Side Chaining

[krykos]

As some of you would know, this technique is one that's been used a lot in house music, particularly from France to produce that ducking effect from the drum beat. If you have no idea what I'm on about, go and listen to One More Time by Daft Punk, and take notice that the trumpets get slightly quieter every time the kick drum is played. Or pretty much anything produced by Ed Banger Records.

I've been trying to find a VST to allow me to do this, and I've found one, but it doesn't seem to be working. The DAW I've been using is Cakewalk Project5, admittedly not that well known, but it's all I've got for now. What I'm wondering is can anyone give any good VSTs that produce this effect for a range of DAWs, as well as hints and tricks of the best ways to use them? It's bugging me that I can't seem to get this to work.

[TrevCircleStudios]

Dealt with in another thread. Here (towards the end):

Dealing with clashing frequencies

[modz1]

Hi K.
As said above... Check the 10th post down ... (Trev's actually..)

Also, you should find this video on compression technique featuring our good friends the Freemasons very useful: After 1'30", they start to discuss side-chaining and the effect I think you're after?
Compression Technique - Freemasons

[krykos]

Ah, OK. I didn't realise that thread was dealing with the same thing. You can lock this if you want, Modz.

[modz1]

No worries K. I'll leave this open (for a while at least) as your thread is specifically about Side Chaining. The post referred to earlier sits within a different title...

[Dave Boulden]

It's worth noting that the ability to do side-chaining effects is much more affected by whether or not your DAW actually supports side-chaining as opposed which VST effect to use. Though do note that some enterprising developers did some clever tricks with "proxy insert effects" to achieve side-chaining in hosts that don't natively support it.

[FrankGIK]

Originally Posted by Dave Boulden

It's worth noting that the ability to do side-chaining effects is much more affected by whether or not your DAW actually supports side-chaining as opposed which VST effect to use. Though do note that some enterprising developers did some clever tricks with "proxy insert effects" to achieve side-chaining in hosts that don't natively support it.

...or you could use a hardware compressor. Real, real easy to side-chain that way.

Frank

[conor_j]

What VST is it you've tried using?

Heres a link for the handy free Slim Slow Slider: Side Chain Compressor , if thats different to what you've been trying

[TrevCircleStudios]

For protools users sidechain ducking is pretty easy to set up. Let's use kick and bass as our example:

1. compress your bass so that it sounds like you want it to in the mix.

2. adjust the kick volume up to where you want it so that you can hear the two clash.

3. Create an aux send on the kick

4. send it to a mono bus

5. set the sidechain input on the bass compressor (it has a key symbol on the plugin) to the same bus

6. Your bass will now 'duck' the kick as it is taking its threshold level from the kick rather than the bass.

As I said in another thread, this will work on a variety of things such as:

ducking an acoustic guitar by sidechain compressing it to the vox track
Ducking background or ambient noise by sidechaining the special fx track
Ducking the rhythm guitar track by sidechaining the guitar solo track

Have fun!

[TrevCircleStudios]

For Logic Users:

10 Step Guide
1. Output the kick sample to a bus (e.g. Bus 1). The reason being that Logic can't sidechain directly to an audio instrument, only to audio channels or busses. So this is a workaround.

2. Insert a Logic compressor at the very end of the chain on the bass instrument. Remember this is an extra compressor for the sole purpose of sidechain compression. Be sure to use the default settings of the compressor (very importantly: no Autogain, no limiter etc.)

3. Set the compressor's external sidechain (the Logic compressor also has an internal sidechain via the expanded options - ignore that in this case) to Bus 1. You set the external sidechain input in the upper right corner.

4. Set the attack to 0 ms. You want that bass ducked immediately to gain headroom. The attack of the kick will act as all the punch you need in the mix for that split second when the bass is ducked. This is partly a psycho-acoustical phenomenon.

5. Set the knee to hard (0.0). You want the peak of the signal to be the trigger, nothing else.

6. Set mode to "Peak". For the same reason above. RMS mode is sometimes used for delay ducking, which is slightly different from kick/bass ducking.

7. Set the gain to 0.0 dB. You don't want to change volume otherwise, so set it to unity.

8. Set a ratio between 4 and 10. How much depends on how much ducking you want. A ratio of 10 will almost remove any bass attack which might be just what you want.

9. Set the release time depending on how fast you want the bass to stop ducking, usually fairly quick, e.g. 20 - 50 ms. Longer times will make it pump more, which could be a desired effect - so experiment. Auto release is optional but primarily recommended when used in combination with more varied rhythms and note lengths than a standard kick/bass pattern.

10. Set the threshold according to level and trigger point for the ducking, use your ears and look at the meter. About 3 dB of gain reduction is usually more than enough. Remember that in this scenario you just need the very top of the signal to react, so don't pull that threshold down too far, you'll gain nothing extra.

[terminal3]

Great posts, Trev. You really earned those fake drums!

Sidechaining and parallel compression are two techniques that once I figured out, I had no idea how the hell I did without them.

[I know this thread has nothing to do with parallel compression, but for me it was a 'eureka' moment up there with figuring out what the heck that little 'key' icon on my RTAS compressors did]

[TrevCircleStudios]

reat posts, Trev. You really earned those fake drums!

Sidechaining and parallel compression are two techniques that once I figured out, I had no idea how the hell I did without them.

[I know this thread has nothing to do with parallel compression, but for me it was a 'eureka' moment up there with figuring out what the heck that little 'key' icon on my RTAS compressors did]

Heheh. You don't understand mate. I've never won anything before... ever! Now I can see what all the fuss is with you young uns! ;-)

I'm gonna do a piece this weekend on "Getting Awesome Drum Sounds" if I get a minute and was gonna cover parallel compression and other tricks in that. Watch this space!

[krykos]

Originally Posted by conor_j

What VST is it you've tried using?

Heres a link for the handy free Slim Slow Slider: Side Chain Compressor , if thats different to what you've been trying

That's actually the VST I've been using, and I'm not entirely sure how to use it seeing as the only tut I've found for it online is related to Ableton Live. Will Sonar be successfully be able to produce the effect through VST as that's what I'm hoping to upgrade to.

Else, what hardware compressors are good for the job?
(And don't say the Mutronics Mutator. So badly want one.)

[TrevCircleStudios]

Should this one be moved to Tips and Tricks mods?

[EdRyan]

It all depends which version of the VST standard that your daw is running.

VST1 is the oldest and cannot natively sidechain. Sidechaining is only possible if you write a plug-in that generates the additional paths. If this is the case, you need a plug-in that can take a copy of the input and pass it out to a side-chain compatible compressor. I know that Waves and Voxengo have products with these features. I can't remember the names though.

Native Sidechaining was only introduced in VST3. Can't believe it took them until Cubase 4 to implement and update the bundled plugs. It was the biggest achilles heel of Steinberg daws.