Sends making vocals too loud

F

fivestarpacheco

New member
Just a little confused.. So when I open a new stereo bus and send the effect it makes the vocals super loud! Causing me to turn down the the tracks volume. I tried turning down the level on the effect but that only causes the effect to be lower.
Here's some pictures



 
Maybe I'm just not familiar with your DAW but the setup doesn't look how I expected.

I see two tracks of vocal, both sent to BUS E, but I don't see any receiving track.
In Protools there'd be an aux track with the input set to Bus E. Is it different in your DAW?

Why is there recorded audio on the 'super compressed' track? Was that done with hardware?
 
Steenamaroo said:
Maybe I'm just not familiar with your DAW but the setup doesn't look how I expected.

I see two tracks of vocal, both sent to BUS E, but I don't see any receiving track.
In Protools there'd be an aux track with the input set to Bus E. Is it different in your DAW?


Yes it's sonar x3 it's so confusing!
What do you mean by recieving the track? Am I supposed to change the input and output while mixing. Right now the out is the master and the in is my mic.
Well I looked up on YouTube the person said to set up the bus and then choose effect send. Therefor sending the vocal to the delay. The reason for the supercompressed track was just so I can give the main vocal more body. I'm a little confused by what you mean as far as "recieving the track"
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Take it with a pinch of salt for now because I'm not certain how your daw works, but here's a description of what I'm used to.


  • If you have a stereo track with audio recorded on it and the output set to master 1+2, you'll hear it along with the effect of any inserts.
  • If you set a send from that track to Bus A, nothing will change - You still hear the track as normal, and the send goes to a dead end.
  • If you set up an auxiliary track and set the input to Bus A, you'll have the normal main output as before but you'll also have a parallel output through your aux track. It's no longer a dead end.
  • Now if you insert a 100% wet reverb on the aux track, you've properly set up a reverb send.

Fader on track 1 = dry audio - Fader on (aux) track 2 = wet.

If that's not how it works in your DAW, I apologise in advance. :)
 
Steenamaroo said:
Take it with a pinch of salt for now because I'm not certain how your daw works, but here's a description of what I'm used to.


  • If you have a stereo track with audio recorded on it and the output set to master 1+2, you'll hear it along with the effect of any inserts.
  • If you set a send from that track to Bus A, nothing will change - You still hear the track as normal, and the send goes to a dead end.
  • If you set up an auxiliary track and set the input to Bus A, you'll have the normal main output as before but you'll also have a parallel output through your aux track. It's no longer a dead end.
  • Now if you insert a 100% wet reverb on the aux track, you've properly set up a reverb send.

Fader on track 1 = dry audio - Fader on (aux) track 2 = wet.

If that's not how it works in your DAW, I apologise in advance. :)
Click to expand...

Sounds like Pro Tools talk. Some other DAWs, when you create an effects track, automatically add appropriately routed sends to all the tracks. None of this create a bus, assign one channel send to it, assign the bus to an aux channel, assign the output of the aux channel to the main bus business. You create an effects bus and, poof, sends to it on every channel.

And as RAMI said, set the reverb set to 100% effect and 0% dry.
 
Sonar here- we don't have 'receiving fx tracks, sends and sub buses like a mixer.
Can't see well in the photos, so just to confirm- You made an FX bus with a delay inserted, routed to the master bus, added an aux send at the track to the FX bus?
The FX as has been said has to be set 100% wet. Then typically you have to back the FX bus level down quite a bit even for a 50% wet mix.
If the FX has a lot of energy in and around the same time as the vocal (as opposed to verb or delay behind it) and a high mix percent, it would add energy (level') overall.
And watch out for sneaky plugs that by default load with gain added..

Hey I got another one for ya. It's a long shot, but it happens..
Go to 'Offset mode (is it still key shortcut O'?) See that all of your levels, sends, buses.. are still 'zero.
It's easy to get into that mode, bump a level, it gets saved in a template and/or forgotten..
The downside of having an alt mix that hides in another view. :D
 
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mixsit said:
Sonar here- we don't have 'receiving fx tracks, sends and sub buses like a mixer.
Can't see well in the photos, so just to confirm- You made an FX bus with a delay inserted, routed to the master bus, added an aux send at the track to the FX bus?
The FX as has been said has to be set 100% wet. Then typically you have to back the FX bus level down quite a bit even for a 50% wet mix.
If the FX has a lot of energy in and around the same time as the vocal (as opposed to verb or delay behind it) and a high mix percent, it would add energy (level') overall.
And watch out for sneaky plugs that by default load with gain added..

Hey I got another one for ya. It's a long shot, but it happens..
Go to 'Offset mode (is it still key shortcut O'?) See that all of your levels, sends, buses.. are still 'zero.
It's easy to get into that mode, bump a level, it gets saved in a template and/or forgotten..
The downside of having an alt mix that hides in another view. :D
Click to expand...

Basically what im doing is opening a new stereo bus then putting the effect in that bus. As for it being 100% wet... is that wet in the plug in itself? Or somewhere i cant see? I tried making it 100% wet in the plugin and it sounded really bad. Sorry if i seem a little hard headed lol. I got this sonar x3 as a gift and its growing on me i just wish i can use it at its full potential. I took more detailed pictures have a look....

So here is where i opened 2 buses one for reverb and the other for delay "bus E"


Now on the other side where all my tracks are. i have changed it from master to reverb even to delay. im just confused because i can only select one bus. So i had no choice but to make my delay a send.. As you can see i have my gain down on my tracks because when using the two busses it makes my volume super loud almost distorted..i deff know i hve this all messed up!:confused::confused:


and there's this picture too


Thanks guys i do appreciate the help
 
fivestarpacheco said:
I tried making it 100% wet in the plugin and it sounded really bad.
Click to expand...
It shouldn't. If it sounds bad when you put it to 100% wet, it's because you now have to turn down the amount being sent to the effect. Trust me, when you're using an effect as a send, it has to be at 100% wet, that's the way it's done. I'm almost positive that the reason you said the dry vocal is too loud is because you don't have the effect at 100% wet. It's like chasing your tail, the more effect you add, the louder the dry signal becomes since it's mixed with the effect's signal because you don't have the effect set to 100% wet.
 
Y 100% is the way to go.
You want one channel with the effect and one without it, yeah?
If you don't have it on 100%, you'll have one channel without it and one channel that's half and half.
 
fivestarpacheco said:
..Now on the other side where all my tracks are. i have changed it from master to reverb even to delay. im just confused because i can only select one bus. .
Click to expand...
Let's back up here. You can only select one bus for a track's output. That should remain 'Master or what ever you have it named.
So i had no choice but to make my delay a send..
Click to expand...
So this should be an Aux send (or two) on each track one each going to the Reverb bus, one for the Delay bus.
As you can see i have my gain down on my tracks because when using the two busses it makes my volume super loud almost distorted..i deff know i hve this all messed up!:confused:..
Click to expand...
Turn the FX buses off for a moment, and set the volumes on the two vocal tracks for the blend you want and at levels that aren't too loud (safely under any overload or clipping.
Now with an Aux send at 'zero, bring the FX bus from 'off to up enough to blend the effect with the vocal.

Use this. Refer to it until things come together'. :)
Cakewalk - SONAR X2 Documentation - Signal flow
 
Turn the effect to 100% wet. The only possible way a send effect can make vocals too loud is if you have some dry signal in the effect channel. The only way that can happen is if you don't have the effect set to 100% wet.

You can try a million other things but, if you don't put the effect to 100% wet, send effect will always be making your vocals too loud. It's really as simple as that. You're wasting your time otherwise.....and so are we.
 
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I don't use Sonar, but from the pictures, it looks like you are sending the output of the channel to the delay. This is where the wheels came off the bus. You need to send the output of the channel to the main output.

Then you need to set up an aux output of the channel and send that to the delay. Set the delay to 100% wet on the delay plugin.

When you do it this way, the dry signal goes straight to the main output, the aux send will route the signal to the delay, which you can control the volume of by using the fader on the delay buss. (or using the level control on the aux send)
 
RAMI said:
Turn the effect to 100% wet. The only possible way a send effect can make vocals too loud is if you have some dry signal in the effect channel. The only way that can happen is if you don't have the effect set to 100% wet.

You can try a million other things but, if you don't put the effect to 100% wet, send effect will always be making your vocals too loud. It's really as simple as that. You're wasting your time otherwise.....and so are we.
Click to expand...

ok so i contacted sonar directly, and they told me that i have to select "insert send assistant"


after doing that i opened up a different reverb then the original one i was using i made sure it was 100% wet

and it sounds great now! in my breverb plugin which i like better i cant get to sound right i tried making 100% wet but i might be doing it wrong
i set it back to default so you guys can see


so know this is what my tracks look like...does it look ok?

 
Yup. I've given up trying to help.

Dude, set your reberb to 100% dry and see how that works out for you.
 
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