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Sending means you "split" the signal and send some of it to another channel. You mix the "dry" (un-effected) signal with the "wet" (effected" signal.
Inserts mean the signal goes through the effect, so the source signal is always 100% effected (disregarding a wet/dry knob on the plugin).
If you use a send, you can control the amount of the "wet" signal that is mixed with the "dry" signal. With an insert, the effects is always 100% (again, unless the specific plugin has a wet/dry knob, which essentially performs the same function as a send for all practical purposes).
Sends are useful because you don't always want 100% of an effect applied to a track. Take the example of a drum track. You may only want to apply a small amount of reverb to a track, and so maybe you only send 10% of the track to the reverb. This is a common technique.
Sends also allow you to share a single plugin among many tracks. In a DAW scenario, this conserves CPU because you can use 1 reverb plugin for many tracks, instead of having to apply many reverb plugins for each individual track. However, there are many cases where you may want to use an insert versus a send.
In my case, I often have a single reverb plugin on a separate channel that I send all my drums to. Not only does this conserve CPU, but I can control the amount of reverb applied to each track. So maybe the hats need 10% reverb, but the percussion needs 25%. By using a send, I can control the amount of effect applied to each track without using multiple plugins on each track. This technique is also useful for drums in that if you use the same reverb for each drum track, it can help make discrete drums track sound like they are part of a single kit and exist in the same space.
Conversely, I also frequently use delay plugins as inserts, because I often want 100% of the effect applied to a certain track, especially for sequence elements and track FX.
As for busses, they are just a way to group multiple tracks into a single output/track. You can use this to apply processing for an entire group. Often, all the drums are routed through a single (or multiple) busses so effects like compression can be applied to the entire group of drums, instead of individually. Frequently this is where slow attack compressors can work their magic. You can then also route that group to another group or even discrete outputs on your audio interface.
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