Obviously there's a million ways to do this and many purposes for sidechain that may call for different methods of setting up timing.
Here's how I work, but i'd like to hear your views on timing settings as I tend to over-mix and waste time on stuff like this :) ...
-
Setting sidechain for mix clarity : I like using Abletons gate for this as it's very flexible. I will usually have this triggered by a super short pulse from a synth on a dummy channel that is just playing the same pattern as my kick or whatever I want triggering the side-chain. That way, it's not the envelope of the kick, but the settings on the gate that control the shape of the sidechain. I let a bit of attack through if it's 'blunting' the sound being sidechained, set the release to be rhythmic with the song and the hold only comes into play if I need the sound to be 'held down' for longer (if the track has long, sustained bass for example that's side-chained)
-
Setting side-chain for pumping effect : I like to use Abletons stock compressor for this, just set the ratio to inf, set the release to auto and drop the threshold until it gives a nice rhythmic pump. I find I use this with varying thresholds based on how far forward/back in the sound-stage each element getting side-chained is.
-
Setting side-chain to only duck certain frequencies : There's many complex ways to do this. The easy way i've found is just to use max-4-live's envelope folower to automate a frequency band's gain on EQ8 and set the timing on the envelope follower to taste. Very quick and saves you messing around with multi-band splitters and all that nonsense.
What are your step-by-steps for getting the timing right on your side-chain?
Submitted April 24, 2017 at 09:04PM by tomheist https://www.reddit.com/r/edmproduction/comments/67d0f5/when_using_sidechain_compression_how_do_you_set/?utm_source=ifttt