Now my workflow with that is , if I was sending the signal out to a compressor for a sort of parallel compression , for example , I would do it pre-fader , because once I've got that set I don't want my fader movements to then affect any gain reduction or how that compressor responds to the audio .
That's something I tripped up a lot on when I first started this way , back when , years and years ago , until somebody said to me why are you doing that ? Why are they post-fader ? And then I realized , oh yeah , they're not actually doing anything . You're listening to the Inside the Mix podcast with your host , Mark Matthews .
Welcome to Inside the Mix , your go-to podcast for music creation and production . Whether you're crafting your first track or refining your mixing skills , join me each week for expert interviews , practical tutorials and insights to help you level up your music and smash it in the music industry . Let's dive in . Hello folks , welcome to Inside the Mix .
Welcome back if you are a returning listener or viewer , if you're watching this on YouTube . So in today's episode I am joined again by the Watch it Wanderer himself , tim aka Aisle9 . So he's joining me today and we're going to be tackling another listener question . So before we do that , if you do have a question we'd love to hear from you .
You can click the SpeakPipe link in the episode description and submit up to 30 seconds of a question . Hey , tim , mark , mark , tim , whichever way around you want to do it , my question is da , da , da . And then give yourself a shout out .
You can find me at XYZ , or maybe you're releasing some music or something and it's evergreen content , so it'll always be in that episode . Alternatively , if audio isn't your thing , you can just dm me at inside the mix on instagram and send me a dm with a question , or email me , mark at synth music masteringcom .
You'll find links in the episode description to all this . If you are new to this and you want to get an idea of how it's going to sound , you can check out episode 175 . In fact , just listen to this episode . You'll get an idea , to be honest , but you can go back and listen to episode 175 , which is the most popular one so far of 2025 .
Now , technically , we did release it at the end of 2024 . However , it's been an incredibly popular episode , so that's enough of my ramble . Uh , tim , welcome back . How are you ?
Yeah , I'm all right . Thanks , and yourself yeah .
I'm okay . I'm okay . My voice , as we were saying , off air at times I think it did then in the intro might drop a little bit . I've got some I don't know if they're canker sores that sounds like something you get on your foot . I think I've got something like that in my throat . I could be wrong . That's a self-diagnosis from NHS Online .
So , yeah , my voice drops every now and again .
Yeah , well , I'm hobbling around , but other than that , I'm all right . Yeah , I seem to have annoyed my knee , but other than that , I'm okay yeah .
Yeah , something in the water in the southwest . Maybe I was actually in your neck of the woods yesterday . I went the southwest . Maybe I was actually you're in in your neck of the woods . Uh , yesterday I went to dunster yeah , lovely , yeah , I did . Yeah , yeah , I went . Indeed , I went with my fiancee and we went for a wander around dunster castle .
I'm a national trust uh member . Yeah , it's , it's . It's a nice place to go , dunster castle . I sort of you have to resist the piano .
There's a piano in dunster castle that you can just play I think somebody was so I Dunster Castle that you can just play . I think somebody was so I quickly left .
Yeah , yeah , you could just start playing it . So I was tempted to play my appalling version of Boogie Woogie Piano , but I decided that's my party . Piece is to pretend I'm Jules Hollum for five minutes until people realise I've only got three riffs .
Yeah , that was me most of my life when I was playing guitar to be honest , whenever I'd go into a guitar shop , I only had about three riffs . Uh , get back to the topic of this episode . So we're answering your questions .
So this particular question was actually a comment on one of my youtube videos , so it goes back to episode 125 and the question was what are some creative uses of pre and post faders in music production ? So quite a nerdy question , to be honest . Not doing any disservice , but we're going to dive into that .
So in this episode , the difference between pre and post faders , some examples of when you might use both and maybe some tips to avoid common mistakes as well . So , pre and post faders , what are pre and post faders ? So maybe I'll do pre fader and then you can do post fader too .
All right , okay , maybe we'll do that yeah .
So , pre fader , we're sending a signal via an auxiliary send to a bus or busing out to an auxiliary send , rather get it around the right way , and it is pre-fader .
So any movements we make to that fader , it's not going to affect the signal that is sent via that auxiliary send to that channel , wherever it is you're sending , whether it's an auxiliary send or it's to another channel , whatever it may be . So that's essentially , in a nutshell , what pre-fader is . It is literally pre-fader .
If you can imagine a mixing board , a desk in front of you , it's that pre that fader movement . So that fader movement's not going to affect the signal . Um , I'll throw , throw a post fader over to you , tim yeah , throw the fader to me .
Yeah , indeed . So yeah , um , there was a throw the fader joke in there . Yeah , basically , uh , post fader is going to be that the signal you're sending out of your auxiliary will be changed by the movement of the fader . So it comes in the signal chain after the fader , so the signal um will be affected by the movement of the fader .
So as you pull the fader down , you know the amount of signal going to that auxiliary will go down to um , no matter what level you've sent to it . It will reduce with the fader or go up with the fader if you push it up .
So there we go indeed , yes , yes , ideal for natural effects blending .
I've got my notes written down here , but we do have another one that we were discussing before we joined , or rather started this , this episode , and that was post pan not the elusive character from hook , but post pan , uh which we were discussing , weren't we , whether that's post fader and then post pan or whether it's just post pan , but I believe it is post
fader than post pan . I'll probably get corrected on that , but the idea being that the signal is represented wherever you position it in the stereo field , in the stereo channel that you send it to .
So if you've got a vocal that's slightly left or slightly right , it's , then they're going to appear slightly left and slightly right in the channel or the send , wherever you're sending it , and we were discussing as well before this started . It's not something that I really think that much about .
No not at all , really . No , me , neither no , and it all depends . I suppose it all depends as well whether the auxiliary send is a stereo auxiliary send or a mono auxiliary send because you can't represent pan in a mono auxiliary fan sound but like um , as far as I know , we we normally a lot of the time in your typical daw , your kind of session .
You're talking about a stereo yeah sort of um presentation of it , but like one one use that I did think that is probably something worth saying which probably doesn't come into your standard music production , like we're doing , but comes into live music production a lot .
And when you and does come into , like if you're recording a band in a studio , is that like typically , you will use auxiliaries to send a separate mix to like people and live things .
You might send them to your monitors on stage , to your in-ears you might send them like a headphone mix yeah , headphone mix to band members in the studio and you would typically do that pre-fader because you don't want the mixer who's mixing front of house , let's say for the band , or , when you're in the studio , the engineer who's recording and listening back in
the control room . You don't want movements of their mix to affect the mix in the band's ears , in the monitors . So it's called a cue mix , isn't it really at that point . But you would do that pre-fader always , and it's a classic one not to do it pre-fader . And then things go awry very quickly when you're trying to set up mixes .
You've got a stage full of musicians and you're busy , you've got that on the wrong setting and like you're suddenly finding that every time you change a sound out front it's changing their mix in their headphones .
Yeah , yeah , it's not what I thought about , to be fair , because it's been a very long time since I've recorded , been in a recording studio and actually like recorded any sort of musicians in one , in one space in particular , all together , uh , but yeah , I hadn't really thought about that interesting or , like you say , live sound as well .
You got the um , the in-ear mix as well .
Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah so if you're a gigging musician at the minute taking your door out and doing all those you know you might want to think about that kind of thing . Because I did that where I sort of wanted to give myself .
You know , from my daw I wanted to give a when I was doing the live thing at the fleece , wanted to give the , the front of house , one sort of mix and wanted to give me and the drummer different mixes , um , when we were performing . So we need to make sure they were pre-fader and go .
You know what , whenever I gigged I I don't suppose we ever got to the level where we really needed them , but I never used , I never actually gigged within ears . I never experienced it , never did experience it .
So once one thing I'd like to I used to gig with um sort of uh , what they call it , uh in your ears protection , ear protection , whatever it may be . Uh , but never actually having a , a mix going into into my ears . In that sense it would have been interesting to do .
Maybe it's something I'll add that to my bucket list to actually perform a live show using in-ears . I did mixes for people with in-ears but never used them myself , interestingly .
Yeah , no , it can be great when they're really good and can be unbelievably terrible when they're bad .
I can imagine .
At which point you throw them out and hope you can hear something on the stage . Yeah , you see that , don't you ? Sometimes you ?
see the the vocalist , and suddenly you just see them rip out the in-ear and then they're just going for it . You think something's possibly gone awry there with their uh with them with their in-ear , with their , with their mix there , uh , but let's move on to the creative , creative ways to use pre-fader sends .
So obviously we've got sending it out to reverbs , to delays , and we're going to use post fader in that instance . So it's relative stays , relative to the , the sort of wet signal and then the dry signal , um , but what about use cases for pre-fader going out to sort of time-based processing ? What are your thoughts on that ?
yeah , I mean , I , I well , I , I actually use it quite a lot . I didn't use to , um , nearly as much as I do now . But like I think you know , say you've got you know a synth and you want to particularly get that synth sound to sort of you know really sort of blend right to the background of a mix .
You know , I mean I think very much how you think of mixing in three dimensions and sort of the more wet something is , the more it disappears and it sits back in the mix , and the drier it is , the more up front it is . So you know , say you wanted to make that synth feel like it sits at the back of the mix more .
Yeah , you can just turn up the auxiliary so it's got more reverb on it .
But you may reach a point where that's you know , you've got so much of the dry signal , you've got a kind of 50've got so much of the dry signal , you've got a kind of 50-50 blend , haven't you of dry signal and wet signal really in your mix and you might go well , that's not kind of really the blend I want . I want a much more wet signal .
So if you change that to pre-fader , you can definitely push up the , the pre-fade send and then take your . You can reduce your fader , your , your channel fader , down until the point where you've got much more of a wet blend . You know , and that could be a really good thing .
Um , because you might not want the , the sound , to be that loud in the mix , you might want it to be sitting quite quietly in the mix , at which point you wouldn't have if it was going post fader , you wouldn't have enough signal to get a really wet sound on on on the reverb .
So you know , if you want to really reap a wet sound but like quite low in the mix , then pre-fader might be a way to achieve that .
That's what I'd suggest it's kind of like really over emphasizing the wet sound versus the , versus the , the dry sound . It's an interesting one that . So it's not something that I do a massive amount of and I've never had to actually do it .
But do you ever and I'm thinking off the top of my head here and I'm thinking , would I do this , but you do you have a separate pre and post fade ascend going to the same reverb to put for ?
Because I'm thinking here because in a song you might have this really sort of ambient section or breakdown and you really want to emphasize that wet signal and you could do what you did what you said there , which is where you're going to drop out the dry signal and really and just have that that sort of reverb .
But throughout the rest of the track you might want the reverb to remain relative to the audio itself and have it in post fader .
So in which case , because I think , to myself , so you could have two , two auxiliary sends one set pre one set to post , yeah yeah I haven't done that either , but like it's totally logical . Yeah , I can see a point in doing that ? Yeah , yeah I might .
I might experiment with that . It's not something I've ever tried doing . I guess it's because , in all honesty , I don't really think a massive amount about panning Not panning I do about panning , about pre and post-fader sounds . I just kind of think , oh , that's the sound I want , I'll do it , and then it sort of materializes from that .
With regards to that , I'm thinking of synths here and what . What I like to do is , when I've got multiple sort of synth sounds going on , I like to have one sort of main reverb for the synths and then send them all to that particular reverb just to glue and blend them all together . Do you do something similar or do you have separate ?
What's your workflow with that ?
so you mean , do you send them from the channels or just sort of blend like a group of them ? Is that what you're meaning ?
oh , send it from the channels , send it from the channels themselves . So , on each reverb , I've got sorry . On each synth I've got a send going to us , let's say , air quotes , synth reverb , and then just putting them all in one space , um , that's what I tend to do do you do ?
I probably tend to do that , although I sometimes blend . So I'll have like a short reverb , long reverb or slightly different feel of reverb , like a plate in a hall or something like that , and I may be blending different elements so like they may be going to more than one reverb , like within the mix . You know the same , so you might .
All the synths might have slightly different blends on them are often , to be honest , you know , I mean since come a lot of the vsts now like come with so much reverb on them that you spend half your time trying to take the original ones off , or blend them in correctly , but um , and that that's um and that obviously would affect how you , you know um , your
your sort of send routine . You need to think about that sometimes , about sort of taking effects off , so that you've got more control in the mix with these kind of techniques , as we mean , as we're talking , because if you don't do that you haven't got much control in the first place .
You know it's interesting you mentioned that about the effects within a synth , because for the most part , like you say , the majority of them do come with them and it's something that I generally , uh , just turn off for the most part .
And then I like to see maybe sometimes I cut off my nose to spark my face and doing that and it might actually sound better with the reverb in it . But I'm like no , I'm not going to do that , I'm going to do it the way I usually do it . So maybe I need to . I guess that's the thing .
It goes back to what we said there earlier about the use of multiple sends . There aren't really any rules . I guess you could do it as long as it the classic isn't it as long as ? It sounds good , it is good that classic phrase that goes on .
But another we've touched on there on the use of time-based processing .
What about things or processes with regards to sort of dynamic range control , let's say compression for example ? And now my workflow with that is , if I was sending the signal out to a compressor for a sort of parallel compression , for example , I would do it pre-fader , because once I've got that set , I don't want my fader movements to then affect .
No , you don't want your fader movements to affect that Exactly , affect any gain reduction or how that compressor responds to the audio ? That's something I tripped up a lot on when I first started . Uh , this way back when , years and years ago , until I somebody said to me , why are you doing that ? Uh , why are they post fader ?
Then I realized , oh yeah , they're not actually doing anything . Um , when I , when I moved that , so is that something you do as well , or do you ? Yeah ?
can you think of a ?
use case where you might do it differently .
I can't think of one really uh , hmm , boy , you've got me stumped there I can't think of one . No , because I agree , like , if you're doing a dynamics thing like that , then it's parallel .
You , you don't want the yeah , you don't want it to change as you move the fader , like because , um , well , yeah , I said hmm , I suppose , well , I don't know , I mean , you don't , yes , this is tricky , because you don't want the amount of send that you're putting into that dynamics processor , because you're , you say you're putting the drum bus through and
you're putting , you're getting a nice parallel compression on there , then you're not going to want that to change depending on where you set the fader of the drum mix . But , um , but there again , um , you are going to want the amount of parallel compression you're putting back into your mix to change alongside your overall drum mix , aren't you ?
yeah , yeah yeah , yeah , so you say you , so you've got .
But you'll naturally balance that up by ear , won't you ? You'll kind of change the drums and then you'll balance them down . So yeah , I know what you mean . I don't know that there's an 100 correct or wrong way to do that , but I think I would do it the same way as you where I'd send it in pre-fader into that .
I mean , I really enjoy the kind of thing of sending to reverbs on sort of vocals and stuff like pre-fader , because sometimes I really like that thing of fading something out into the reverb or into delay as well . That can be really good .
Another thing , which isn't the pre-postader thing , but I , I I do really like that was doing it today , where I was sending , like my , my reverb returns back into a delay .
So yeah , I do it the other way interestingly . Yeah , yeah , yeah , but I'm gonna try it that way yeah , yeah .
So I mean both are interesting . So you know , this whole kind of signal flow of where you decide to send something , where you put it in there and and it can be , can create different things . And yeah , that whole sort of thing of like , um , sort of pre or post , can make it quite different , a different effect , um .
But it is sometimes nice to be fading things out into , into , like at the end of a song or something you maybe want , like , I mean , I don't know , quite often I've had that where I sort of want to fade everything down , but like the reverb to sort of stay or something or continue across . You know .
So I really like the idea of that . Yeah , it's quite nice . I quite like the idea of I'm thinking with synths in particular of just everything fades down , as it were , and then you're just left with this nice ambient synth , this ambient tail coming on which you then , of course can fade down on the return , the , on the return itself .
So you know , um so so you have got complete control . But yeah , you can get a different effect than just fading everything down straightforwardly yeah , also with .
I'm thinking as well with , with pre-faders , with , with . It goes back to compression as well , with side chain compression ah yeah , would be another use case for it as well with pre-fader .
I can't think of why you would go the other way again , which would make sense yeah yeah , sidechaining things yeah yeah , that whole sort of thing of , yeah , you need the volume , you need consistent sort of volume . So , yeah , and that could be useful . I've done that . Um , ah , that's an interesting point , I'd not thought of this .
But like , uh , you're right .
Like , for instance , if you're side chaining off a kick let's say you're using your kick to side chain , a compressor on your bass um , uh , then I've done it where I've gone , like , say , there's a period where you don't want your kick drum in there , but you still want the side chaining to be going on then , you use the pre-fade to be sending to the side
chain . So the pre-fade off of the kick sends to the side chain and then you duck the main volume out of the kick drum . In the mix you automate that so it's not there for eight bars but the kick is still going via the pre-fade . Send to the compressor and you'll still get the ducking effect .
You know , you know what that's . That's exactly what I do , but I'd never thought of just ducking the kick drum . I duplicated the track .
Ah , yeah , yeah , with the midi or with the kick drum or the kick drum recording and just use that as a sidechain .
Yeah , yeah , with no stereo output , so there's no audio coming from it .
Yeah , I've done the same as well .
Yeah , yeah , which I suppose . But when you mentioned it there , I'm thinking why don't I just automate the fader just to drop at that point ? That would make more sense .
But again make balls , but again the beauty of music .
There's more than one way to more than one way to do it , but yeah , yeah , yeah , exactly I .
I think that wraps up our discussion on on pre and post faders um although we haven't really thought of many good uses for post pan , there we go .
No , no when we were discussing the compression side of things , I was thinking to myself is that , is there ? Is there a use case there for post pan , maybe ? If I mean , how would that link to because I've never done this , I'm thinking off the top of my head how would that link to if you are compressing the left and right channels differently ?
Would would that make any difference ? I'd have to , I'd have to experiment with it .
I I think I could be wrong , because I don't know whether that's post-pan and post-fader or not yeah , yeah , yeah but if it's not , and it's just post the pan but not the fader , so it's pre-fader but post-pan then that would actually be exactly how you would want to potentially send something to headphones .
Maybe if you were replicating a mix in headphones or something that's the only thing I could think of is like , say , you want to copy the mix you've got to people's headphones so they can hear it , but they want to have volume control .
That you might send it the other side of the pan , but you know , yeah , and I realized I answered my own question there when I said about compressing the left and right channel differently , because if it is post-fader , then that totally sort of contradicts what we were discussing there about dynamic range control in pre-fader .
So I sort of answered my own question . Now that I think about it , I'm going to pay more attention to going forward with regards to the changes just how it sounds and creating these sends and whatnot with PostPan , and also dig into it a bit more in terms of answering our question whether it's PostFader as well .
No doubt we will get somebody to turn around and say yes or no , which will be quite helpful . So if you're watching this on YouTube , please knock it in the comments . Enlighten us . I'm assuming you've got Postpan and Cubase right , would ?
I be correct . I'm assuming you're right , which means I don't know . I will look . I honestly haven't had a reason to use it , so obviously pre and post , but almost certainly , I would think , because Cubase is never short of options like that . It's just like you know , life is short yeah , I was going to say on that .
We'll end it on that , on that sort of summary there of that . Folks , if you have enjoyed this and you have a question that you would like Tim and I to attempt to answer or answer in one of these episodes , please , as I said right at the beginning , use that SpeakPipe link , send us a message .
You don't need an account with SpeakPipe , you don't need a particular setup . You can just use your mobile phone like you're sending a WhatsApp message or whatever other platform you use for your instant messaging , and you can send that . Alternatively , just DM me on Instagram it's probably the easiest way with your question and you can get featured on the podcast .
Tim , it's been a pleasure Until next time . I'll , yeah , hope the leg gets better . I'll speak to you soon .