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Author Topic: How often do you guys use side-chains on your compressors?  (Read 8638 times)

Bubba--Kron

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How often do you guys use side-chains on your compressors?
« on: April 27, 2011, 08:18:51 PM »

Do you use them during mixing??

Do you only tend to use them to high-pass bassy tracks?

Do you ever use them other than broad sweeping cuts??

Thanks in advance, Bryan
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Cheers, Bryan Richards

Podgorny

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Re: How often do you guys use side-chains on your compressors?
« Reply #1 on: April 27, 2011, 09:07:03 PM »

In theory, fairly regularly. The whole kick drum ducks the bass seems like a great idea to me.

But in reality, never. Really, never.
I've used piezo triggers in the sidechain when gating toms, and having a hi-pass in a compressor's sidechain can make for some more interesting aggressive sounds, but other than that, no.
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davedarling

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Re: How often do you guys use side-chains on your compressors?
« Reply #2 on: April 27, 2011, 11:05:54 PM »

 I'll use it to pump the track with a kick on dancey stuff from time to time.

That's about it for me.

dd
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studjo

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Re: How often do you guys use side-chains on your compressors?
« Reply #3 on: April 28, 2011, 08:57:46 AM »

tired it different times - never really stuck with it ...
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bigbone

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Re: How often do you guys use side-chains on your compressors?
« Reply #4 on: April 28, 2011, 09:24:18 AM »


Never.
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Gregory Thompson

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Re: How often do you guys use side-chains on your compressors?
« Reply #5 on: April 28, 2011, 06:48:44 PM »

Occasionally I have to mix a track where there's too much snare bleed into the kick mic and I can't get it out with a gate, or use filters in the sidechain of the gate (the snare is tuned too similarly to the attack of the kick), I will compress the kick with a sidechain from the snare mic to effectively duck the kick on snare hits.
I will sometimes set up a separate trigger track from a duplicate snare track that's a few milliseconds earlier.   
I can usually manage to gate the subsequently ducked kick signal more effectively. 
(Then I will replace the kick with a sample after I still can't get any of that to work.)

-Greg
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Bubba--Kron

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Re: How often do you guys use side-chains on your compressors?
« Reply #6 on: April 28, 2011, 07:17:11 PM »

Man that is cool!!!!!!

 
Occasionally I have to mix a track where there's too much snare bleed into the kick mic and I can't get it out with a gate, or use filters in the sidechain of the gate (the snare is tuned too similarly to the attack of the kick), I will compress the kick with a sidechain from the snare mic to effectively duck the kick on snare hits.
I will sometimes set up a separate trigger track from a duplicate snare track that's a few milliseconds earlier.   
I can usually manage to gate the subsequently ducked kick signal more effectively. 
(Then I will replace the kick with a sample after I still can't get any of that to work.)

-Greg
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Fletcher

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Re: How often do you guys use side-chains on your compressors?
« Reply #7 on: April 30, 2011, 11:07:42 AM »

Having the ability to use side chain capability when you feel the need is a good thing... I've worked in a bunch of places over the years that never bothered to wire up side chain capability which I have often [not always, but often enough] found to be a "flow kill" as if I decide to employ the technique I'd like to be able to access that capability without having to do some ancillary wiring.
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CN Fletcher

mwagener wrote on Sat, 11 September 2004 14:33
We are selling emotions, there are no emotions in a grid


"Recording engineers are an arrogant bunch
If you've spent most of your life with a few thousand dollars worth of musicians in the studio, making a decision every second and a half... and you and  they are going to have to live with it for the rest of your lives, you'll get pretty arrogant too.  It takes a certain amount of balls to do that... something around three"
Malcolm Chisholm

Michael Brauer

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Re: How often do you guys use side-chains on your compressors?
« Reply #8 on: May 03, 2011, 09:09:20 PM »

my buss compressors always are sidechained at 90hz. when doing disco type records or anytime where the kick is 4 on the floor and the bass is sustaining through the song i'll have the kick sidechaining the bass enough to allow the kick to punch better, as mentioned already. I'll also have the kick sidechaining the synths. I did alot of that on a record mixed recently for england clare maguire. every song has just about everything sidechained by the kick.

michael
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Blackwing13

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Re: How often do you guys use side-chains on your compressors?
« Reply #9 on: May 06, 2011, 04:17:32 AM »

Hi, I guess this is my first post on the forum. :)

I sidechain alot. On most pop I work with, the kick & the toms are always sidechaining bass, going for 2-3 GR. Sometimes I put vocals sidechaining with the reverb/delay bus.

Gabriel
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Fletcher

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Re: How often do you guys use side-chains on your compressors?
« Reply #10 on: May 06, 2011, 12:27:34 PM »

Sometimes I put vocals sidechaining with the reverb/delay bus.

I'm intrigued... what is the end result you're looking for with this?
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CN Fletcher

mwagener wrote on Sat, 11 September 2004 14:33
We are selling emotions, there are no emotions in a grid


"Recording engineers are an arrogant bunch
If you've spent most of your life with a few thousand dollars worth of musicians in the studio, making a decision every second and a half... and you and  they are going to have to live with it for the rest of your lives, you'll get pretty arrogant too.  It takes a certain amount of balls to do that... something around three"
Malcolm Chisholm

Michael Brauer

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Re: How often do you guys use side-chains on your compressors?
« Reply #11 on: May 06, 2011, 03:41:13 PM »

I'm intrigued... what is the end result you're looking for with this?

DON"T TELL HIM BLACKWING! sometimes in life you just have to figure things out on your own!:)

michael
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Bryson

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Re: How often do you guys use side-chains on your compressors?
« Reply #12 on: May 07, 2011, 11:28:45 PM »

I'm intrigued... what is the end result you're looking for with this?

My first thought was, for ducking the delay, like the 2290 had built-in.
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MHH

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Re: How often do you guys use side-chains on your compressors?
« Reply #13 on: May 13, 2011, 09:54:20 PM »

my buss compressors always are sidechained at 90hz.


Hey All.  First Post here since the ol ol days.  Great things going on here with MB and RH, truly appreciate the interaction.

Michael, Im curious as to what you mean here.. Are you referring to filtering the side-chain so the comp is ignoring everything below 90? Or is this to accomplish something else.  I ask because I heard you speak of side-chaining 4k on you vocal compressors... Ive heard of and done the first regularly, but the second one Im not quite sure I grasp the concept.  Is there any you can elaborate?

Thanks again for you time.

Matt

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fossiltooth

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Re: How often do you guys use side-chains on your compressors?
« Reply #14 on: May 18, 2011, 12:20:18 PM »

I've followed Michael's suggestions on sidechaining the bus compression, and it can definitely help.

Otherwise, I sometime use sidechains in a corrective way: If I need to help out some mushy, sloshy overhead tracks, the snare or snare sample might trigger a compressor to clamp down on the overheads on the backbeats, allowing room for the better snare sound, and making sure the crack doesn't get swallowed up by a barrage of relentless hi-hats or crashes.

J.J. Blair

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Re: How often do you guys use side-chains on your compressors?
« Reply #15 on: May 21, 2011, 12:07:04 AM »

Michael, why sidechain a compressor to the kick, and not just duck with a gate?  Should this be a conversation about ducking?

I don't sidechain compression, usually, but I will sometimes sidechain the release on a gate.  I just did this recently with the room mics on drums, triggered by the snare.
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zakco

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Re: How often do you guys use side-chains on your compressors?
« Reply #16 on: May 22, 2011, 10:29:01 PM »

I do something similar on drum room tracks occasionally. The difference being, that I trigger the room mics' compressor from the kick track when I'd like less of it in that channel. Not very much (2-3db-ish) or very often though.

My API 2500 is usually set to "medium thrust" when on drum bus or the 2mix.

Z
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J.J. Blair

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Re: How often do you guys use side-chains on your compressors?
« Reply #17 on: May 22, 2011, 11:58:38 PM »

But that's ducking.  Is the compressor also compressing independently, as well as the sidechain?  I'm not familiar with the 2500's features.
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zakco

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Re: How often do you guys use side-chains on your compressors?
« Reply #18 on: May 23, 2011, 12:29:10 AM »

But that's ducking.  Is the compressor also compressing independently, as well as the sidechain?  I'm not familiar with the 2500's features.

Sorry...2 unrelated points in my post.

The 1st is indeed ducking. I sometimes follow that with a different compressor not SC.

The 2500 "thrust" control is a 3 position (well, 2 and off) HPF for the detector circuit.
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