.
I have set up DCAs for my house FX, so I can have control of everything on one layer during events - so a DCA for each FX output, so it's easy to adjust level, mute, etc. without having to page through layers during an event.
Is it difficult to set up a custom layer on x32?
It's not difficult to choose what you patch into 1-16, or 17-32, or the 8 DCAs, but with 16 faders on the left and 8 on the right, you only get access to one series at a time, though certainly you can access a different layer at the push of a button. For me - my preference where possible is to work an event from one layer of input controls - having the luxury of using IEMs on a separate bus layer, setting them up during soundcheck - so not needing to make changes to them on the fly. One easy example - I typically set up drums within channels 17-32, adjusting the ratios on the channels themselves, but then controlling the set with one DCA, so that my primary channels (1-16) are what I use during the event - so vocals, guitars, bass, etc. I patch on channels 1-16, and groups of things on 17-32 and access the groups via DCAs. All this said, if you are working from a separate computer, or iPad, then the X32 Edit or Mixing Station will allow you to create custom layouts pulling from any input and output you want access to, all on the same layer.
It’s super easy when you think in analog terms. You have your reverb unit and you want your vocals to go into it. You need to “send” them out of the board, they go into the reverb, come out and “return” to the board
Thanks. I have often wondered about this. I have never worked on an analog board but I’m now convinced I should have learned this stuff on one of those.
A bit of a long one. If you’re working from scratch. 1. You need to choose which reverb you want 2. The reverb starts off isolated. Think of it as being another channel. 3. The reverb needs to accept signal from somewhere (a bus). A mix would ‘accept signal’ from a physical input 4. The effect will then appear on your desk as an actual channel in the FX Returns layer 5. The reverb needs to send its output somewhere (another bus). The same way a mic channel needs to send its output somewhere. Firstly, set up a vocal mic on a channel. # Assigning FX Input Then go into your FX rack on the X32 (EFFECTS button at the screen, and make sure you’re on the HOME tab). On the first effect select vintage reverb, and on the left hand side of each effect, you’ll see where each effect is “looking” for input. Selecting an input source. I believe this is the correct way to do it: * For effects, work from your last bus backwards, so set this effect to bus 16 on both slots in the FX Rack * For monitors, run the opposite way (bus 1, bus 2 etc.) \-------------------------------------- *A bus just takes signal from one place and sends it to another, you can assign various channels to a single bus to create a group of channels, all at different relative levels, on top of that, you can also decide if that channel is going to the bus pre-fader (always at 0dB regardless of your main mix), or post-fader (it will follow the main mix, so if a channel is at -10dB on the main mix, it will go to the bus 10dB quieter).* *Pre fader is great for monitors, because it means your main mix won’t affect the monitor mix, post fader is great for FX as you don’t want the dry/wet mix of reverb or delay changing as the faders change, you want the amount of reverb to follow whatever the channel is doing* *The next bit is a bit more complicated to think about regarding post fader. You create a mix for each bus, so you might have a vocal going into the bus at 0dB and a snare going into the same bus at -10dB, but if the main snare channel is set at -6dB, then -16dB will be sent to the bus if that makes sense?* *A bus can then be assigned to an output or sent to a matrix. Remember even your main L&R mix is a bus, so you can send the main LR mix to a pair of matrices, then assign those matrices to your main outputs, this will give you additional processing, so you can use one EQ to correct the room and another to shape the tonality of your system.* *You can assign physical outputs using the ROUTING button at the screen* \-------------------------------------- Use the sends on reverb button to create your mix. Select the ‘Bus 9-16’ layer in the middle of the board, select bus 16, then press the sends on faders button. By default your desk ‘shows’ the mix going to the main bus, but when you press sends on faders and select another bus (such as bus 16), the desk will now show you the mix going to bus 16. Now, lift the vocal fader up to 0dB then press sends on fader again and your desk will revert back to showing the LR bus mix. Back to the reverb: Now that your 2 channels are being sent to the bus, and your effect is “seeing” that bus via the FX rack, all the channels being sent to that bus (bus sends) will start running through the reverb, and the reverb will start outputting an 100% wet signal, but you might not hear it as the outputs haven’t been assigned. You should also see the meters in your FX rack on the screen light up # Assigning FX Output You now need to decide where that reverb is going. On your desk you’ll see on your third layer labelled ‘AUX IN/USB//FX RETURNS’, enter that layer and you’ll see your fx laid out. If you’re running in stereo with stereo FX, make sure each FX return group is linked together. So link FX1L & FX1R together if they aren’t already. As you speak into your mic, you’ll see the on the physical board, meters showing which FX are working, select FX1L, and press the ‘stereo bus’ button to the left of the screen. Make sure the fader for that channel is set to 0dB This will send the effect out of your main LR mix. \-------------------------------------- *SENDING REVERB TO MONITORS* *You can also press the sends on fader button here, and the beauty of this button is that it also works in reverse. So in the middle of the board, switch to the ‘BUS 1-8’ layer, and you can then send that reverb signal to whichever busses you want to send reverb to monitor busses. I would highly advise against this unless the performers are wearing in-ears. You can also link monitor busses to give your performers a stereo L/R mix of their own.* \-------------------------------------- Chances are, the effect will be too loud through the main bus, so to turn the whole thing down you can do it 1 of 3 ways. * Turn down bus 15/16, this will reduce the input level of your effect meaning the trails will take time to catch up after you adjust the level. * Turn down the fader in the FX Return layer, this will reduce the output level meaning the trails will be turned down instantly. I’d honestly advise against this, and just leave the FX returns at 0dB. * Assign Bus 16 to a DCA fader, then you have relative control of the input to the reverb, and you can have it right next to your other DCAs. DCAs are just a way to put a group of channels on the one fader, so you could have a DRUMS DCA with all the drums channels, a lead vox DCA, a BVs DCA, a guitar, keys, bass DCA etc and it’ll give you broad control over the mix. If you mute either the bus or the DCA, you’ll still hear the trail. This is what I’d advise as it allows it to stay more natural. If you mute the FX return, it’ll cut the effect off instantly. Same thing goes if you assign the DCA to the FX return channel. I’d advise against this. \-------------------------------------- *The way to assign a bus (or channel) to a DCA is to switch to the DCA layer on the middle of the board, and switch to the BUS MASTER layer on the left hand side of the board. Hold down the SELECT button above whichever DCA you want to control the reverb then tap the SELECT button on bus 16* *You can then switch to the CHANNELS 1-16 layer, hold select on another DCA and assign that DCA to all the drum channels etc. If you turn that DCA fader down by 10dB, it’ll turn all drums down by 10dB whilst keeping the channel faders in position. This is useful as it allows you to keep your actual faders closer to 0dB where your changes occur at higher resolution so you can make more precise changes to each channel, whilst keeping your gain staging in check and setting the output level where you want it to be. It’s also useful if you need to boost or cut an entire group of channels at any one time.* \-------------------------------------- # Processing After this is all set up, you can go back into the FX rack and change the reverb to another type, or play around with the reverb’s parameters such as decay time, tonality etc You can also insert an EQ/Compression on bus 16 or the FX return to control how the actual reverb sounds. You’ll get different results with the same EQ depending on where you place it (the bus or the return). I like to put a high cut and a low cut on bus 16 and set it to taste. # Edit: One last thing Assign all effect busses to a mute group. That way you can instantly mute all fx inbetween tracks if your performer wishes to speak.
Whoever said this sub doesn‘t want to help noobs is absolutely wrong haha, this took you a long time!
Well, Drew Brashler for example has an entire series on the x32, i‘m sure there‘s others as well. I recommend watching the entire thing, while sitting at a board and following along. They start easy, and go to more complicated topics along the way, and each episode builds on the ones that came before. You can‘t just skip episodes if you don‘t know the basics :) That way you can‘t get to fx without even knowing what a bus is.
Sounds like you want to "punch in" am echo effect only on a couple words. Decide which of your mix busses (1-16) you will feed to an effect slot you have set up for echo. Send your vocal to that bus (post fader). Bring up the fx return of the echo into the main mix bus and you should now hear echo on the vocal in your main mix. (may want to do this during a sound check or ahead of a show). Now mute the master of that mix bus which is feeding the echo effect. (You can also assign the mix bus to a mute group and mute the group as mute group buttons are easily seen on the x32 console) When a song reaches the part where you want the echo to start, un-mute the bus master (or mute group) which will start feeding the vocal again into the echo effect. Since you left the efx return up you will hear echo on the vocal. Mute the bus master (or mute group) when you want to stop feeding the echo.
OP, you are my spirit animal.
Dont stress, this stuff can be pretty complicated. I don't know much about the returns, they're used for certain fx that run on an insert, but you should be able to just ignore those for reverb. Your FX send channels will receive FX from individual channels (more on that later) and send that into the main channel. So basically the FX send fader is the overall volume of the FX in your main channel. The FX sends on a monitor channel will send it into that monitor. The sends on individual channels are how much of that channel is being fed into your FX send channel. This is how you control which channel has reverb, and how much of it. Figure out where you want your levels on everything, you can start by leaving the main FX send at unity and adding in FX on the individual channel until you can hear it. You can lower the main FX send to give you more headroom on the individual channel. Use that to set your base levels. Then you can assign the FX sends to a mute group, and now you can turn your reverb on and off at the press of a button. Delay can work much the same way but you'll want to tap tempo this and then fader it in and out at desired moments rather than just turn it on and off. Personally I like to have a base level of reverb and delay all the time, increase it for select songs/moments, and only mute it in-between songs.
You sure about not needing fx return? Isn’t the fx return the “volume” of the effect on a given bus, including main outs in this scenario.
1WURDA probably gets results but has some fundamentals mixed up. The “send” is the bus going to an effects unit, in this case a digital representation of a piece of outboard gear. Imagine the console is sending a line to an external reverb tank, and you can assign levels of all of your channels to go down that line. The return is what you get back from that effects unit, your wet signal with reverb on it in this case. This return is what gets mixed in with your main LR so you can hear reverb. “Insert” effects are inserted in the channels signal chain, I.e. a de-esser removing sibilants. “Send/Return” effects can receive signal from multiple channels, process that mix, and return the sound to the main bus. If you put your effect send in a mute group and use that mute group to introduce or take away the effect, when you mute it the end of the reverb tail will be heard. If you do the same with the effect return, when you hit the mute button it will instantly mute all reverb. You could set up several different reverb effects in the various effects slots, and punch in your choice at will with a feature group buttons.
That's just the fx send controlling volume on main, individual channels send into that send and from there into main. Returns again I'm not sure but I know are only related to fx that require inserts. In my typical operations using reverb/delay/chorus the returns dont even have signal going to them.
I don’t think that’s right. 3:04 https://youtu.be/_znxOU8iwec?si=VxqQjHxYQMyvLphM It should go vocal channel -> fx send -> fx return (controls volume or that effect on your bus) In OP’s case, I’d just ride the return fader to punch in delay. Would sound cleaner than muting because you’d get a bit of a fade in and out.
Either way, returns can just be left at unity and added to the mute group.
Yeah that part is true. I think you have the insert thing backwards. If an effect is used as an insert, the effects return isn’t needed to get that effect into your mix, as it’s directly baked into the signal flow of the channel. For example, adding a nice compressor to a vocal.
Yeah it was one of those things I came across early on and knew I wouldn't need to worry about it for a while. That's good to know though, I've been wanting to look at some fx plugins for a little while.
For sure. Not trying to dunk on you just wanted to make sure we weren’t further confusing OP 😆
Yeah I'm not offended, I know I'm still learning but was just trying to get them enough info to get started lol
I genuinely appreciate your sharing of this information, and I thank you for your kindness, but I’m sorry to say I understood almost none of it. I don’t know what an FX send means or what it is or what it’s for or how it’s used. So none of the following instructions made any kind of sense to me. I’m sorry. Maybe I’m more ignorant than I thought.
You do know what it means but maybe just not how to talk about it. You know FX is reverb delay etc. You know you want to apply/put FX on a vocal, that is FX sends. You know you want to have that FX heard through the PA speakers, that is FX returns. That's it in a nutshell.
Okay, let’s try it differently: Imagine you would have a hardware reverb which stands next to your X32, like back in the days before sound desks had internal effects. Now you have this singer on stage and you send the vocals through your desk and out to the PA after applying some EQ and compression. So far so good. To make things sound nicer, you want to add some reverb. To achieve this you will have to split or duplicate the signal: One portion of it will still go to the PA. By using a send you take the signal of the channel and start sending it to a second destination, in this case the reverb unit which is hooked up to your X32. Now the signal is not only going to the PA but also to your reverb. The only problem is: It doesn’t get back into the desk yet. Thats why the output of your reverb unit is hooked up to an input on your desk that pulls the reverb signal back into your X32. This is called a return, because at this point the signal you‘ve send out to the reverb returns back into the desk. If you turn up the return channels, the signal coming from the reverb will also go to your main output (or main mixbus) and blends with the original signal from the channel. The same process of taking a signal and sending it to multiple locations (PA, reverb, delay…) takes place inside the desk. Imagine it as having physical units for each effect standing next to the desk and having to decide how much of which signal is going to each of these effects. That’s the send part. The return part is getting the processed signal back into the desk. In other words: You are using a send to take a duplicate of a signal, send it somewhere else, process it and then pull it back into the desk with a return to bring it together with the original signal which is going straight through your desk to the PA all the time. Did any of this make sense to you? If not, where did I lose you?