The duck is the suck, fx chain for phat 808 sound

This post maybe should be in "production techniques" but it only really applies to modern MPC products so I placed it here.

This keeps coming up all week so here we go:
I often read questions about "How do i get my 808's to hit right?" here is your solution. Mother ducker is not the answer and here is why.

Mother ducker is a side chain compression, it's entire design is to DROP frequency when another layer interacts, thus you end up with a muddy poor sounding 808 bass kick.

The vca effect mimics analog signal attenuation and will attenuate your signal to a signal that fits the output signal in a more comforting way. Here is an article on what voltage controlled amplification is if you're a super geek like me who wants to know more: https://mynewmicrophone.com/what-is-a-vca-compressor-how-does-it-work/

I've made a segment and rendered it 3 ways.

1 clean and dry
2 with my chrous / vca xfx rack
3 clean with mother ducker

This works for all drums not just 808s using this technique will bring your drums into placement and allow your other instruments the overhead they require to rattle away in their own dynamic space.

Try it for yourself,
Examples and FX chain:
https://filebin.net/ippkgac1bzx41q11

It’s gonna take me a week to properly digest this

haha dok it just compresses the track with amplitude modulation. picture this, you got a signal source and its lets say (using arbitrary values) 100db signal but your target media or analog signal route is only capable of 60db you can compress the signal so it always hits within the bounds most confortable to your target signal route.

Because different amps, circuits, medias and data types have a certain amount of dynamic range, you need to squeeze the signal's intensity to fit without over driving the target's dynamic range. *volume* is relative to the circuits capabilities, where as amplitude is only relative to signal intensity despite us thinking about volume* like we see it in a waveform fitting the upper and lower limits. That's not volume, its amplitude.

thats how proper compression works, you could run a compresor on the main output, but if all the signals going to that main output are over driven then it will drop frequency when they collide. it's better to compress the layers. so that way when they meet at the main output there is enough overhead in dynamic range not to cancel one another.

Yeah mother ducker fits certain things well, like house where you want it to kinda pump between hits but it doesnt really suit alot of other scenarios and its not really the correct form of "compression" folks should be using unless they want that frequency dropping effect.

While I still favor the hardware compressors in my mixers, the mother ducker/AIR PUMPER are promising FX for that rhythmic pumping effect.

I do use the VCA/vintage compression on my [audio in] to cut down on clipping/etc.

Oh you got some hardware eh? That's the way to do it! This years mission, build a rack from HELL. Get rich! lol (getting rich likely wont happen this year i will likely go poor investing with a giant smile on my face) lolol

Getting rich is EZ
Be greedy when everyone is afraid
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin-cash/

best wishes with that rack from hell

LMFAO dok, thats how i paid for my entire studio. Seized the opportunity of everyones fear. As they ran inside and cowered i went to work and got as much as i could. Didnt amass any debt either i owe nothing. In theory, not owing is richer than being in the hole.

I almost wish the pandemic would stay so i'd have less competition but we cant afford for ppl to hide forever.