How to Use Sends and Return Tracks [Ableton Live 11 Tutorial]

I just gotta say. I spent 3 hours today trying to figure this out and your video did it in 9 minutes. Thank you so much!

Simple and very informative. 🙌

Wouldn’t you just copy and paste the effects used on a channel and add to the other channels if you wanted to use that same effect on something else? That’s usually what I do

Thank u my man perfect explanation

Thanks Sam. Nice simple video

It makes sense to me that you would increase the reverb to 100% and then adjust in the track from there, but what about the decay, just a common setting and then just adjust individually in the tracks from there? And can you still do automations? It's just pulling from the "reverb" track?

Hello, do you have any idea how we can use the same trick not on a track but on a group of tracks? I would like the same audio effect rack on my drum group and being able to send snare and hi hat separately

nice. How does the Send know which Return track to receive from? It looks like it automagically happened.

do you know why suddenly my return FX isn't working anymore on Live11? I've been using them forever and tried to find possible mistakes, but I have no clue. Is it maybe a Live11 bug? Any solution?

What's the advantage of using a return track instead of just adding the audio effects directly to the vocal track?

Thank you!

woah what song is this

Now this guy knows how to teach!

Hey, this is the first video I have found with a simple description of sends and returns in ableton live. Thanks so much!

question - with delay on a return track i can delay a word in the middle of a phrase and it will tail over the rest of the phrase. example: “this is a test” i can delay the word “is” with automation and the delay tail will bleed over “a test”. when i set up the send inside of a rack this doesn’t happen it just cuts the tail of the delay off when automating the chain volume. is there a way to set the delay send inside of a rack and have the middle word bleed over the phrase like you can using it on a regular return track?

Hello! Thanks for the video! I have one question:
You are about to record some vocals and you have some vocal tracks (lead vocals and vocal layers) that require the same default plugins to get started. For example, you might have a standardized plugin chain like EQ, DeEsser, Compressor, Saturator, Reverb and Delay with default settings for every vocal track you produce.
To save CPU, instead of inserting this plugin chain in each vocal track, people usually suggest using a Return track and inserting the plugin chain there. Then, it's advised to increase the Send level of the vocal tracks to let the audio pass through the Return track and then to the Master.
However, unless the output of the vocal tracks changes from Master to Send Only, you will have double audio going through the master (the audio from the vocal tracks and the return track).
You could also group the vocals and send them to the return track, which leads to the same issue but with less flexibility in the individual tracks.
My question is what is the best practice in the above example, considering the need for further effects per track down the road, as well as gain staging and mixing overall?
Thank you!

if i record guitar and put distortion on my return, i can still hear the original clean recording underneath the distortion (if that makes sense). is there a way to have the clean/direct input muted so I only head the return distortion?

Thanks for a good and informative video. 
In general struggle a bit to get on term with return tracks. Say I have a vocal and I want some reverb. Where do I return that reverb? On the master? Well, I tend to put some effects on there. Also, I tend to side chain my instruments with the vocals, so should the return then be to a separate bus mix with the vocals and the bus then being the sidechain signal, or just leave the reverb out of it? And if I blend it in a bus, way mess up the workflow with an additional bus track using a return track instead of adding it directly to the vocal track? 
I can see the benefit in having a collective reverb for som instruments, but don't you want different reverb according to where you want them in your bus? I have been experimenting with 3 reverb channels, for near, far and mid-placed instruments, and this is one of the few real benefit I find from the return tracks. For the rest I often find individual settings overriding the general needs, e.g. compressors, saturations etc. 

It would be very useful to have a guide on what general returns is useful in a mix and when.

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Useful!👍