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Route to a bus and set up a shared reverb send

Task: send several tracks to one reverb (a classic aux-send setup), and/or fold tracks into a submix you can control with a single fader. Assumes you're comfortable in the mixer.

Both start from a bus — a mixer strip other strips route into. There are two ways to feed one, and they do different jobs.

Send vs. output — pick the right one

Send Output
Sends… a parallel copy of the signal the strip's whole signal
The dry track… keeps playing to the master now flows through the bus instead
Use for… a shared reverb/delay (aux) a submix / group (all drums on one fader)

A shared reverb (send)

  1. Right-click a strip's name → New bus… to create a bus.
  2. On the bus strip, add a Reverb (its FX button → Add effect). Turn its Wet up — a send bus is usually all-wet.
  3. On each track you want reverberated: right-click its name → Send to ⟨bus⟩ → pick a level (25 / 50 / 75 / 100 %) and Post-fader (so the send follows the track's volume).
  4. Now several dry tracks share one reverb. Ride the bus fader to set the overall reverb amount.

Pre- vs. post-fader

Post-fader (the usual choice) scales the send with the track's fader, so turning the track down turns its reverb down too. Pre-fader sends a fixed amount regardless of the fader — useful for a fully independent effect.

A submix / group (output)

To put, say, all your drums under one fader:

  • Fastest: select the drum strips (click a name, Shift/Ctrl-click more) and press Ctrl+G — Gloopy makes a group bus and routes them into it. Ctrl+Shift+G ungroups.
  • By hand: make a New bus…, then on each drum strip choose Output ▸ ⟨that bus⟩. Their signal now flows through the bus (not straight to master), so the bus fader controls the whole kit and you can put a compressor on it.

A grouped strip's cue reads GROUP (fed by outputs) or RETURN (fed by sends) under its name. Ctrl+Shift+F folds/unfolds all groups.

See also