To side chain or not to side chain,

T

Terry Wetzel

New member
That is the question. Well, not exactly. Can anyone help me here by explaining just exactly what it is? How and when is it used? Am I correct in assuming that it is a daisy chaining of hardware effects? If so, please walk me through the proper connections, from a mixer channel and back. Thanks
 
I think I know what your asking here but to help me help you tell me what you have and what you want to do. It will make a big difference.
 
It's not "daisy chaining" -- It's driving the sensor of a unit with a signal other than the signal the unit is processing.

Such as compressing bass guitar by using the signal from the kick - Or compressing guitars with the signal from the vocal buss.
 
Massive gave it to you straight....

...I'll just say it a different way in case it's still not sinking in for you.

You would use another signal from another source to trigger the compression of the signal actually being compressed.

If you are compressing a bass guitar signal...to side-chain using the Kick as the trigger, the kick signal is (split) fed to the side-chain of the Bass compressor...that way the compression follows the Kick's signal rather than the Bass signal (which it would normally do without the side-chain).

That helps "lock" the Bass to the Kick...
 
You hear it all the time in radio. Music is playing, then the voiceover starts and the music gets quietier. What happens is the music becomes highly compressed because that compressor is fed from the voiceover mic. So the more voiceover, the more the music is compressed.

Another neat trick is to side chain a compressor to become a de-esser. You feed a vocal into an EQ and exagerate the highs. You side chain this signal to the compressor on the regular vocal track. Now when the compressor sees the highs from the eq track, it compresses the regular track.
 
thanks massive & miroslav, but...

miroslav said:
Massive gave it to you straight....

...I'll just say it a different way in case it's still not sinking in for you.

You would use another signal from another source to trigger the compression of the signal actually being compressed.

If you are compressing a bass guitar signal...to side-chain using the Kick as the trigger, the kick signal is (split) fed to the side-chain of the Bass compressor...that way the compression follows the Kick's signal rather than the Bass signal (which it would normally do without the side-chain).

That helps "lock" the Bass to the Kick...
Click to expand...
Excuse my inability to understand,(had a stroke not to long ago). If I might impose further, I think this is what your telling me:
Record a bass drum track and then copy it to another track. I now have 2 racks, original & duplicate. Next, send the duplicate track to the compressor side chain input. (Should I use the mixer channel insert from the duplicate track or direct out? Then, record the Bass guitar on a seperate track, using the compressor as a signal processor. Am I on track here? I Know I will need to experiment to get it right, I just want to eliminate any misunderstanding on my part and again, thanks for your help.
 
:confused:

Hey Terry :) I'm wondering about this myself. Never used side chain so this is a damn fine thread you started. :cool:


:D
 
Say your bass and kick drum tracks are just overpowering the mix when they hit at the same time... but individually sound perfect... so you want to compress one of the channels only when both hit simultaneously.

To compress bass audio by kick drum volume:
  • Split the output from the kick channel (assign to mix and aux)
  • Send aux bus kick audio to side chain input on the compressor. This is as far as it goes, it just triggers the compressor, there's no return
  • Assign duplicate kick audio to mix bus
  • Send bass signal channel from insert to line in in and out of the compressor
Now every time the kick drum audio peaks the bass audio will "duck' under it... a bass note played while the kick is silent will come through at full volume.

Make sense?
 
In your example, when you run the kick into the side chain, it compresses the bass when the kick drum is kicked. And the harder you kick the kick drum, the more the bass gets compressed at that moment. You're compressing the bass using the signal of another track.

You're effectively turning down the bass a little bit every time the kick drum gets kicked, to let the kick shine thru a little better, since the bass and kick are both kinda competing for those low freq's.
 
thanks, it's purely out of necessity on my part. I don't use protools so I can't use that feature where you can snap every thing to grid so that it's all perfect so I thought that if I can master this it will help tighten up my rythym section.
 
Thanks to all who commented, but,

Either I'm still not comprehending or I had a misconception of the purpose. I thought that side chain could be used to feed a tone such as an organ note,(example only), into the recording which woulld give the bass drum some tonality or, just to keep the 2 instruments,(I.E.) bass and kick tightly together. If I'm way off here, steer me back on course. Thanks
 
OK, Here' my set up.s

moresound said:
I think I know what your asking here but to help me help you tell me what you have and what you want to do. It will make a big difference.
Click to expand...
1). Mackie 24/8 board with aux.sends in channel strips.
Each strip has isert & direct out jacks.
2). dbx 266 compressor/limiter/expander/gate. stereo or 2 channel.
3). I don't normally use the mackie pres for instruments like electric bass. I go in through my dbx376 strip(in my rack). It sounds better than the Mackie pres.
4). I'm inputting the Kick drum from a Yamaha keyboard, again through the dbx376.
I hope you can make sense of all this. If I find out I'm way out in left field about the sidechain, I'll just shut up. thanks again.
 
I think I've solved my problem...

sayI'll say this and shut up! I found a web site with this and other useful info on digital recording. if I allowed to do this, OK. If not, stop me but, it helped me understand by walking me through the procedure



I haven't had time to scope out the entire site but if the rest of it is as useful as this, I think everyone here will benefit from it. Thanks again for your help.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Terry Wetzel said:
sayI'll say this and shut up! I found a web site with this and other useful info on digital recording. if I allowed to do this, OK. If not, stop me but, it helped me understand by walking me through the procedure



I haven't had time to scope out the entire site but if the rest of it is as useful as this, I think everyone here will benefit from it. Thanks again for your help.
Click to expand...

The Site posted has nothing to do with the topic, and I believe may have tried to run malicious software on my PC... I've notified the moderator.

Terry, If you could edit it out... that would be helpful
 
I don't know why? I've been on it for the last 1/2 hr. and no problems. Anyway, I thought it might be helpful to a lot of members. just trying to help. The site is Australlian if that could have something to do with it. I've bookmarked it for my own use. suit yourself. have a good day.
 
Thanks. I went back to see if i could delete it but I guess you had already done that. again, sorry to all if this screwed any one up.
I emphasize again, I am anything but a computer whiz!
 
Ive apologized to all for my error. You probaqbly weren't on the site long enough but I not only found an entire article on sidechain and it's uses but lots of other stuff.
 
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