Just to add on to this thread, since some people might not understand why would they need to sidechaining & inlines. Also where effects 'should' be in relations with each other.
The correct method in using reverb, is to side chain it within' your signal chain of course. Before that, everyone should know that you should not use effects during tracking, but use it during mixdowns. So I'll be talking about using it in the mixdown process. When your finished tracking, and you have all your tracks laid down (say like 12)... And you want to use a effects unit on your vocals.... (most people will mix down half the instruments before touching the vocals, but most people will also agree that you would need to mix down the vocals somewhere soon - so this is for vocals with hardware) Using say
a SPX 90 delay effects unit, you would want to side chain it because if you inline it during mixdown, you'll run the possible risk of loosing the original sound. That's something you don't want btw lol. When sidechaining, you would always want the effects processor to shoot out 100% wet signal, which can either be returned onto it's own seperate channel (usually what I do), so that you can pan it or what not. Or if your needing it to be used in various tracks, you might want to send it to the aux returns (when sending it side chain, you'll be sending it using the aux sends on a console). A delay processor gives you a lot of different type of time effects (like reverb, delay, chorus, etc). Anyways, if you send it back to an aux return, you'll be able to add the reverb to any of your tracks that you want reverb to show up on. That part is for hardware, now, when your using Pro Tools, you would want to have a Aux track created, and... um shit... either buss out or interface out... of pro tools, and the track set to the same output as the aux track input. That's side chaining. I don't know about any other programs, but Pro Tools itself allows you to use internal side chaining, meaning that you can setup the aux track, and go to insert send and add a plug-in from there, and either send it to another track, or leave it where it is and mess with it there but it still being side chains. BTW when I said the wet signal needs to be all the way up, that doesn't mean that when your on the console to turn it all the way up either.... you add in reverb using the aux return knobs to your liking.
Now for inline patching during mixdown. You'll want to inline patch for things like compressors, gates, expanders, limiters, eq etc... Otherwise you'll get say 1 side uncompressed, and the wet signal compressed... Wouldn't sound that much pleasent. The concept is kind of like the above, but not quite. Most people (not like us lol), already use inline patching for everything they use, from reverbs to compressors. Inline patching is just taking the signal, breaking it at the first point, running it through a processor, and then from processor back into the line and keeps going. Side chain patching, the signal stays moving forward, but a copy of the signal is routed to the processor, and sends it back to the line where it meets up with the original signal all in sync. Anyways, using a plugin on the track itself (like on all recording software), usually means that your just basically inline patching it. It would be like
track-----signal----------------------processor--------signal----track
Side chaining would be like
track----signal-----------------------------------------------track
...........................^processor^.................................
I'll add onto this in a few moments on other subjects... bored as hell sitting around here..
