When you place reverb on a channel, does it sound different than when you put it on a bus? No. Not if everything works the way it’s supposed to.
But you should learn to find out how to discover stuff like this on your own. In audio, the proof is what we often call a null test. Placing a reverb on an insert replaces the unaffected sound with the affected sound.
Let’s dial the wet/dry mix to 50%, wrap it in a bow, and send it to bus 20 for safekeeping. More on that later. Now let’s recreate it on an identical channel.
But this time using a send at Unity Game so it’s the same level as the original. We place an identical reverb on this bus at 100% width, and we wrap both to bus 21 so we can compare. Invert the polarity of either, and there’s your answer.
It passes the null test. No difference. So why choose one method over the other?
In most cases, a send is more flexible. It allows you to share the resource across multiple channels and adjust the wet/dry signal for each here rather than opening up the plugin. But it also allows us to treat that reverb channel separately with discrete effects, or we can place it elsewhere in the stereo field.
Because they sound the same, you can do it however way works best for you. But either way, understanding the difference and how to test it is worthwhile. And you can share that with someone who belongs in a Beat Kitchen class.
