side-chain trend

just wondering if anyone's got thoughts on this heavy duty
side-chaining trend that's kickin around in lots of electronic
music these days...

seems now it's so simple to do in ableton every sucker gates
his synth pads to the kick and bam, it's a track...

i dig the sound and that exaggerated breathing effect it can
give... but is this effect getting played out?

...or am i just listening to the wrong ish...

You're right, it's getting played out.

I've been sidechaing my vocals track ,well one of them and duplicate a dry one and buss them together which seems to work as you get nice distortion pumping artifacts.

Plus if you add a beat repeat to the bassdrum trigger and a delay attached to the compressor you can with meddling about get get a rhytmatic smoke effect.

I think sidechaining is coool but i dontlisten to chart music anyway and i guess the trick is using it so cannt notice it

It never really went away and has been played out, but "conforming" is often only differentiated from "creativity" depending on the timing. I think it can be both obnoxious and befitting, depending on how it's used. Right now, it's just being so heavily used to define a sound, like the Dubstep wobble shit, that it's a bit dehydrating. Used subtly, not as the defining element of a sound, it can still be enjoyable and effective, I think.

Side-chaining things has some great uses outside of the ham-fisted effects though, obviously.

the cosmic pimp wrote:I think sidechaining is coool but i dontlisten to chart music anyway and i guess the trick is using it so cannt notice it

dude i think it's cool too... i wasn't talking about chart music, and i was talking about using so it's an audible effect...

Undertow wrote:I think it can be both obnoxious and befitting, depending on how it's used....

Side-chaining things has some great uses outside of the ham-fisted effects though, obviously.

yeah i totally agree...

cheers for replies dudes

what exactly do u mean by side chaining

i mean using an audio input to trigger a compressor... maybe not the best explanation...

does this help?

One of the most legit reasons to side chain is to prevent the kick and bass tones from mixing. There are times when the Bass instrument and the kick drum notes mix creating a dissonant tone thus by ducking the bass you can avoid this.

I think it's often overused and sometimes used as an excuse for poor mixing. It can be interesting though. It doesnt always need to be the kick though. Mix it up and experiment I say.

Upright wrote:One of the most legit reasons to side chain is to prevent the kick and bass tones from mixing. There are times when the Bass instrument and the kick drum notes mix creating a dissonant tone thus by ducking the bass you can avoid this.

"Ducking" can be done through automation as well, if your comp/vst doesnt have a sidechain. (Clean, No pumping effect). Ducking is a very useful mixing technique, on any 2 signals with similar frequency responses.

I use side chain sparingly, to give the sub a little more boost on kicks and bass by gating and also sidechaining a compressor to give the vox a little more room over some parts of the instrumental in the mix

Frags wrote:I use side chain sparingly, to give the sub a little more boost on kicks and bass by gating and also sidechaining a compressor to give the vox a little more room over some parts of the instrumental in the mix

I've done this as well with vocals....definitely has to be used sparingly.

Side chaining has been used for decades and started with the broadcasting industry for ducking and is still used today.
Early days saw side chaining used on vocals and drums predominantly and today it has become more musical in application much in the same way as Autotune has.

The real art of mixing is in automation but side chaining plays a huge part as well and is not restricted to just the bass and kick.....

Is side-chain compression possible to do it inside the MPC2500 without having to use an external console ?


http://www.reverbnation.com/djboogy

^ unfortunately you can't do side chain compression in the mpc 2500.