How do you get your percussion to trigger speaker vibration?

K

keepitwolf

New member
I'm not sure if I'm wording this correctly so your have to excuse me. I'm not an audio engineer. I'm a noob who does some home recording. If you listen to this track your notice that certain parts of the percussion effect how hard or soft the speakers vibrate. I read on a forum somewhere that this has something to do with side-chain compression. I've downloaded a free sidechain compressor plug in and It does something similar to what I'm hearing in this track but It's not quite the same. Can anyone give me any advice on exactly what I need to do to achieve this effect? To put it in none technical terms I just basically want the drums to have a physical element to them so for instance if you were wearing headphones you would feel the speakers vibrate when a bass drum hit is made.

Here's an example for you. Listen to the drums and the bass in the song. Hopefully your understand what I'm trying to say.

Yoko Kanno - Surf - YouTube
 
Speakers vibrating, is just a function of how they work. Adding compression and EQ in the right frequencies will help get the speakers moving and you will "feel" the music.

Boost 60-80hz for a kick drum.
Boost 250-300hz for a snare.

Just quickly do those things and you will see what I mean. Then, use compression to achieve a certain sound and control the dynamics. It's not a rule but a general consensus to EQ first, then compress.
 
'Speakers vibrating, is just a function of how they work.' - Hah hah, yeah I did put that in a rather dull headed way. I couldn't think of a more articulate way to phrase the question. I did suspect that there really was no short cut method or plug-in to getting this kind of mix and it's all about the right EQ and compression. Just time and patience.
 
In the case of that particular mix, it's just really dynamic. Not a lot of crowded crap going on, etc. Much more about the source and how it was mixed than any sort of non-typical technique.
 
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