This is dope
Great course! Does anyone know what Kick he used for the drop section? He said was going to review it over later but only saw that he went over the Kickstarter + Snare part after the intro in the āFinalising Intro and Outroā vid. Maybe I missed it when I was trying to look for it? Thanks!
I also seem to be having issues to get the side chain to work properly. Does anyone know if he went over how to side chain like how he did using that HP and LP filter he had? Thanks again!
Hi there @Andrewtnguyen
1- Kick for the drop section : think he started to use Kick2 but in the final project the Kick 2 midi clip is disabled and heās using a Live Drum Rack instead with a KSHMR signatur sample : āKSHMR Signature Kick 08 - Jungle Whistle (D)ā.
2- Looks like heās using Xfer LFO tools for those filtering on the side-chain sends effects tracks and he mapped LFO parameters to some Live macros. Should be explained in one of the video, I havenāt seen the all course myself so I canāt tell in which one itās explained.
This is a rather complex track with a lot of production work involved and having access to the the full project ( either via subscription or as a one time purchase ) will give you access to all videos as well as the full Ableton Project files and the stems of the mix. The Project + Files resource is packed with everything you need to follow along with the course : samples & lesson by lesson Live Projects + the final Project of course as you can see below.
If youād like to dive deep into this tutorial and get the most out of it, best thing you can do is to purchase the full course.
Hello Teka,
Thanks for the reply. I actually have purchased the course already and during the drop section he briefly mentioned about the side chan, but said he would talk about it more later in another video.
Iāve watched most of the vids, but havenāt seen him go back to the side chain and explain it over it in-detail. For example, how he went about doing the Live macros as you mentioned.
Maybe I missed something? Iām not sure Iāll check again but I do notice something is not right with my sidechaining when I add the kick in. I donāt know exactly what it is but it doesnāt sound right.
However, I do notice that in the video has something else besides the LFO tool where as in my project file I donāt have that filter. Iām not entirely sure if thatās the issue since Iām unfamiliar with sidechaining.
Below is my rack on ableton.
And this is crystal skies rack for the sidechain track
Thanks again!
Hi again Andrew,
Sorry, I couldnāt guess that you already bought the tutorial 
, but well, thatās a good thing and it will make it easier to follow along 
It looks to me that you just have LFOTool inside your devices chain, CS is using an Ableton Effect Rack placed right after the LFOTool plugin, Iām downloading the resource files again to check whatās in there, you need to expand the rack to either see the chain(s) or device(s) used in the rack an thatās where the macro will be set for.
Updating this as soon as Iāve the project opened and checked whatās in this effect rack.
No worries. Thereās also the sidechain trigger which I believe might be the macros you were referring to. He did go over it briefly but again, didnāt see the part where he went in detail with it.
Anyway, Iāll wait for you to check it out and see whatās in that Effect Rack. Maybe thatās whatās missing in my sidechain.
Thanks again for the help!
So yes, in fact the LFOTool Plugin is outside the Ableton Effect Rack, so the Macros in the effect rack are not triggering LFOTool, I should have seen this the first time.
- When you click on the 2nd icon on the right side of the rack ( 1 - highlighted in green ) it will expand the rack and reveal the chain(s).
- Clicking on the 3rd icon ( 2 - highlighted in blue ) reveals the devices contained in the rack, in this case CS is using FabFilter Volcano 2 plugin and thatās what the Macros are linked to and if you click on the āMapā button at the top of the effect rack, it will reveal the Macro Mappings in Liveās inspector ( everything 3 - highlighted in Yellow ).
So thatās what this filtering rack is doing, I donāt know if you have Volcano 2 plugin to check this out, if you donāt you could try to use another filter plugin or Abletonās native āAuto Filterā to try to replicate.
So thatās how the filters are set on those Side-Chain effects return tracks in Live. Now to trigger either the āA-Heavy Sidechainā or āB-Soft Sidechainā CS is using another Effect Rack inside the āSIDECHAIN TRIGGERā track as you mentioned. Again, if you expand the chains, you can see that heās using 2 different chains with an āExternal Instrumentā device on each one linked to the LFOTools plugins either on return Track A or B and the automation lines are controlling which one is triggered. Since all effects chain are processed from Left to Right before reaching the output, in each case it will then go 1st to LFOTool and then the following Effect Rack on return A or B.
So thatās the principle, again I havenāt watched the tutorial myself, so itās hard to go into details and itās quite a complex routing, the benefit is that heās able to control different sidechains effects with automation.
Hope this helps to better understand the principle & routing, but yes, its quite an advance way to do it, so it might take some trial & error to replicate.
Thanks for this very detailed response. Yes I believe Iām understanding this better. So in order for me to completely replicate this sidechain, I would also need to set up the Effect Rack and map it like how they did basically how you explained with Fab Filter Volcano 2 or try to use āAuto Filterā plugin.
With my setup, the sidechain only processes through the LFO tool but no effect rack since I donāt have an effect rack on my sidechain track.
Thatās probably whatās causing it not to sound right I think, right?
Also, by looking at how the mapped the Fabfilter Volcano 2, do you know what the mapping is doing to the sidechain or whatās the purpose of mapping the effect rack like they did? Iām not sure.
Thanks again for your help, it was definitely insightful.
- Yes thatās the reason why it doesnāt sound right, because youāre not using the HP & LP filters during the sidechain.
Looking deeper into this, Iām not sure youāll be able to replicate the same behavior with Liveās Auto FIlter :
Basically thereās 2 filters running at the same time inside Volcano 2, a High Pass & a Low Pass filter, they are used in LR ( stereo mode ) and they are ālinkedā, so controlling one parameter like the filter resonance will be equally reflected on both HP & LP filters.
Hereās the macro Routing for Volcano 2 :
Now the problem is that you canāt use 2 filters at the same time in one instance of Liveās Auto Filter, you will need to use 2 instances in your effect rack and could automate the On/OFF, Frequency Filter and Resonance for each one, but I donāt think youāll get the same result since those 2 instances will be processed in series ( from left to right ) and not really linked.
So it wonāt give the same results, Iām not sure about an alternative to Volcano 2, thereās a lot of filter plugins out there, even free ones, but donāt know about one with this L/R linked mode.
Thatās as far as I can go with this one I think, have you been through all the videos yet ? Because Iām surprised itās not explained better. Also, keep in mind that many times you wonāt always be able to replicate the exact same workflow as the tutors, just because you wonāt have the same plugins doesnāt mean that thereās nothing to learn about it. Whatās important to get from tutorials is what the tutor tried to achieve and you might find the method interesting or not and come up with another solution as well, which is also a very good way to learn. Of course, you could decide to purchase the missing plugin, but letās be honest, if you choose that road, itās no good for the budget and itās also not the best way to progress IMHO.
Hope that was helpful anyway
Cheers !
Hey Tekalight!
Sorry for the delayed response! I read your response over the weekend and was going to respond later, but completely forgot. Thanks for all this and got it!
I still have maybe 1.5 vids left to go! Iāll let you know if he dives deep into the sidechain as we spoke about.
Very true. I may take a look into trying out different methods of side chain and see what works best for me.
Thanks again for all the help. It was much appreciated and Iāll keep you posted if he does go over that part!
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This is really usefull and so far IĀ“ve learned a lot. Thanks Aaron and Sonic Academy!
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This is 75% tutorial, 25% advertisement for Sonic Academy plugins. If this were a free tutorial, I wouldnāt mind as much, but I already paid you for the tutorial. Itās annoying that SA still chose to push their plugins down my throat.
If Iām paying for a tutorial, I expect the tutors to use the plugins they usually use. Iām paying to see what they do, and how they do it. Iām NOT paying to make a song using Sonic Academy plugins.
Aaron clearly doesnāt use ANA regularly, and was forced to use it for this tutorial.
I also understand the desire to use stock plugins so they could give the project file away as a value-add, but I donāt use Ableton, so what good does the project file do for me? Iād rather see Aaron use the plugins he actually uses.
All in all this is a good tutorial, but Sonic Academy held it back by not allowing Aaron to use the tools he actually uses for Crystal Skies productions.
We ask tutors to use stock plugins first then ANA 2 rather than Serum / Sylenth or other 3rd party synths as a large proportion of our community has it.
Ana 2 is a much cheaper alternative to serum or sylenth or many other 3rd party pluginsā¦ itās the reason we made a synth in the first place was to give users a cheap alternative and a single powerful synth that if needed in a tutorial the might have. Rather than having to watch videos that might use a bunch of random ones.
Very valuable! Gain a lot from this course 
Loved this one, this is my second watch through. Only thing that Iām finding with a few tutorials Iāve watched, rarely does someone mention how many bars the different sections are. Thatās kind of a source of confusion for me. I know the intro bit is 8 bars, but after that I kind of get lost. Iāll try to watch through a gain to figure it out.
Wanted to drop in and add that Iām working in Studio one, otherwise I wouldāve loaded up the Ableton project, of course lol. But realized there are stems available, which is awesome! I downloaded those and was able to navigate my arrangement question that way. 
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Sorry for the delayed reply 
Glad to read that you managed to find a workaround for this, and BTW, itās a very good practice, thatās exactly what I attempt to do in the same situation but itās also an excellent way to deconstruct full tracks for reference and learinging about song structure & arrangement.
So thatās a very useful tip & feedback for others, thanks for sharing
Cheers !
Iām wondering, are there any courses that focus solely on creating the type of fills and transitions heās using in the drop? lol I donāt have such an extensive library of fills to draw from but itād be cool to learn how to develop them so I can build out my toolbox
Hey there @qbellow
There are many different ways to create fills & transition actually Not sure about a dedicate tutorial, but you can use the keyword search feature from the main site ( clicking on the top-right page magnifier icon ) and use a keyword like ātransitionā or āfillsā for example and it will populate the matching results. Youāll find many videos from full courses showing you how different producers approach this.
