side chain compression on kick and guitars?

[earworm]

ok, i'm a newbie when it comes to sidechain compression,

first question: do you always put kick and bassguitar in sidechain when u mix?

second, i've been listening alot to system of a down lately , with headphones on, they got loud and fat guitars , no matter how loud the guts go, the "clicking kick" is coming trouh very clear, in every part of the song,
did they put a kick in the sidechain of the guitars too?
or a kick in the sidechain of the entire mix?

or should u only put a kick in sidechain of the bass...
and what about fast metalsongs with a fast double kick...won't it fuck up the bassguitar part if the double kick "pushes down" the volume of the bassgut all the time?

lots of questions....

thanks in advance...

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Personally, I don't *always* do anything...except maybe reboot my computer and turn on the power on my mixer

Second, I'd recommend forgetting about all the "sidechain" talk. Just forget about it. There are dozen possible answers to your questions, eleven and a half of which have nothing to do with sidechaining anything, are a lot easier to understand, easier to execute and master, and can make a more important difference to the sound than any electronic tricks can.

The "clicking kick" is usually obtained by special miking the kick with a robust mic placed inside the kick at a level roughly equal with the beater, and/or adding a couple of dB to the kick track at about 4kHz (give or take a hew hundred Hz, your results may vary.) This has the effect of emphasizing the attack caused by the beater hitting the kick head. This could possibly also be emphasized against the guitar by notching the gituar a dB or two at the exact same freq as the kick boost.

Some compression may also be applied as well, but this can be done at tracking or as a channel insert during the mix, and is usually applied to give an even dynamic to the "heartbeat" of the rhythm section rather than to emphasize any particular frequencies (multi-band comp not included.)

Compression of kick and/or bass should be performed separately (different compressor circuits) as the optimum attack and threshold settings for each instrument are often widely different.

Also, usually making sure that the kick and the bass are not panned to the same location (e.g. put one slightly off-center left and one slightly off-center right) will help eliminate sonic competition between the two.

One of the best tricks is to lag either the kick or bass just a few ms, one behind the other. This has the psychoacoustic effect of making the "first" instrument sound more pronounced even if they are at the same level and share the same fullness freqs. If you're worried, for example, that the bass will get lost in the mud of the kick, lag the kick just *slightly* (10-20ms, if I remember right) behind the bass to make the bass stand out. Or vice versa for the kick.

Just my $.02 worth. I'm sure someone with their two pennies will come in behind me and tell me I'm full of s__t. You decide for yourself.

G.

[earworm]

just spent a few hours messing with my mix,
all is starting to sound better BUT the kick,
your ideas aren't *** , gives me plenty of inspiration and stuff to think about,
got some good points there..will try to do those things to my mix tomorrow,
right now i got a very noticable click-in-my-kick, but here it sounds "higher" than on the commercial albums i listen to, there they more got this "full" click, mine is tinier, but i didn't mike the batter-side of the kick..
..a little bit of approvement every day, thats what i'm going for

[northsiderap]

My Kick:

Sometimes notch boost somewhere between 30hz and 85hz
Sometimes gentle cut with midpoint between 200hz and 1khz
Sometimes light notch boost somewhere between 2khz and 5khz
Sometimes compress 4:1, sometimes hard limiter
Sometimes mic from across the room and no EQ, limiter, or compressor.
Sometimes in high school I got so drunk I laid with my head in the kick drum during a song. Don't try this at home.

That's how I get my kicks.

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Originally Posted by northsiderap

Sometimes in high school I got so drunk I laid with my head in the kick drum during a song. Don't try this at home.

Hahahahaha. So THAT's what the pillows are for? Man, I learn something new every day.

Originally Posted by northsiderap

That's how I get my kicks.

Easier than heading out to Route 66

G.

[FALKEN]

system of a down has the loudest mixes i have ever heard. their RMS is like -4 db. it is f-ing ridiculous. and somehow, there is more detail in that 4db of dynamic range than in anything i have ever recorded. i dont know how they do it.

[earworm]

one day, years ago, my cat was sleeping in my kickdrum, on a soft pillow,
i didn't know and started to use my double kick

poor animal,

since then she never entered my room again

[JazzMang]

Originally Posted by FALKEN

system of a down has the loudest mixes i have ever heard. their RMS is like -4 db. it is f-ing ridiculous. and somehow, there is more detail in that 4db of dynamic range than in anything i have ever recorded. i dont know how they do it.

Amazing engineers, amazing mastering.

[giraffe]

Originally Posted by earworm

just spent a few hours messing with my mix,
all is starting to sound better BUT the kick,
your ideas aren't *** , gives me plenty of inspiration and stuff to think about,
got some good points there..will try to do those things to my mix tomorrow,
right now i got a very noticable click-in-my-kick, but here it sounds "higher" than on the commercial albums i listen to, there they more got this "full" click, mine is tinier, but i didn't mike the batter-side of the kick..
..a little bit of approvement every day, thats what i'm going for

try low-passing the kick. at like ..........6K ah hell, just moove it around.
(sometimes thats what it needs, sometimes)

[northsiderap]

Speaking of sidechaining,

does anyone know of any ways to do this in my Cool Edit? Should I make this a new thread?

[earworm]

heh, good question,
is there any software at all that allows you to do it?