Mute the vox channel but still hear the send to the reverb

Hi, I have lead vocal track with a send going to an FX channel with a reverb inserted. Both the lead vox channel and FX are going to a vocal group, and from there to the mixbuss. I can adjust the reverb in the mix by either raising or lowering the FX channel. I now want to hear ONLY the vocal reverb without the Dry vocal. If I mute the lead vocal channel, the send is also muted. No vocal, no reverb. Is there a work-around that allows me to hear only the FX from the send? I tried the L (listen) button, but that bypasses my mixbuss processing and seems to go directly to the Control Room (no processing there for me). Am I doing something wrong? Any ideas? Thanks!

Use the send as a pre fader and turn the source channel volume down. There’s also a preference in the VST section which will allow you to mute the source channel without muting the pre fader send.

Thanks for the reply, ilmolto. I’m not at my studio, but I will soon look into your suggestion. I’m trying to better determine how the reverb blends in the mix. If I can focus on just the reverb without the dry signal, I’ll have a better idea of the approach to take: reverb time, EQ, width adjustment, compression, etc. To do this, I want to quickly remove the dry component and listen to only the verb channel. Then, I can quickly re-introduce the dry signal. I don’t want to adjust my dry channel FADER otherwise I’ll lose the setting; I don’t think anyone would want to keep moving the fader up and down after a good setting had been achieved. Just a quick, simple mute and/or solo button technique that does not completely mute both the dry and send channels. Cheers!

Yeah definitely check out that preference. It’s called “Mute Pre-Send when Mute”

You obviously want to make sure this setting is off so muting the source channel won’t mute the send. Hopefully that should do the trick.