[quote]wickedged (03/04/2010)[hr]Quick question - what tips do people have on here regarding getting your ‘pump’ sound created by a sidechain to fall in time with your track? Do you start with minimum attack and release then slowly increase both? Or do you tend to concentrate mainly on one over the other? In which case, what’s the best one to do? Attack or release? This is something I struggle with - sometimes I get it sounding OK but its more a case of good luck than anything else…[/quote]
How you manage these really depends on multiple factors, ie: what sound you’re going for, what you are using the compressor for, etc, etc.
Lets assume you’re using it simply to sidechain the bass from the kick, each time the kick hits, the compressor acts, how quickly that acts depends on where you’ve set your attack. How quickly the compressor releases is dependant on where you’ve set the release. You’ve also got the ratio and thresholds to consider.
Check this out, should give you an overview on what each bit does:
Here is the best bit of advice you will ever receive…
Don’t listen to what anyone else says. Trust your ears!
Nice one - cheers guys. I’ll play around with these again later.
I’ve recently discovered the sidechain function on Ableton’s auto filter as well, which gets some pretty mad results. I’ve got it on a distorted bass, for example, which is set to a low pass filter and high envelope setting, then sidechained to a simple 4/4 kick. This creates a pretty extreme wah sound on the bass that uses the kick as a trigger. If you set the high to a low pass, the wah is reversed.
Anybody else using this function on their own tracks? Any other tips on using this?
hey man, I often find it useful to work around musical values, basically sidechain ‘ends’ somewhere where the real note would be, but it needs to work with a groove and of course it depends on the kick itself.Sometimes it can help to enable EQ in your side-chain input and make your kick more ‘clicky’, experiment with HP or BP filters.
For effects (like filters, gates, etc) you can drive it with other rhythmical elements, so it has it’s own grove, you can use a breakbeat loop or import a grove file from ableton and just drive it with that, ad a normal compression after that…
…possiblities are endles…actually im gonna go and sidechain something myself :D:D:D
Hey George Im really very sorry and certianly didnt mean anything by noob.
Im an extremely newbie and meant that if these questions are always being asked maybe there could be a section for people [like me] to read up on these things without getting sent away to search by the bigger boys:D
I really am truly sorry, lets be friends mate and i’ll use the term newbie from now on I had no idea that noob could be taken in an offensive manner
very embarrassed
[quote]seanl (04/04/2010)[hr]hey man, I often find it useful to work around musical values, basically sidechain ‘ends’ somewhere where the real note would be, but it needs to work with a groove and of course it depends on the kick itself.Sometimes it can help to enable EQ in your side-chain input and make your kick more ‘clicky’, experiment with HP or BP filters.
For effects (like filters, gates, etc) you can drive it with other rhythmical elements, so it has it’s own grove, you can use a breakbeat loop or import a grove file from ableton and just drive it with that, ad a normal compression after that…
…possiblities are endles…actually im gonna go and sidechain something myself :D:D:D
[/quote
Cheers - never thought of this. I’m interested in using sidechain effect for more than just a 4/4 pumping rhythm (although of course I love this effect as well!). I’m definitely going to try this one. I’ve been using sidechained gates for a while now and think they’re rgreat (especially with dummy clips). I’m interested in the more extreme sidechaining effects used by Teenage Bad Girl, SebastiAn etc, so any more ideas out there are greatly received!
Much appreciated seanl!
Try sidechaining a sound you have like your white noise etc (for example) to your snare instead, gives a different effect than to the usual.
Sidechaining doesn’t always have to be bass/kick.
Sometimes if you have two elements in the same or similar frequency ranges, sidechaining one to the other can help clear things up.
Play around
you don’t have to sidechain if all you want to do is duck one sound under another, in many cases automation is the best solution. although sidechain can give that instant effect using it on some sounds can alter the high frequencies and dull the sound, drawing in the automation is much more flexible and can achieve much better results.
as for that pumping sound of house, “gain pumping” is much better for making the whole mix throb, this is usually achieved by placing a compressor over the main outputs.
10.1 ratio, fast attack, fast release, pull the threshold down until you get around 4-8 db of reduction or until the compressor starts working nicely most compressor will be different and the type of compressor that you use will make a difference.
also remember you’re not making rock or pop music so compressors, eq’s and any other effects are there to be abused!!! the best things come to those that experiment.
This is a great point… Sometimes I use the linked/unlinked in the clip envelopes to do my sidechaining with the volume. Often times, I dont know why I do it, I just know it sounds better. But its usually not ducking a specific sound and more for effect…
[quote]jon_fisher (05/04/2010)[hr]you don’t have to sidechain if all you want to do is duck one sound under another, in many cases automation is the best solution. although sidechain can give that instant effect using it on some sounds can alter the high frequencies and dull the sound, drawing in the automation is much more flexible and can achieve much better results.
as for that pumping sound of house, “gain pumping” is much better for making the whole mix throb, this is usually achieved by placing a compressor over the main outputs.
10.1 ratio, fast attack, fast release, pull the threshold down until you get around 4-8 db of reduction or until the compressor starts working nicely most compressor will be different and the type of compressor that you use will make a difference.
also remember you’re not making rock or pop music so compressors, eq’s and any other effects are there to be abused!!! the best things come to those that experiment.[/quote]