Sidechaining, it's not even that great

I did some sidechaining tutorials and half the time the song sounds better with the full bass sound and not some half-cut out version. If sidechaining some buzzword that people don’t use properly and it’s not needed half the time.

it’s about making things louder and therefore clearer, not necessarily more pleasing,

but I bet you used the renoise way of side chaining, try it in other daws with audio routing where a single plugin will analyse the side chain signal internally, the resolution will be much higher.

Alternatively, in renoise, put the signal follower to a lfo with a custom envelope that leads to the floor on ducking gate set to -60threshold or the threshold on a compressor instead of a gainer or the shelf on a shelving filter

? Sidechain compression is THE essential technique to get a tight mix in the low end at least. Lot of electronic music genres are dependant on this kind of slightly “pumping”, too, it’s essential for the groove feeling, since also non beat elements will become then part of a groove. With it you also can get much more loudness. Also I would call this request more like “multiple (more than stereo) input support for vst effects” - since the second stereo input could be also modulator/carrier in a vocoder, a for any interesting purpose you could imagine, for example a ringmod. Everything would be possible. So I would say, sidechain support is a absolutely essiential daw feature.

jurek: under no circumstance would audio routing be implemented with only one additional ‘bus’

You mean, if it would happen, then unlimited busses? +1 for this :slight_smile:

I did some sidechaining tutorials and half the time the song sounds better with the full bass sound and not some half-cut out version. If sidechaining some buzzword that people don’t use properly and it’s not needed half the time.

Who says sidechain compression is really needed? It’s an artistic decision. Btw, basically you can sidechain whatever you like with whatever you like - it’s a pretty simple technique to control one thing by some other thing happening, that’s all. What you do with this method is up to you.

FDK that’s quite a good point. I should rephrase and ask what styles of music is sidechaining most helpful, or what styles of music is it used on the most.

For examples - rock, drum and bass, dubstep, disco, etc???

It’s been used in most styles of music for decades.

Bass is the maximum headroom killing stuff. Full amplitude booms best. But clipping will fuck up the whole mix if unwanted. If two bass-generators get mixed, the amplitudes will accumulate and blow headroom. Sidechaining in this regard is for giving priority to components over others, like the subby bassdrum won’t clip when a deep bass note happens together, but you’d automagically chop out a piece of the bass note for the drum to bang through clear and in full beauty. Normally you won’t really percieve at first listen if done right, but can mix the bass louder, and freqs won’t get mushy or cancel each other, leading to the bass and the bassdrum each being percieved well. Also two bass frequencies fighting with each other might produce strange and hard to control wobbling sensations when bass is loud as opposed to a more direct effect when proper dynamics techniques were applied to isolate what the woofers effect on you. What style won’t matter. Styles that live by being loud and having a lot of deep bass probably need these techs the most.

Sidechaining (or hard compression in general) also has its own use as an artistic effect. Like the classic pads pumping to the bassdrum and subbass, you’d normally not need to cut the higher freqs by the bass, but it’ll pronounce the rhythm in a certain style, and is easy to setup as opposed to fast fading the pads manually. Or like having an instrument with stong delay/echo effects, and only popping up the delay trail to the foreground when some synth is currently shutting up between notes. If you know this and listen a lot to edm, you’ll find many fast or even moderately slow fade-in-out dynamics effects were probably simply done with one-setup-then-instant-work-for-the-whole-tune sidechaining and compression tricks.

Take some time in exploring techniques creatively and experimenting, I found compression is the hardest thing about mixing or effecting to understand how to work with and do it right. I still suck very hard at it…

Bass is the maximum headroom killing stuff. Full amplitude booms best. But clipping will fuck up the whole mix if unwanted. If two bass-generators get mixed, the amplitudes will accumulate and blow headroom. Sidechaining in this regard is for giving priority to components over others, like the subby bassdrum won’t clip when a deep bass note happens together, but you’d automagically chop out a piece of the bass note for the drum to bang through clear and in full beauty. Normally you won’t really percieve at first listen if done right, but can mix the bass louder, and freqs won’t get mushy or cancel each other, leading to the bass and the bassdrum each being percieved well.

I’ve been mixing some of my near-finished songs and noting how certain low frequencies may be colliding. For me the advantage of side-chaining (which I now must try today) would be to avoid this overload, particularly when vocals come in.

I’m not looking for a discernible “effect”; the listener shouldn’t notice that certain frequencies are lowered. What they should experience is that the vocals (or percussion or bass line) are clear while not being too loud.

I found compression is the hardest thing about mixing or effecting to understand how to work with and do it right.

No kidding. I need to go find my compression and EQ cheatsheets because I find myself knob-twiddling after a while without a clear plan as to why. I’m all for “try this and see” but having a better innate understanding helps focus the incredibly large range of things to try.

Sidechain is quite old. Only, with a modern (well, 1997) twist introduced on Daft Punk’s Homework.
Pumping compression courtesy of Alesis 3630, at least I think they used that one.

When I produce myself, I like to be aware if whether I’m aiming for classic or modern sidechain.
“Classic” can be compared to the magician who can pull out the tablecloth from beneath a dinner table - if you are able to remove something in the mix without anyone noticing, you have succeeded.
Modern SC compression technique relies on a phychoacoustic phenomenon - that the sound providing the SC must be really “big” in order to drown out the rest.

They are both tricky, but also very different ways to employ SC.

I don’t sidechain at all.

When I mix I go through and cut off all the low end on things that don’t need low end like snare, hihat, etc. I use EQ5 to do this. Then I cut off the low end of the kick, bass, etc just to the point where it starts to affect what you can hear for each instrument.

I then go through and do the oppositte for the high end, same technique.

Is this EQ method too amateurish? Is side chaining just to get the thud-thud-thud-thud groove? Or is sidechaining kind of an “Auto EQ”?

Is this EQ method too amateurish? Is side chaining just to get the thud-thud-thud-thud groove? Or is sidechaining kind of an “Auto EQ”?

I found this quite interesting and it has improved my mixing a fair bit but perhaps I was a bit keen with cutting the low end from stuff:

Combined with this one:

Certainly an interesting perspective.

I don’t sidechain at all.

When I mix I go through and cut off all the low end on things that don’t need low end like snare, hihat, etc. I use EQ5 to do this. Then I cut off the low end of the kick, bass, etc just to the point where it starts to affect what you can hear for each instrument.

I then go through and do the opposite for the high end, same technique.

Is this EQ method too amateurish? Is side chaining just to get the thud-thud-thud-thud groove? Or is sidechaining kind of an “Auto EQ”?

I’ve come to appreciate the POV that all is volume, and that when something doesn’t sound right the first place to look at is where volume can be reduced. (I.e. if something lacks bass, don’t boost the bass; cut the high ends.)

I was experimenting with a track today where I felt the bass line (which is more or less the hook) was competing with the vocals (which are only present for about half the track). I was concerned with clarity as well as frequency build-up that would spoil headroom.

I tried using side-chaining to drive a mid-low frequency cut on the bass as a function of vocal volume.

It sounded OK on headphones, but on a smallish mono speaker I use in the kitchen (music to cook by) the tone shifting was notably distracting.

It got me thinking that I need to go back and listen to more reference tracks, but I’m pretty sure what most people are doing (in the cases I’m seeking to emulate) is what you describe. Set up the best frequency slot for each instrument such that they are not fighting for space and leave it at that. (Another possibility is that the side-chaining is done so well that headroom and clarity is preserved while the listener’s ear/brain is filling in the gaps.)

I’m going to try using a softer touch on the side-chaining EQ to see if that helps, but I’m tending to think that the better answer is to see how to make the vocals crisp without getting too thin.

Long term I’d prefer to avoid clever DSP management as much as possible. I don’t want to spend time figuring out how to “fix” a song.

Great tips so thanks for that! I am getting the sound I want now.

The next step is to compress my bass by following the signal of my kick drum. I set up the signal follower on my Kick with destination “Bass”. I selected the compressor that is on my bass track, but then I am forced to choose one of the compressor parameters (Threshold, Ratio, Attack, etc).

I want all the compressor parameters to follow the signal of the kick. I don’t want to select just one parameter. Why isn’t there an “All” selection. Do I have to set up five signal followers to pick all five compressor parameters?

No, you can use the hydra to share a single signal follower output for multiple parameters.

Great tips so thanks for that! I am getting the sound I want now.

The next step is to compress my bass by following the signal of my kick drum. I set up the signal follower on my Kick with destination “Bass”. I selected the compressor that is on my bass track, but then I am forced to choose one of the compressor parameters (Threshold, Ratio, Attack, etc).

I want all the compressor parameters to follow the signal of the kick. I don’t want to select just one parameter. Why isn’t there an “All” selection. Do I have to set up five signal followers to pick all five compressor parameters?

Instead of using the signal follower you can also use the keytracker to trigger a custom LFO everytime you hit a note. Then you can easily change the shape of the LFO without having to rely on the amplitude of the sample. Here’s the chain all set up for you, all you need to do is to enter the targets in the hydra:http://forum.renoise.com/index.php/files/file/98-custom-key-triggered-envelope-generator/

The hydra is a great option but confuses things a little. I’ve got the signal follower following my Kick Drum tracks to control the Gainer/Gain on my bass track. I twiddle the knobs and I can get a good groove going.

When I add a hydra and try and link up, say a snyth sound, to the same bass drum it changes the sound of the orignal kick/bass sidechain. I’ll put the kick/bass sidechain as item 1 on the hydra but it doesn’t sound identical to the orignal signal follower sidechain I just had setup. Item 2 of the hydra is my synth following the kick drum signal. Maybe the hydra knobs are affecting the original sound. I keep the min/max as default and don’t change the line (to a curve).

Help

The hydra in its default state (flat curve and min/max 0 and 100%) should just pass on its input (values generated by the signal follower) to all default-valued targets 1:1

Maybe you tried to tune the sig. follower to the synth, while it was still controlling the bass, so the control of the bass changed in return? The signal follower needs to be tuned once, and then the proper value ranges adjusted for each target in the hydra. The hydra will just translate one single input (the single sig.follow) for each target. If you need a very different response (not just ranges and curve, but other stuff regarding the sig.follow), I fear you’ll need another signal follower.