User guide

Tracktion 4 Reference Manual

The Aux Send / Return Filters

Effects loops, or auxiliary sends, are created in Tracktion by using two complementary lters, the

“aux send” lter, and the “aux return” lter.

The send lter (Fig. 3.4.16) replicates the rotary send control of a mixing con-

sole, and the return lter is used to create a target for any sent audio. How this

works in practise is that a track will be designated as a “return” track. This track

will contain any effects to be applied to each track containing an auxiliary send.

Tracktion’s send implementation is extremely powerful. Because you can place

send lters anywhere in the lter list, you can create pre-fade or post-fade send

buses by simply placing the send lter before or after the volume/pan lter for a track. Equally sends

can be placed before or after any insert effects.

To set up a auxiliary return:

• Select an empty track to use as the return track. Click on its name eld to select it, and rename

the track with a meaningful label such as “reverb return.”

• Add any effects lters to this track that you would like to include as send effects on this send bus.

Ideally the effects lters should be placed before the volume/pan lter on this track.

• Place an “aux return” lter at the start of the lter

chain on the selected track (Fig. 3.4.17).

• Select the “aux return” lter, and in the proper

ties (Fig. 3.4.18) click the bus drop down to select

a bus. There are eight buses available. You use

these buses to match send lters with their corre-

sponding returns. For your rst bus, simply choose

bus #1.

• Also in the return properties, edit the

bus name eld to describe the purpose of this bus (for ex-

ample “reverb bus”), as this will make it easier to keep track of things later.

Now the return track is ready to receive audio from your send tracks. To complete the picture, you

simply need to add send lters to any tracks that you wish to send to your new bus:

• Place an “aux send” lter between the level meter lter and the mute/solo control on any tracks

that you wish send. The send needs to be after the volume/pan lter otherwise the level of the

wet effect would not stay in step with the level of the track. This is called a post-fade send.

• Select your aux send lters, and in the properties panel (Fig. 3.4.19), set the

bus eld to the bus

you chose above.

• To control how much of the send effect is added to your source tracks, adjust the

send values for

each “aux send” lter. Note that the send lter icon surface has an interactive send level slider.

Figure 3.4.16

Figure 3.4.17

Figure 3.4.18