Sidechaining

[Otto Matta]

Can anyone describe to me in layman's terms what sidechaining is? I hear it talked about a lot, and it appears to be useful, but the technical terminology fizzles my brain. Is it sort of like a gate?

[NEMO.BOFH]

Can anyone describe to me in layman's terms what sidechaining is? I hear it talked about a lot, and it appears to be useful, but the technical terminology fizzles my brain. Is it sort of like a gate?

Stolen from another forum, but I think this is the best description that I found:

 

Basically the idea of sidechaining is to attenuate the volume (accentuate the gain level) of one sound once it is triggered by another sound....this is used all the time in radio and it is called ducking....basically what happens is when the music is playing all is dandy and once the DJ talks the level drops or ducks under his voice...when he stops, the music level goes back to normal....this is all handled by sidechaning compressors together....

 

hope that helps

[Mike A]

Nemo got it right.

The most common place where you can hear it today is in prog - that effect you hear when the kick "stops" the pad, and then it rises again just to be "stopped" by the next kick. Sounds preety cool.

It's also extremely useful in making basslines - instead of eqing it to fit with the kick, just sc-compress it and your problem is solved. Works like a magic glue.

[supergroover]

there is lots more stuff about side chaining on isratrance.com

or google for more info about it.. like nemo did. his reply came from the first hit

[Otto Matta]

Okay, I have a better idea now, thanks (although I don't have a clue how to do it).

 

SG - I'm asking from buddies because a very unfortunate thing about the music scene is that people who know cool stuff seem to purposely make their descriptions impossible to understand. It's an exclusive club and the kids have to push and shove to get simple information.

[NEMO.BOFH]

Okay, I have a better idea now, thanks (although I don't have a clue how to do it).

 

SG - I'm asking from buddies because a very unfortunate thing about the music scene is that people who know cool stuff seem to purposely make their descriptions impossible to understand. It's an exclusive club and the kids have to push and shove to get simple information.

I think its good you asked though, cause a lot of people dont know how to do this kind of things. There is a nifty little VSTe that does this very simple, and the results are pretty cool. It comes with a little FAQ as well, which makes the understanding of Sidechaining a bit easier.

 

http://www.db-audioware.com/

 

http://www.db-audioware.com/sidechaincompressor.htm

http://www.db-audioware.com/sidechaingate.htm

 

Hope you find them useful, you can always "Try before Buy"!

[supergroover]

for sure there is loads of people withholding info. but there is more than enough people sharing information. Go check out isratrance. Go check out other synth fora. And google. or blackle.com

In the isra bass thread there def should be someone explaining how to do sidechaining.

Its quite lengthy to explain and i am to lazy for that (and i even dont know that much about it really). use the search!

[supergroover]

antix seven seas is a good example of sidechaining the pad in the beginning.

psyshop here..

 

the whuuu pad in the back..

[Veracohr]

I assume this is sidechain compression you're referring to, since I'm not familiar with any other use of the word sidechain in audio.

 

The following is another description to help round out the definition:

 

Sidechain compression is triggering the compression of one signal with another. The way a compressor works, in normal mode, is that the input is split into two paths: one gets rectified into a DC voltage, which is then used to control the attenuation on the other path of the signal, which is what appears at the output. In sidechain compression, you are simply bringing in a second signal to be rectified and used to control the attenuation of the signal you want compressed.

 

Ducking, as mentioned above, is often used with the kick triggering the bass or other sound, so that the compressed sound drops in level when the kick hits. Therefore, the bass 'ducks' the kick. This is kind of a cheap way of dealing with an overabundance of low frequencies, when used to have the bass duck the kick.

 

Another application of sidechain compression is de-essing. In this, a vocal signal is split into two, and one of these is equalized such that only a certain frequency range is present (what range depends on the vocal). That way, the vocal part is only compressed during the sibilant parts (the parts with overly high levels of high-mid frequencies).

[NEMO.BOFH]

antix seven seas is a good example of sidechaining the pad in the beginning.

psyshop here..

 

the whuuu pad in the back..

kinda made me laugh, cause it made me thinking of this:

 

the WHUUUUUU in the end Try Ducking that!

[Spiritual Carnage]

If anyone got a NordModular I've found a method to make a killer distortion by using the compressors sidechain input

[supergroover]

murphy rules!

[acidkills]

Guys did u check out music making tutorials thread?

I posted everything u need to know about sidechaining long ago.. Some nice videos there..

Anyway, where to find a duck sample?

[Colin OOOD]

send the patch over or you are in some serious trouble mister!

x2

[supergroover]

lol

[acidkills]

 

I was saving this tut for another l33t board but what the hey.

Great man, thanks for the sample.. I just wonder how it sounds.. Wait till I re synthesize the picture, maybe Ill get that ducking sound..

[acidkills]

Some japanese guy drew that picture. Expect some hi-tech result if you import it as rawdata in Sound Forge and then play it back

Actually I was thinking of importing it in chameleon 5000 but I could only take that small duck in the lower left corner..

Hi-tech ducks coming soon..