I’m about to pull the plug on an Allen and heath zed 14 mixer. I see it has 4 aux sends, 2 pre and 2 post fader. Having only ever really used in the box mixing (Ableton) I’ve never used pre fader sends before. Could someone with more experience of this explain to me when I might want to to use pre or post fader for sending to fx? Cheers
When you’re riding the faders on a channel, the auxes with your delay and reverb are handy to mix around a part by having the dry signal disappear and only the echoes running for a short passage.
Post fader, the effect signal would disappear too once the volume on the channel is down.
edit: but really the use of it depends on how everything is wired up, sometimes mutes or grouping might mess with the post fader sends, whereas everything typically stays intact with the pre fader sends.
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For fx, usually post fader sends, because when you lower levels on a track, less of the signal will go to the fx. If you pull the fader down, no signal goes to the fx from that track.
But sometimes you want to send pre fader to fx, because you want it not to depend on track levels.
The return tracks in Live can be set to pre fader (just click on the ‘post’ button in the return track section, the button changes color and the return track is now pre fader), you can experiment a bit in Live, if you want.
A track set to higher level will send more level to the fx and a track set to a lower level will send less level to the fx.
This way your fx levels stay consistant.
Btw, the AH Zed 14 is a great little mixer, the two pre fader sends can be switched to stereo. Very handy if you’re monitoring through the aux sends, recording and for stereo fx. 
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Pre Fader sends are not really suitable for fx… main use is for making a monitor mix on stage or for recording
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When I was recording conferences we always demand a pre fader mix so that I get all the signals - even if the sound guy made a mistake I would have been able to correct his mistakes in post - so I was using it as a backup if the stereomixdown was unusable.
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Pre fader sends are nice for sending separate tracks to the sidechain input on a compressor for example. Like if you want some classic ducking, you can send the mix without the kick, and send the kick via pre fade aux to the sidechain.
Or if you have effects that you want 100% wet. Like phasers, chorus and such.
Or if you want to use the effects own wet/dry mix.
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Thanks everyone. Think I’ve got it. Such a friendly and useful community this.
I’ve recently got a Zed 14 and I’d recommend it, it’s a really nice sounding desk with a good amount of flexibility on the routing. I’ve got the 2 post fader aux sends going to reverbs and delays on an iPad via an audio interface. I use the ore fader aux 1 purely to send a kick signal to the sidechain input of the compressor I’m running on the master inserts. I can use the aux 1 control on the kick channel to increase or decrease the amount of sidechain happening to the overall mix.
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@thomaso could you please circle back on this comment and explain it a bit more?
What’s the idea for using pre-fader auxes for modulation fx? And or FX with wet/dry?
After some thinking, it would make sense to me if at the same time, you wouldn’t send that channel to the main mix (with fader) and only feed the return from FX to the main mix.
Is that what you’ve meant? Is this a common practice?
It haven’t occurred to me till today that there might be channels on the mixer going into main mix only via returns with channel faders completely down.
I was looking for ways to use pre-fader auxes I might be missing and this is the first one I’ve found.
I generally prefer to use pre-fader sends for FX like delay/reverb, just gives me greater control over the wet/dry balance. It lets me easily do things like have almost no dry level so things sound really distant in the reverb.
For typical mixing of an existing song duties post-fade probably makes more sense most of the time. For creative sound design type stuff pre-fade is more useful and interesting IMO.
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Nice discussion of all the above mentioned options here:
Pre fader is great for dubby delays. Mute a signal and open and close the send for 100% wet Reverb and delay tails…
For some fx like granular or stutter (or modulation as mentioned), you don’t always want to hear the dry signal. For a stutter/gate, it’s pretty obvious why. You have the same 100% wet option as with an insert, but with the added routing options.
Or think about a limiter on a delay, makes no sense of the dry signal will still destroy your ears…
It’s also a great tool for going experimental. Loop pre-fader fx channels to other sends and back on themselves… Play with fader and send independently… More options to use the mixer as an instrument!
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