Hey
how's it going I'm Ben Lindell and today
I'm gonna be showing you a couple of
uses for aux tracks and pro tools
the first one is as a subgroup now this
is where I take multiple audio tracks
and I send them down through my aux
track that way I can apply EQ and
compression as well as control the level
for all those tracks with one fader the
second use is as an effect sent now this
way I can send multiple tracks and have
them share a single reverb or delay and
this is gonna save me CPU power and also
make my mix sound more cohesive so let's
get started so here we are in my
well-organized Pro Tools session so the
first set of tracks I want to sub group
together gonna be my drums this way
later on if I need to put any EQ or
compression on all of them I could do
that and I can also automate the volume
throughout the song for all the drums
using just one fader it's now to add an
aux track I'm gonna select the last
track of my drums so that way when I
create an aux track it will be right
next to it and press command shift N or
control shift in on a PC so now my drums
are gonna be in stereo so I select
stereo aux input and press create great
now I'm going to name my track and I'm
gonna color it yellow which is my color
that I use for subgroups because it's
very easy to see throughout the session
next I'm going to solo say from my aux
track by pressing command on a Mac or
control on a PC and clicking on the solo
button this way when I solo a drum I'll
still be able to hear it through my
subgroup now I need to assign an input
to my aux track to do that I come up
here and click on no input select bus
I'm just going to go with the first
available one bus one two now I'd like
to rename my buses as soon as I make
them it'll make it easier to find them
later on so to do that I'm gonna right
click on the bus name and press rename
I'm gonna give it a more descriptive
name such as drums great now for output
I'm just gonna leave it as one two
because that's what I'm using for the
rest of my session so now to send my
drums to my newly made drum subgroup I
select my room my
press shift and click on my kick drum
that selects all my drum tracks and now
to assign them all to my drum subgroup
I'm going to press option shift on a Mac
or alt shift on a PC and click on where
it says 1 2 which is its current output
and reassign them to my newly made drum
buss and there we go now my drums are
going through my drum subgroup and I'm
ready to go so as you can see this is
actually a pretty easy process to do and
it's very easy to repeat so I'm going to
do the same thing for my guitars make a
new stereo aux track give it a name give
it a color solo save input select rename
select the tracks I want to send to my
aux so that's it so I like to do this to
each type of instrument drums guitars
keyboards vocals etc so that way I end
up with about five or six different
yellow sub group faders throughout my
session so that way when I need to turn
the guitars up by one DB I just had to
reach for the guitar subgroup fader or
if I want to high-pass the vocals
instead I having to put a plug on in
each single vocal track I can just add
one EQ to my subgroup track it makes my
life a lot easier now on to my second
use for aux tracks as effects sense so I
need to add reverb to both my snare drum
and my vocal track so to do that I'm
gonna make an aux track and put a reverb
plug-in on it and send both of my vocal
and snare drum to that track I like to
keep all my effects sense at the bottom
of my session so I'm gonna select the
last track in my mix window and then do
create new track again it's command
shift n or control shift n on a PC
select stereo for my reverb and an aux
input again and press create okay I'm
gonna give it a name I'm a naval solo
safe so that way when I solo my vocal or
snare drum I'll still be able to hear
the reverb on it
I'm not going to recolor my effect sense
because I like the green color that the
comment so let's go on and sign it input
again I click on the no input bus and
I'm just gonna go with the next one
available bus five six again I'm gonna
give it a more descriptive name now I
need to insert a reverb plug-in on my
aux track terrific now I'm gonna go to
my vocal track and send to my reverb bus
this brings up my son fader which
controls the amount of signal that's
gonna be sent to my reverb so I'm just
gonna bring this up a whole bunch and
move on over to my snare drum track and
I'm gonna let it share the reverb so I
go and select the same exact bus reverb
again bring us up my son fader I'm gonna
send a whole bunch of it there as well
so there we go now I have both my snare
drum and vocal sharing and reverb so now
they're gonna sound like they're in the
same space and I also don't have to put
a reverb on each individual audio track
which is gonna save me a whole bunch of
CPU power as well today I showed you a
couple uses for aux tracks we've made
some subgroups and also effects sense
and with these allows to do is be more
efficient with our plugin the usage and
also give us a little more control over
the big picture of our mix so that's it
till next time
[Music]