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A question for people who know more about this than me (wouldn't be too hard.) If I use the STM 2448 mixer, I have 6 aux sends, which I will use for FX. I can run them as external or internal. Running them in internal mode, I would need to use the 'External Master Effects' insert on the returns, and in external mode, I would just wire things up directly from the mixer to the sends/receives. Apart from keeping things cleaner in the routing window, is there any benefit to running external effects this way? The biggest benefit I can see for using 'internal' is the built in sample compensator for external effects. When would you want to use the aux sends in external mode?

usually, it's just easier for me to wire them externally. i like to return to channels rather than effect returns when possible, more freedom and an eq section...that also makes it possible to use things in ways that i might not otherwise.

OK, good point about returning FX to channels. I take it, you don't run into phase cancellation problems? The documentation says "When you overlay the dry and wet signals, adjustments must be made to ensure they remain in phase with each other".

ooooh, .. I could talk about this in some detail. !!

welll....

when you use an analog board and cables and a patchbay, nothing's phase coherent anyway. if i notice a big problem, then i'll deal with it. most mixes don't suffer. a sandwich of bass drums and synths might be more problematic. usually, the kind of effects that are in auxs are delays, reverbs and modulation effects. these are by nature out of phase with everything else...

Yes, using AUX sends & returns on any mixer will always introduce unwanted results (delays) (even if they sound good).