side-chain trend

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

True that, but. playing with the the volume levels and assigning both samples to the same COMP FX (you'l have to exaggerate settings there!) could help.

In a kick-bass scenario, if the kick is enough louder than the bass, the result of the compression on the overall kick/bass signal will be close to bass ducking.

It's a trick that Roland SP models (Vinyl Sim. on classics 303/404/505) can do very well.

side chaining is awesome and underutilized. it goes waaaay beyond simply ducking the bass with the kick. bonobo will throw a percussion loop and then have a thick, heavy 808 kick drum knock out the percussion when it comes in....so the percussion kind of fills the space in between the kick. it's killer.

my own best use of side chaining (parameter modulation in reaper) is in this song:



it's actually extremely transparent.
in the original song, the guitar provides a deep bass-like tone. i liked that tone and didn't want to completely eliminate it, but i had my own bassline i wanted to put in too. so what i did was send the audio from my bassline into the track with the lead sample in it...but instead of playing the bass i sent, i used it to automate the EQ curve of the lead sample so that when the bass plays, the bass frequencies in the lead sample get reduced. the result is that extra room is created for my bassline, but when my bassline is quiet, the guitar is able to fill the space with its own secret dopeness...without any mud.

so not the most audibly awesome use of side chaining/param modulation but it's definitely a problem solver more times than you'd think, esp for sample users.

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


http://www.reverbnation.com/djboogy

nah, but this come close: http://www.mpc-forums.com/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=124628&hilit=sidechain

Side-chain is a I/O on compressors it is not a function, what it does do is allow DIFFERENTIAL COMPRESSION.
This is actually different to Keying or ducking. Keying and ducking are what most of you guys mean when you talk about sidechains. Sidechain differntial compression is used to de-ess as well as kinda making it a band compressor, say boost low Frequencies with an EQ to signal from sidechain and return to side chain and it will compress hi Frequencies and not compress low Frequencies. can set up multiband compressors this way with multiple units but yeah we have computers now.

I use hardware compressors not software, but software is modelled on the hardware obviousliy. so same principles. If you guys understand what i mean you will greatly benefit IMHO.

My hardware compressors work counter intuitively, as you use 2 channles as seperate I/O to do KEYING and DUCKING. NOT sidechain...weird hey took me a while to figure it out even with manual, must be all the crap i read on the internet

Example of how i key or duck - so channle A has kick, channle B has bassline, every kick triggers compressor and bassline is quieter so kick is louder. This technique is common in radio broadcasting as it lowers the music when you talk. leaving sidechain unused, sounds weird but thats how alot of hardware compressors work. So try it my way and you might be surprissed how well it works. I will post eample soon, but need to repatch

Wal Martian's point is 100% proven by my having used the internet to discover Bonobo's percussive side chaining technique. that youtube is awesome (unless you're expecting a flashy and boisterous studio clown/talkshow host character)

If it sounds good it's dope, no matter what technique. Still some effects can get kinda annoying if they get overly pronounced, I guess.
It seams to me that people here mean diffrent things when they say : sidechaining..
Kinda confusing..
Imma go learn what exactly sidechaining means, then come back and maybe add to discussion...

Side chaining from my perspective has always been ducking but I know that there is also a technique where side chaining is applied to specific frequencies...Reason/Record does both of these techniques.

Nym wrote:Wal Martian's point is 100% proven by my having used the internet to discover Bonobo's percussive side chaining technique. that youtube is awesome (unless you're expecting a flashy and boisterous studio clown/talkshow host character)

A quick question Nym...

In part 3 of the video he layers an effected loop with a dry alternative loop and then uses the kick to sidechain both together to create that distinctive sound.

So here's the question... If you wanted to mix down the effected loops to a stereo track (minus the kick) how would you do it?

Or alternatively how could you maintain the effect with the kick muted?

I'm just trying to soak up a bit of info before I get my hands dirty with this.

i think that depends on your daw.
i can imagine how i'd do it in reaper, though
first i'd go to the track which will be cut off by the kick drum (percussion track) and increase the number of channels from 2 (L/R) to 4 (L/R 1, L/R 2)
then i'd route the kick to the 2nd stereo pair (L/R 2)
in ReaComp (reaper's compresser) i'd set the detector input to receive the 2nd stereo pair. this way you don't hear the kick in the percussion track, only the resulting quietness that occurs when the kick track thumps into the 2nd stereo pair.

Cool.

I'm gonna have a play with this over the next few days and see what I can come up with. In terms of arrangement it's important for me to work out how to mute the modulator while maintaining the effect.

Cheers.

it's important for me to work out how to mute the modulator while maintaining the effect.

yeah dude. that's where reaper kicks ass, it keeps all invisible sends like that going when you solo something.

Nym wrote:yeah dude. that's where reaper kicks ass, it keeps all invisible sends like that going when you solo something.

In my short time with Reaper I noticed they'd taken a lot of cues from Cubase, so I guess its implementation in Cubase is equally as good if not better. I've just not had chance to dig in up to now.

Ok, I've pretty much sussed this out in 10 minutes...

The 700+ page Cubase manual isn't the most riveting read ever, but I have at least found a decent enough workaround to what I was asking.

For mixing down the effected tracks it's simply a case of changing the output of the kick from 'Stereo Out' to 'No Bus' and everything works as you'd want... So in the middle of an arrangement I could have a duplicated but silenced kick (or whatever) creating the effect. Nice.