The order which plugins are applied?

[iharpyou]

It seems it makes a world of difference how you put them one after another

Is this correct?

1. Compression 2 Delay or (and) reverb 3. EQ ?

[karbomusic]

It always "depends".

For Reverb and Delay it is often a good idea to place those on their own separate tracks then use sends to send your track to them and blend to taste. Especially true if you want more than one track using the same reverb or delay.

For compression/EQ. It is common to place an EQ before and/or after...

Before: You have frequencies you know need to be cut from the instrument, there is not much use having frequencies you don't even want triggering the compressor. So the EQ before the compressor might cut those first - conversely the opposite may be true, some frequency you want more of AND you want the compressor acting on it. In other words the before compressor EQ affects how the compressor reacts.

After: The compression has already happened and you are now just wanting to tone shape, tweak with EQ. This has zero effect on the compressor.

[serr]

Originally Posted by iharpyou

It seems it makes a world of difference how you put them one after another

Is this correct?

1. Compression 2 Delay or (and) reverb 3. EQ ?

Signal flow -> follow the wires from one to the next to the next...

If we assume this is a reverb or delay fx bus you are creating to send to.
You compress the incoming signal, generate the reverb or delay from it, and then eq that result (perhaps rolling off all the highs and all the lows as usually done for this kind of thing). Seems pretty standard for this kind of thing.

If this was a source track (instrument or vocal) and you had ambience generating fx on the same track and compressed and eq'd the whole thing together - like Karbo thought you might be doing. Then same comment, putting ambience generation on it's own track(s) is a lot more useful for making a mix. You can just grab the fader on the reverb track (used as an fx bus) and adjust to taste. You can compress and eq the reverb by itself. Doing any of those things with all that on the same track would be constant back and forth opening those plugins and adjusting wet/dry balance. Then every time you had to do that you's need to readjust everything else in the chain. Probably be such a PITA you might just give up!

A little dramatic there but hopefully that gets the idea across.
But if this is an fx bus only and the aim was to compress what you are sending to the reverb and then eq it - carry on!

[iharpyou]

Originally Posted by karbomusic

It always "depends".

For Reverb and Delay it is often a good idea to place those on their own separate tracks then use sends to send your track to them and blend to taste. Especially true if you want more than one track using the same reverb or delay.

For compression/EQ. It is common to place an EQ before and/or after...

Before: You have frequencies you know need to be cut from the instrument, there is not much use having frequencies you don't even want triggering the compressor. So the EQ before the compressor might cut those first - conversely the opposite may be true, some frequency you want more of AND you want the compressor acting on it. In other words the before compressor EQ affects how the compressor reacts.

After: The compression has already happened and you are now just wanting to tone shape, tweak with EQ. This has zero effect on the compressor.

Thanks

Ok do you mean I create one track for reverb
and one more track for just delay?

[karbomusic]

Originally Posted by iharpyou

Thanks

Ok do you mean I create one track for reverb
and one more track for just delay?

Yes if that works for you. Especially for reverb since that is often creating a space and it's common for multiple instruments/tracks to share that space. You can place both reverb and delay on the same extra track if you want, it really comes down to what you want/need.

If you are only using the reverb and delay for that track, then there is nothing wrong with keeping it on the track too but many times, they end up getting shared in some respect so the dedicated tracks for reverb and then delay are usually sensible.

[iharpyou]

Originally Posted by karbomusic

Yes if that works for you. Especially for reverb since that is often creating a space and it's common for multiple instruments/tracks to share that space. You can place both reverb and delay on the same extra track if you want, it really comes down to what you want/need.

If you are only using the reverb and delay for that track, then there is nothing wrong with keeping it on the track too but many times, they end up getting shared in some respect so the dedicated tracks for reverb and then delay are usually sensible.

Great . So I send the main track to Reverb and inside reverb I send it to delay right?

Because I can't send the main track both to reverb and delay at the same time.

[Fabian]

Originally Posted by iharpyou

Because I can't send the main track both to reverb and delay at the same time.

Yes you can. You can send from one track to up to 64 other tracks.

[ashcat_lt]

The times when FX order matters are general when either A) one of the FX is nonlinear in the amplitude domain (compression, distortion, etc) or 2) one of the FX changes over time (“modulation” FX like chorus, flange, etc) AND a time smearing or repeating FX (reverb, delay) in the same chain.

In nonlinear FX, what they actually do to the signal depends on what comes in, and changing what comes in will change how it reacts. EQ after compression just changes the frequency balance of what comes out of the compressor, but EQ before compression actually changes the compression itself (on top of whatever it does to the frequency response). It is very common to put an EQ either side of the compression - the first to help get the compression to react the way we want and the second to sculpt the frequency response after the compression does it’s thing. Sometimes these are almost opposite one another. We might cut a bunch of bass before the compressor to keep it from dominating the squash and then add it back in after to bring back the meat.

Likewise with reverb. Put it before the compressor and it will react to the mixed wet/dry signal, and usually kind of smoosh them together bringing up the fever tails relative to the dry sound almost like a ducking reverb. Put it after the compression, and the compressor only reacts to the dry signal and the dynamic envelope of the reverb is untouched.

Modulation FX obviously change over time, but that only really matters if there are repeats (or nonlinearities, but they’ve already been covered) involved. If the modulation comes after the delay, then both the dry (now) signal and the wet (repeat from before) signal will be in the same part of the sweep. If the modulation comes first, then the dry will be in the part of the sweep where the thing is now, but the repeat will be in the part of the sweep where it was before, which will probably be different unless the plugins are like perfectly in sync.

Delay before reverb or reverb before delay makes no difference as long as there’s no nonlinearities or modulation happening in either one. Same with EQ on either side of either of those. If they are all “pure” FX (not like analog modeled to include saturation and stuff) and none of them are being modulated (algorithmic reverbs sometime are, but that’s often pretty subtle and almost random and doesn’t usually matter as much as like long sweeping weeooo weeeooo type effects), you can change their order without affecting the end result. EQ- reverb-delay or delay-reverb-EQ will be (in the theoretical ideal case anyway) exactly the same.

[vdubreeze]

EQ before compression and EQ after compression yield different results but both are commonly used and neither are wrong if it gets the sound you want.

If you think about it logically, putting a dynamics plugin (ike a compressor or limiter) after an EQ may help to smooth out or even out the sound after you've boosted a frequency range, which might have improved the sonics of the sound but made it a little uneven sounding, or inconsistent across the track. That can happen if you boost lows or highs on an instrument and that improves the sound of it but it needs to be tamed so those boosted frequencies don't now make its levels too inconsistent. Putting the EQ after a compressor is often used to tweak the sonics after you've got the compression setting working right. Sometimes you've nailed the compressor setting but it seems to have come at a cost of a touch of sparkle or maybe low end that the compressor sacrifices too much of, so an EQ after can help bring back some tone lost in the compressing (that's all very dependent on which compressor). So they're both used for different goals. It's very, very common for a track to have an EQ first, then a compressor, and then another EQ, doing exactly those chores. Or compressor/EQ/compressor for the same reason.

Often this doesn't happen on the single track but it's the same concept. If there's a guitar in the mix, that track might have a compressor and then an EQ on it, and then it might go to an aux bus to which all the instrument tracks, perhaps minus drums and vocals, go. This makes it easier to make overall balance adjustments by moving whole groups (instruments, drums, vocals, etc). And there might be another compressor and eq on that.

Sometimes some folks want the compressor to not be heard, just subtly do its job, and other times want it to really be an EFFECT. Same with EQ. There are a billion end results desired and that many ways to do them

Rule #141: If it sounds good, it is good! (Regardless of how you got there)