Creative Sidechaining and FX

[Lrmusic]

K, I really like these concept threads, like the string arrangement one back a few weeks ago, and bgrotto's recent thread. I think they provide a lot of creative ideas related to the artistic elements of making music.

Share some of the unconventional/creative ways that you've used sidechaining, why and what it accomplished .

I'll get the ball rolling:

Volume of a pad sidechained positively to the input of a kick drum. (This is pretty much the opposite of the typical EDM sidechaining.) The advantage of doing this instead of simply modifying the attack, and playing staccato figuration with the same rhythm of the kick is that you preserve all sweep effects and various things that the pad might have.

[tonymission]

I've taken a mid bass sound, copied/doubled it...

On the copy, I've used Logic Autofilter with the sidechain set to a kick (in this particular case) so the modulation would pump in and out with the beat. Sounds genius if done right.

[Storyville]

Originally Posted by tonymission

I've taken a mid bass sound, copied/doubled it...

On the copy, I've used Logic Autofilter with the sidechain set to a kick (in this particular case) so the modulation would pump in and out with the beat. Sounds genius if done right.

I just did a similar bass and kick sidechain. Normally I'll use a sidechain to duck the bass behind the kick if simple eq doesn't do the trick. In this case, the kick was already out of the way, so I sidechained the bass with an expander to the kick. So when the kick hits the bass pumps some lows along with it.

On a less creative level I use sidechaining alot for De-Essing, as most de-essers just bum me out.

[abletony84]

i just wanna say i really like this thread!!

[RyanC]

Use a sidechain gate before a delay on a send.

You can trigger it to open with anything in the mix, a metronome, or just load up a simple synth patch and have delay where you want it, and not where you dont.

So much faster than automation, and because it's easy to experiment with, you can easily stumble upon parts that sound cool with delay that you might not have thought of.

[Storyville]

Originally Posted by RyanC

Use a sidechain gate before a delay on a send.

You can trigger it to open with anything in the mix, a metronome, or just load up a simple synth patch and have delay where you want it, and not where you dont.

So much faster than automation, and because it's easy to experiment with, you can easily stumble upon parts that sound cool with delay that you might not have thought of.

That's an excellent technique. I'll have to add it to my bag o tricks.

[tonymission]

Originally Posted by Storyville

That's an excellent technique. I'll have to add it to my bag o tricks.

Ya, I like it!! Great idea, mad I didn't do that already

[SubtoneAudio]

-Duck rides/shakers/bongos under kicks and snares..prevents overlapping transients and produces a nice little rythmic effect.
-Ducking vocals, stabs, strings, pads, atmos under snares
-Duck anything with a longer envelope, under something of a more rythmic nature with a shorter envelope (if both elements share similar frequency ranges, you should win some headroom)
-Use a side chain trigger which is not routed to your master outputs. This way you can offset the position of triggers and extend the release time on the side chain compresser in order to exaggerare the suction effect.

[12ax7]

There are all kinds of possibilities.

I started this kinda thing in the old analog days (when dinosaurs roamed the earth).

Us old farts caught on to the idea (with expansion) when the Kepex came out.

One of the first cool things we used to do was to key the Kepex expander with a snare, and send pink noise through it. Or take a dead oatmeal-box-sounding kick drum, and use it to key an expander with an oscillator tuned to the lowest root note to give it a little life.

On the compression side, its fun to knock the rhythm GTRs down with the lead vocal track, or knock groups of instruments down with the kick.

This stuff is pretty much standard today, but back then it was "BIG JUJU"!

(God, I'm old.)

[Sonorra]

which compressor or gate are you guys using for such things?!

i use the rocket for compression - which works ok but not that good
and the sonalksis gate which i realy like.

well sidechaining some reverb is one usefull tool too - to creat a cool gated reverb on e.g. snare

[Led]

I set up stereo groups and have each one keyed to duck on different beats ie - one is keyed of 1/4 notes on the down beat, another is keyed of quater notes on upeats. Also one on eights. I print click tracks to key them from. Then I just assign stuff to different groups to see how I like it. YOu can get all sorts of rolling rythms that work off each other.

[12ax7]

Originally Posted by Led

I set up stereo groups and have each one keyed to duck on different beats ie - one is keyed of 1/4 notes on the down beat, another is keyed of quater notes on upeats. Also one on eights. I print click tracks to key them from. Then I just assign stuff to different groups to see how I like it. YOu can get all sorts of rolling rythms that work off each other.

Wow. I guess you could get to the point where everything was (albeit indirectly) influencing everything else!