Blend Wet into Dry (Send) vs Parallel Processing

Hello everyone,

I’m having hard time to really understand the difference between “Blend Wet into Dry (Send)” vs “Parallel Processing”. I’ve tried both, but I figured out that one is clearly louder than the other. I really want to dig into it… Usually, I use a wet knob that give the information based on a %. So when WET KNOB is at 0%, it means for me that the signal is not processed, so it’s 100% DRY. Also, when the WET KNOB is at 100%, it means for me that the signal is fully processed, so it’s 0% DRY. In Wavelab, I understand that it’s not about % but about dB. And it gives me a hard time…

What does it mean Wet+dry : +0dB? Does WET and DRY are being pushed by +0dB?
Blend 10 dB.png
What does it mean Wet : +10dB? Only the WET sound is been pushed by 10 dB?
Parallel 0 dB.png
What does it mean Wet : 0dB? Could it be the 50% WET, 50% DRY?
Blend 0 dB.png
To help me, I’ve read the Operation Manual of Wavelab 9 and I’m having trouble understanding this information at the page 351. I’m not figuring out the real difference between those those 2 definitions :

Blend Wet into Dry (Send) : Mixes the wet part of the plug-in output with the dry signal. The amount of mixing is determined by a fixed gain and/or an automation envelope. The corresponding envelope can be selected in the Selector section of the Envelope tab in the Audio Montage window.

Parallel Processing : Mixes the processed signal with the dry signal. The level of the dry signal remains unchanged. The amount of mixing is determined by a fixed gain and/or an automation envelope. The corresponding envelope can be selected in the Selector section of the Envelope tab in the Audio Montage window.This mode can be used for parallel compression.

For me, “Mixes the wet part of the plug-in output with the dry signal.”=“Mixes the processed signal with the dry signal.” But there must be something that I don’t get…

Thanks a lot for your time and I wish you a great day! :slight_smile:

Parallel processing, is “Mixes the processed signal with the dry signal”
And “processed signal” is wet + dry.
Hence Parallel processing is “wet + 2 times dry”.

Thanks a lot for helping me out to understand the difference between Parallel processing and Blend Wet into Dry (Send). :smiley:

Is there any way I could hope to find out a scale or something to help me transfer dB to my well known % ? :laughing:

I read a part on Routing a Plug-in to a Clip (p.290-291), but I didn’t find where they were talking about a way to consider dB as % after choosing Blend Wet into Dry (Send) or Parallel Processing. I understand that if I choose Blend Wet into Dry (Send) and then I pull down the envelope of that VST, I will be only listen to the dry signal… and if it’s at the top, it will be maximum WET. But what if it’s in the middle @ 0dB, can I consider it’s 50% DRY and 50% WET? What is happening to the ratio between DRY and WET if I choose +3dB? Do I get 55% WET and 45% DRY? Here’s the text I relate in the Operation Manual :

Clip Plug-in Routing

You can route clip plug-ins to a clip. This, in conjunction with envelopes, allows you to control
which part of the clip is processed by the plug-in.

Each clip plug-in has its independent envelope. When the envelope is all the way down, only
the dry signal is applied. When the envelope is all the way up, the processed/wet signal is at its
maximum.

And again, thanks a lot for your time and have a nice day! :slight_smile:

I’ve found a way to answer part of my question and I thought it could be interresting to share.


I’ve set up a effect of +1 dB and I took SPAN VST to help me out what was the highest peak. Here’s a very approximated calculus because each WET value are about +/-5.00, which is big, but it can give an idea of how to translate dB to %. It seems to respond to more to a logarithmic curve than a linear one…
Wavelab.png
Here’s what we got :


Hope it helps you too!

Thanks for everything! :smiley:

Wow, that’s great this method worked. Can you please share a video here? It will help us to get more clear idea UPSers

Hello Trott17,

Thanks for your question! Sorry, I’m not equipped to show you what I do. But I will try to explain to you the best I can. I figured out that the document wasn’t really super handy. You had to read it right to left… I will propose another version at the end of this discussion without noise.

Sometimes, I want to use an effect (compression, flanger, chorus, equalizer, etc.) that doesn’t have a WET/DRY knob. Sometime I wish that I can process the signal only at 25%, 30% or even 45%. In Wavelab, at the clip level when you are in AUDIO MONTAGE, even if your effect doesn’t have a WET/DRY knob, you can get only part of the signal that is getting processed. All you have to do, is to look at the ROUTING column of your clip effect.

Suppose that in this example, you want to compress a signal at 45% but your compressor doesn’t have a WET/DRY knob. What you got to to, it’s to choose in the ROUTING menu the expression BLEND WET INTO DRY (SEND). With this engaged, you can now change the amount of compressed signal vs uncompressed. So you want around 45% WET and 55% DRY. But what you see in the ROUTING SECTION, there is no WET/DRY knob like you are used to… It’s just value presented in dB. How to get 45% WET by looking at dB…


So the image I made called “Tableau_Word” is a sort of “missing link” between dB and the well known WET/KRY knob. So if you want that your signal get processed like I said at 45%, you will look up at the file “Tableau_Word” and check the last column to know what value you have to enter in the ROUTING column of WAVELAB. As you can see, if you want around 45%, you have to fix -7 dB in the ROUTING section to be able to get around 45%. Like I said, this information is not precise, but can give you a general idea of what is happening under the hood with WAVELAB.


Here’s a simpler version of the document. Haha! It all goes to this new file. First we see the WET % you want to get to and in the other column, you get to know which dB you can get around the desired value.


Hope it helps!

Yesterday, I tried to figure out which formula I could use to get a good estimate of dB to % for the “BLEND WET INTO DRY (SEND)” in the CLIP section. I ended up with y=e^(x/10) where “e” is the Euler’s number. Here’s an index of many value I currently use. To get the precise value of “e” in Microsoft Excel, you can use “EXP(1)”.


I hope it helps you as it helps me. :wink:

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