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Thread: Effects Send & Return doubling output

  1. #1
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    Effects Send & Return doubling output

    I'm setting up my old DJ equipment (SL1200M3Ds, with a Technics SH-MZ1200, and a Pioneer EFX-500 -- old I know!) and one thing I never felt I got correct was the Effect Send/Return.

    The mixer has EFFECT ON/OFF for each channel and then SEND and RETURN knobs with a PRE/POST switch. With everything setup through SEND and RETURN, switching a channel (say CH4) to EFFECT ON doesn't divert the signal to the effects bus, it copies it. So, if I have the CH4 fader up and the RETURN knob up, MASTER OUT will have that tinny, doubling sound.

    Now this makers somewhat sense to me if the effect bus was adding reverb where you would want both the wet and dry, but for a live DJ setup it's always been a huge pain. I want the dry sound to be muted when I turn the EFFECT ON for CH4 because I might decide to add an effect in the middle of the track. What I had done in the past is simultaneously quickly hit the EFFECT ON and slam the fader all the way down. This was a pain to get right and then I was limited to only being able to adjust the wet with the RETURN knob.

    What I wound up doing was setting the output of the EFX-500 effects box to the LINE IN of CH3. Now I switch EFFECT ON CH4, then bring up the fader on CH3 to about the half way point, and simultaneously quickly slam CH3 fader up and CH4 fader down. Again, not the most elegant solution, but it's much easier to sync two faders than a fader and a switch.

    My question is: is this normal design? I've heard analogies of an effects bus being a "detour" of the signal, but in my case it seems like it's a duplicate of the signal. Ideally I would want the dry muted when I switch EFFECT ON.

  2. #2
    Member Daniel S's Avatar
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    Yes, that's quite a common design. It's the way effect sends have worked on larger mixing consoles for ages. The idea is you set the FX unit to fully wet and do the mixing of wet and dry signal with the mixer. This works with delays, echoes and flanges but not so much with the specialized effects on the EFX, like pan, trans or the isolator.

    I usually set on of the mixer channels as FX return instead, so you get better control. This gives the advantage of being able to feed the FX unit back to itself for a wild dub echo effect

  3. #3
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    Try setting your DJ mixers FX send switch to prefader ,then turn down your channel fader and route the channel through your EFX 500 and use its controls to monitor you dry and wet signals.

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