An effect is a channel
The effect channels stand after the strips, in channel order, and they belong to the whole desk, never one per track. Tracks that share a reverb sound like they are in the same room.
+ adds one. Four come with the desk. More are Studio's. Only the last channel can be taken off, because a channel's number is what every send points at.
What a channel runs
One picker on the channel decides, and it can be changed at any time: VERB a plate reverb, ECHO a delay, CHOR a chorus, and with Studio, COMP a compressor and CONV an impulse response. Studio
There is no list to scroll and nothing to load. The only question left is how much, which is the question that was always worth asking.
Sending
- FXThe sends to the effect channels.
Every strip carries one send row per effect channel, on the FX page, tapped after the fader. The rows stand in the channels' own order, numbered, the same on every strip, so a row you reach for is always the same row.
Send a little, listen to the song rather than the effect, and stop when the singer sounds like they're standing somewhere.
The channel is all wet
An effect channel is 100% wet and has no mix knob. The balance against the dry sound is the send and the return fader, which is where a desk has always kept it. A mix control here would be a worse copy of two controls you already have.
It is also what makes the compressor channel parallel compression: the desk holds the dry signal, and the channel holds the squeezed one.
It has a strip of its own
Top to bottom, in signal order: LOW CUT and HIGH CUT, a TAPE knob with a PRE | POST seat Studio, then the engine and its knobs, then SPREAD and MONO, and its return fader last.
It shows all of itself on every page. An effect channel is a thing on the desk, not a section of a strip. Everything on it defaults out of the way, so a channel you have not touched sounds like the engine alone.
Rename it on the plate under its fader, with a double-click. Left empty, the desk calls it after whatever engine it is running.
Soloing an effect channel
on an effect channel solos every strip feeding it: the room and what is in it.
⌘-click on it is the wet solo: the return alone, with the desk's direct sound out of the way. Like MONO, it is a way of listening and is never saved.
Choosing an impulse
On a CONV channel, click the name plate and every impulse in the program opens in a list, with what was measured about each one beside its name: DECAY the time to −60 dB, CLARITY the first 80 ms against the rest, TONE where its weight sits, and CORR how alike the two sides are.
The list stays up while you press through it, because a reverb is chosen by listening down the list. < and > beside the plate step through the same order without opening anything.
The echo and the tempo
The song has one tempo, and the echo is the only thing that reads it. A note value means nothing without one. It is not the start of a grid: there is still no metronome and no bar count. See the timeline.