Sidechaining

James Hunt

...things other than bass, that is.

Does anyone use sidechaining in a different context. It seems to me that there might be a whole range of other possible creative applications for ducking sounds, apart from kick + bass or ducking for a voiceover.

Anyone care to share the scope of their sidechaining activities on gated synths, guitars...or anything else?

Thanks.

frobisher

To be honest I haven't side chained anything in quite a while. Definitely something I should brush off again.

QuadLeo

I got some cool effects by messing around with sidechaining. One I always do is the bass like you said. I send kick drum out of an aux to key input on a gate. Then send bass guitar through the gate. Set threshold etc... Everytime the kick is used the gate opens and the bass guitar comes through. Cool for giving tone and musical feel to the kick drum.

Sometimes live I sidechain the vocals to create fx during certain parts of a song. Say a bit when the keyboard comes in. I send a split of the vox out an aux and into the gate. Use the keyboard as the key input and then route the output of the gate to some fx unit w/preset then back into a new channel on the desk. And I add it to the foh mix a bit but leave the channel open all the time. Then everytime the keyboard comes in the fx on the vocals change subtly. It's cool if you get a good delay and auto pan preset and only use a little bit of it.

jtsuited

i did a big long thing about this in the 'I Vunder' thread a few days ago.

James Hunt

Thanks QuadLeo, thats the kind of thing I'm after.

jtsuited wrote:

i did a big long thing about this in the 'I Vunder' thread a few days ago.

Yeah, you did, no sure how I missed that to be honest.......here it is again for those as thick as me.

And this is a pretty good video on the technique itself, done in Logic.

studiorat

I like to sidechain ambience microphones on drum kits. Compressing from the kik helps to dry up the kik sound in the room and leave the rest of the kit roomy.

QuadLeo

That's a good tip. Thanks studiorat. Effective I'd say.

trackmixstudio

I often compress the overheads using a sidechain from the snare with REALLY fast attack release to pull the snare back in the overheads, allowing the close mic (and trigger) to cut through with more clarity in a busy mix.
I also regularly use an expander on the Bass guitar with the kick as the sidechain so the bass punches with the kick better. fast attack, release in time with the track. Makes a ropey drummer/bass player combo sound more together.