Sidechaining With an MPC?

Can you do sidechaining on an mpc? Would I need to buy a compressor and you the audio input/output with the compressor?

do you know what sidechaining is?

Do YOU know what sidechaining is?

Side chaining is when you want a effect (IE. compressor or gate) to respond to the signal level off a givin output (lets say a kick drum to a compressor on a bass guitar)

As the kick drum plays and is recorded (routed through whatever) the signal "side chained" to the the Compressor/gate opens and closes the compressor on the gate... the effect is control by the kick in this example...
So if you had a bass player that happens to get Ill 8 out of the 8 measures, and his part sounds "busy" ... you could side chain a gate on his track so you would hear the bass only when the kick triggers effect.
adjust the attack and release and you get a compressor reacting to a "kick signal side chained" verses the input of the track its effecting... cool effect if done right...

Now that out of the way...I think the question was can you do this inside of the MPC? ... depends on your type I think... I haven't tried this in my 1K... and don't think I want to... this should done in a DAW or mixer IMHO...
Pro-Tools allows side chaining in the program and I bet it's the same for others... If your all hardware and analoge.. I can understand your question then... buy a compressor... but you will still need a mixer to route the signal through to get the side chain effect properly.

lesterdiamond wrote:Do YOU know what sidechaining is?

LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!

Do YOU know what sidechaining is?

yep, that was kind of funny...

lesterdiamond wrote:Do YOU know what sidechaining is?

yes that's why i was asking you. if you knew what sidechaining is, you would know that no mpc is capable of doing it, the compressor is too basic. but anyway, good comeback.

OCTAIN wrote:Side chaining is when you want a effect (IE. compressor or gate) to respond to the signal level off a givin output (lets say a kick drum to a compressor on a bass guitar)

As the kick drum plays and is recorded (routed through whatever) the signal "side chained" to the the Compressor/gate opens and closes the compressor on the gate... the effect is control by the kick in this example...
So if you had a bass player that happens to get Ill 8 out of the 8 measures, and his part sounds "busy" ... you could side chain a gate on his track so you would hear the bass only when the kick triggers effect.
adjust the attack and release and you get a compressor reacting to a "kick signal side chained" verses the input of the track its effecting... cool effect if done right...

sort of right. here's my take on sidechaining:

with a standard compressor you have an input and an output. if the compressor is capable of sidechaining, you have another input (usually marked 'sidechain'). in normal use, the compressor's compression circuitry is triggered by the main input. however if you have one that's capable of sidechaining, you can use the sidechain input to trigger the compression circuits which work their magic on the main input's audio, and chuck that out of the output. [note: no audio passes from the sidechain input to the output] the idea being that you can duck the level of a certain channel using the level of another channel. this is quite useful with drums and bass. if you connect the bass channel to the input of the compressor, and the drums to the sidechain (you'll need to spilt the drums output from the drum machine/sampler/etc, or use an effect send if you have that on your mixer, because otherwise you won't hear the drums ), and setup the compressor correctly, then the bass will drop in volume slightly when the drums hits play. it's helpful because you can clean up muddy sounding bottom end with this technique, though don't over do it.

hope this helps.

check out an Alesis 3630 compressor

they sell for about $50-$75 on ebay

great for sidechaining!

on my mpc1000 I route the kick out thru the a stereo submix 3/4

L side goes to the main mixer, [should be mono in mixdown]
R goes to the side chain on the compressor
(the sub bass is routed normally thru the comp)

it makes the sub bass duck when kick hits.

sounds immediately more professional
because everything has its own space to breathe
you no longer have a muddy low end

ok, ignorance display time for me

i get the concept of sidechaining, but surely if your bass and kick are muddying up the low end doesnt that mean that either the bass or kick doesnt really belong in the mix? or atleast doesnt sit well?

meaning that the kick/bass needs to be tuned, or scrapped entirely in favour of an alternative kick/bass.

i get why sidechaining would be necessary say if youre recording live musicians, but if youre using a sampler with virtually unlimited numbers of kick/bass combinations possible, shouldnt that be the first stop before resorting to sidechaining?

true, but why make compromises when there's a solution? the sidechaining means you can use incongruent (or, at least, disharmonic) kick drum and bass sounds together successfully. try it and see, it can work wonders (even with my crud ).

its definately something i've been meaning to try. now i just gotta work out how to do it on cubase which i've only just started using

come to think of it there are one or two pieces of my own crud that tend to wallow in the gutters.

what better way to spend a 7 day public holiday, making beats and learning something new

I've seen sidechaining in the studio... but mostly with bands... I hardly use it with my MPC... too many option to choose from... If a kick doesn't work upon set-up I use another one... my 2cents.

Mr modnaR wrote:

OCTAIN wrote:Side chaining is when you want a effect (IE. compressor or gate) to respond to the signal level off a givin output (lets say a kick drum to a compressor on a bass guitar)

As the kick drum plays and is recorded (routed through whatever) the signal "side chained" to the the Compressor/gate opens and closes the compressor on the gate... the effect is control by the kick in this example...
So if you had a bass player that happens to get Ill 8 out of the 8 measures, and his part sounds "busy" ... you could side chain a gate on his track so you would hear the bass only when the kick triggers effect.
adjust the attack and release and you get a compressor reacting to a "kick signal side chained" verses the input of the track its effecting... cool effect if done right...

sort of right. here's my take on sidechaining:

with a standard compressor you have an input and an output. if the compressor is capable of sidechaining, you have another input (usually marked 'sidechain'). in normal use, the compressor's compression circuitry is triggered by the main input. however if you have one that's capable of sidechaining, you can use the sidechain input to trigger the compression circuits which work their magic on the main input's audio, and chuck that out of the output. [note: no audio passes from the sidechain input to the output] the idea being that you can duck the level of a certain channel using the level of another channel. this is quite useful with drums and bass. if you connect the bass channel to the input of the compressor, and the drums to the sidechain (you'll need to spilt the drums output from the drum machine/sampler/etc, or use an effect send if you have that on your mixer, because otherwise you won't hear the drums ), and setup the compressor correctly, then the bass will drop in volume slightly when the drums hits play. it's helpful because you can clean up muddy sounding bottom end with this technique, though don't over do it.

hope this helps.

I hear the term 'sidechaining' banded about a lot and have only recently started to think maybe this could be useful as sometimes my kick and bass may sound muddy.

After reading this dude's take on it, I couldn't help thinking, 'why wouldn't you just move your bass to the right a couple of ticks to let the kick be heard first?'

I know a lot of cats on here swear by the sidechaining, could you maybe lemme know why you prefer this method? You know, what are the benefits?

mastasteez wrote:I started to think maybe this could be useful as sometimes my kick and bass may sound muddy.

After reading this dude's take on it, I couldn't help thinking, 'why wouldn't you just move your bass to the right a couple of ticks to let the kick be heard first?'

I know a lot of cats on here swear by the sidechaining, could you maybe lemme know why you prefer this method? You know, what are the benefits?

Hello, the easiest way of explaining it to you is to get you to try it using both methods and see which you prefer, however, to answer your question directly, I wouldn't move the bass a couple of ticks back because it would mean you'd only hear a few ticks of the kick before the bass hits. Using sidechaining means you'd hear much more of the kick and the bass because the levels are being adjusted automatically and instantly by the compressor. The reduction of the level of the bass is noticeable if you are looking for it, but in practice the end consumer of the music probably isnt!