Complex Sidechaining 2018

Hello !
This is my latest tutorial about How to sidechain in Renoise with\without an input signal [complex way]
PS:Thanks for Kieran Foster for the Reset button’s automation recording hint d(@_@)b
Enjoy !

you can set the keytracker to reset the lfo each time a key sounds :slight_smile:

but super cool method …but im sticking to my

trigger ---- signal follower ---- hydra for now …

its giving me good results

I also stick to the way using trigger samples. It also is an easy way to take velocity into account, i.e. weaker bassdrum hits will trigger sidechain with reduced strength, or mixing trigger sounds, even putting compressors on the trigger channel to shape the sidechain mixing even more. Also lookahead is the real shit. And you can tune the response like with the LFO graph, just with the sample volume envelopes. Ofc your method has that “muting and still work” benefit that would be needed to work around in other setups (gainer to mute, put notes to different channel than audio and keep it unmuted, keep unmuting the trigger sample channel also…).

Some notes on your techique:

  • you didn’t enable “one shot” mode on the first LFO. If you don’t constantly trigger the LFO from pattern data, it will not stop the sidechain but keep on looping with whatever speed the LFO is set.

  • you could try using hydras to get better control over the mixer/gainer faders. The LFO sucks in that regard. I always set amplitude 100% offset 50%, and link it into a hydra. From the hydra I can control the gainers etc and define the ranges in much better ways, and use log/exp scalings if the sound requires it. This way you can let the same sidechain signal control multiple devices, and each in its own range.

  • the limitation you are asking about that you cannot link to channels to the left…well, I believe the devs thought it would be good to prevent feedback loops, i.e. infinite loops. You can break this chain with hydras btw…from a hydra you can link anywhere…must have been “forgotten” in regard to that rule… If you creat an endless loop with a hydra, the parameters might do a funny spastic dance hehheh

  • I think it is a lot of hassle to control the sidechain for each action with one pattern command. I imagine you’d have to constantly sync the bassdrum notes with the effect command, I wouldn’t want to do that. LoB suggested keytrackers, or velocity trackers, which can also reset an LFO (set min/max to zero so the LFO will always start at the beginning!)

  • I found some notable thing, if you do sidechaining in certain ways linking between tracks, there seems to be a problem with multicore processing, and the tracks that are linked might be forced to be processed on the same core instead of parallel. Solution is to send output from track to a send channel, and apply the sidechain (gainer, eq, filter, etc) in the send channel, then parallel processing might work again.

ill use this method if i were to produce Drum n bass or anything going 170bpm or more …s maybe due to the limitations we were talking in my video

ill setup a channel

keytracker + LFO + hydra (controlling the diffferent gainer devices) …

Guys/ I think that you did not notice the MUTE ability of this concept.
In your methods : If the source channel is muted \ or if the targeted channel is soloed \ >> we dont get a signal to our targeted channel >> LFO is not responding.

In my method : When automate the Reset button > you get a sidechain effect without a source sound >> you can mute your sidechained channel and enjoy the LFO responding all the time.
Renoise mutes the source signals @including outputs@ when we single the targeted channel > your LFO will not work without an Opened source signal channel singled with it @_@
Thats why i will use this chance again to thank Kieran Foster for the Reset button’s automation recording hint, it really saved me a lot of time and space in my projects/

  • I found some notable thing, if you do sidechaining in certain ways linking between tracks, there seems to be a problem with multicore processing, and the tracks that are linked might be forced to be processed on the same core instead of parallel. Solution is to send output from track to a send channel, and apply the sidechain (gainer, eq, filter, etc) in the send channel, then parallel processing might work again.

It will not solve the problem since we have an ASIO driver running on a single thread "and controlled by system’s kernel " :slight_smile: " we cant control \divide the cores processing using this trick "

Guys/ I think that you did not notice the MUTE ability of this concept.
In your methods : If the source channel is muted \ or if the targeted channel is soloed \ >> we dont get a signal to our targeted channel >> LFO is not responding.

In my method : When automate the Reset button > you get a sidechain effect without a source sound >> you can mute your sidechained channel and enjoy the LFO responding all the time.
Renoise mutes the source signals @including outputs@ when we single the targeted channel > your LFO will not work without an Opened source signal channel singled with it @_@
Thats why i will use this chance again to thank Kieran Foster for the Reset button’s automation recording hint, it really saved me a lot of time and space in my projects/

It will not solve the problem since we have an ASIO driver running on a single thread "and controlled by system’s kernel " :slight_smile: " we cant control \divide the cores processing using this trick "

now i understand better

My method is to use seperate channels for the note data, the audio outputs, and the sidechain channels. So I have for each instrument a group with channels, the first always unmuted but without audio, here be the note data triggering stuff. The second is the audio output (I use renoise’s routing to seperate note/audio), the third is the sidechain signal triggered by the instrument and fed into signal followers, muted w/ 0db mute send. So I can mute the audio channel of the instrument, but still have it’s sidechain trigger active if the side channel and the notes channel are still live! I admit it still features muting/unmutig, but I think this can be automated via scripting (so the script will track that the note and sidechain channels are always unmuted), and I’m eager to implement that as tool once other ideas in my pipeline have been finished.

It is of course some extra setup, but I tried all methods and like this one best in terms of flexibility and how I’m able to tune the sidechains in my song.

The multicore thing…well, I tell you, I’ve had sidechain going directly to gainers/filters in tracks, and it inhibited renoise’s multicore processing, leading to all instruments connected via a sidechain being processed on the same core. I’ve had projects that I had to stop, because of too high cpu load >90%. Then ffx pointed out I could place the sidechain gainer/filter etc into send channels, and I did, and renoise was able to spread cpu load better among the cores, enabling me to work on at <60%. I’m talking about using renoise on linux, no vst instruments and effects, only renoise native instruments, but very complex ones with shitloads of effects in the instrument fx and the mixer going on. Maybe things are different on windows and when using vsts, I think many VSTs might do their own threading for sound generation? But ofc renoise can multicore, it just splits very coarse on mixer/track level, why else should it have the option to declare how many cores it should be allowed to use?

Complex Sidechaining is very 2014, imo

Complex Sidechaining is very 2014, imo

I can see No proofs @_@

I can see No proofs @_@