Side Chain Compression?

[Purpleb]

What is your favorite way of using side chain compression in reason?

[Jagwah]

If I am understanding the question properly, I like to use it from my kick to anything taking up the same frequencies like basslines etc, and I like to have it set up like this - easily accessible and ready to go:
 

[Purpleb]

Very cool! I do it basically the same way except from redrum.
I was just wondering how people approach it and what they like best.

[Ayello]

If I am understanding the question properly, I like to use it from my kick to anything taking up the same frequencies like basslines etc, and I like to have it set up like this - easily accessible and ready to go:
 

 

I don't get it ...where is your bass synth ? i mean where is the instrument you're sidechaining with your Kong ?

[Jagwah]

I don't get it ...where is your bass synth ? i mean where is the instrument you're sidechaining with your Kong ?

If you build it, they will come...

There is no bass synth yet, nor anything else occupying the kick's frequencies - but when there is, I add a compressor to the end of its signal chain and send a cable from one of these audio splitters to it.

[Last Alternative]

I use a sidechain but not always. Usually only if I can't part with the bass or kick tones and mirror EQ isn't enough. And the Spider is there for going from the kick to bass and cymbals so the kick gives them both more rockin bounce. Sounds cool in heavy songs.
The routing always goes from the kick or Spider into the mix or audio channel's dynamics which keys the mixer's compressor. Hardest part is getting the compressor settings right. I never know if I should turn on peak or fast or smash the ratio.. so I just play with it until I hear the right pulse and then back it off a notch.

Lately though I've been wanting to try dynamic EQ instead, just haven't yet. I think there's a fairly new RE out for it.
EDIT: Just checked the shop. Maybe the dynamic EQ is one of the REs on the way.. can't wait.

[zwerggle]

...And the Spider is there for going from the kick to bass and cymbals so the kick gives them both more rockin bounce. Sounds cool in heavy songs.
The routing always goes from the kick or Spider into the mix or audio channel's dynamics which keys the mixer's compressor. Hardest part is getting the compressor settings right. I never know if I should turn on peak or fast or smash the ratio.. so I just play with it until I hear the right pulse and then back it off a notch.

I do pretty much what the peeps in here have already said, although I've never done it on a cymbal, like person said above. Sounds interesting.

As for settings, I was under the impression that the "correct" value for the ratio was infinite and to keep attack and release pretty much zero, as that will be the most accurate representation of your source sound. If your threshold is too high, the compressor won't do anything and (for example) your bass drum and bass will sound kind of like they're in two different "places." if your threshold is too low, the compressed element will pump. You'll want it in the middle. 

That said, you might want to increase the release a bit to smooth things out a little. If you do want that pumping sound, then smoosh away and move that threshold down. I tend to like a teensy bit of pumping as my "neutral" sound, as it gives me a bit of that French House awesomeness. In the end, you should probably do what sounds good to you.

[Gaja]

I love using sidechaining on a gate. Make a nasty hihat pattern, split the signal, plug one cable in the sidechain input on the mixer channel of a string or pad sound (or any sound) and activate the gate in the mixer. Adjust to taste and enjoy.

[Last Alternative]

zwerggle- You're right. I always learned infinite ratio but then watching a tutorial by a world class producer (forgot who) did a 4:1 kck/bass sidechain which flipped my whole world upsidedown. Compression is still one of those things I have a tricky time with. I mean I get it but the SSL one is really different. And for cymbals- you outta try it out sometime. I meant it makes the song smashing but I don't pump it to death. Just enough to pulse in time but not too deep.

Gaja- That gate and expander business is still a mystery to me. Been meaning to spend time really figuring it out. Every time I've tried I got frustrated and thought I don't need it anyway.

[FrankJaeger]

I set up a combinator in the first column that has a redrum playing ghost notes of my kick and snare patterns split with up to four spiders. I then create bus channels grouping similar instruments into each one and throw on a compressor. When I want heavy "in your face" drums without having to sacrifice the bass or over EQing things to make room for them, I use the sidechain combi to duck the bus channels output with a fast attack and fast release. I adjust the ratio and threshold to make sure there is no pumping and that there is only a brief bit of "silence" for as long as the drum sample is playing. This makes the kick and snare have a strong presence without sacrificing the other instruments sound quality. If sidechaining the bus is too harsh or obvious, then I sidechain the instrument channels individually with different settings to preserve the quality of the track...

[InavigableHeart]

If you ever want an uber quick sidechain effect, just to see what it would sound like, look no further than Synchronus, if you have it.... the sidechain presets under the 'pumping' directory are great for this.

[Last Alternative]

^Yeah but that introduces way more processing! My computer never breaks a sweat but with my recent stuff I've been hitting 4 bars of DSP. I have a quad core i7, 8gigs of RAM, and a solid state drive. Only an average of 4.5 gigs/RAM are ever being used but I just ordered another 8 gigs of RAM so I'll have 16 by next week. Maybe that will give my computer more room to breathe? Oh and I always have 90-100 gigs of free drive space.

Any tips on getting the DSP down? Obviously one answer would be don't use so many REs but my computer shouldn't have any issues. This thing has never pinned the DSP bars but still. I'd like it to stay at 3 bars max. It makes me nervous to see it jumping around to 3 and 4 like it's about to hit 5 or something and there's only 6 bars..

[Gaja]

zwerggle- You're right. I always learned infinite ratio but then watching a tutorial by a world class producer (forgot who) did a 4:1 kck/bass sidechain which flipped my whole world upsidedown. Compression is still one of those things I have a tricky time with. I mean I get it but the SSL one is really different. And for cymbals- you outta try it out sometime. I meant it makes the song smashing but I don't pump it to death. Just enough to pulse in time but not too deep.

Gaja- That gate and expander business is still a mystery to me. Been meaning to spend time really figuring it out. Every time I've tried I got frustrated and thought I don't need it anyway.

Well I hardly ever use the gate. And if you don't do much live recording you probably won't have to either.
A gate works just like a limiter but the other way around, meaning that everything below the threshold will be reduced by an adjustable amount (the SSL one does up to 40dB of gain reduction IIRC).
Gates were needed way back then to compensate for humming and buzzing that occured due to the analog circuits (or something like that; I'm bad at explaining these things), which are now not as common anymore. When I record drums, there's hardly any noise at all that would really justify the use of a gate on most signals.
I try it on Toms, but it's mostly faster to find where the toms are playing and bluntly delete (mute) the rest of the track.From my very limited experience with gates I'd say that usually the loudest noise you'd like to gate out, is still louder than te quietest signal you'd like to use.

[Gaja]

^Yeah but that introduces way more processing! My computer never breaks a sweat but with my recent stuff I've been hitting 4 bars of DSP. I have a quad core i7, 8gigs of RAM, and a solid state drive. Only an average of 4.5 gigs/RAM are ever being used but I just ordered another 8 gigs of RAM so I'll have 16 by next week. Maybe that will give my computer more room to breathe? Oh and I always have 90-100 gigs of free drive space.

Any tips on getting the DSP down? Obviously one answer would be don't use so many REs but my computer shouldn't have any issues. This thing has never pinned the DSP bars but still. I'd like it to stay at 3 bars max. It makes me nervous to see it jumping around to 3 and 4 like it's about to hit 5 or something and there's only 6 bars..

Actually I must say I haven't seen overly high use of CPU on any of my recent projects. If the signal is good, then you should also not need very many REs imo. Especially compression and reverb. Many people are into the veryvery highend reverbs like TSAR1 etc, which use a ton of CPU (and the tsar sounds fucking amazing!) but I'd say one out of a hundred listeners will hear that there's reverb on there somewhere and then one of a hundred of these would be able to actually have an opinion on the quality of the reverb (that is if it is not too obvious, or a reverb that serves defined artistic purposes, like a gated reverb effect).
I guess what I'm trying to say is that most work should go into the composition of your music, and then at the production. Is there a Reason you use REs over the native stuff? Because what's in Reason already (at low cpu cost, I might add) is quality stuff for most purposes. If you're really a tweaker of synths etc. then of course some REs might offer stuff you can't accomplish any other way inside of Reason, but if you just love that predator preset, but really don't know how to actually tweak it to i prove on the sound, then there should be nothing holding you back from bouncing that synth to audio. Of course there's always a way inbetween, but you might find that in some cases less is more and quality serves the purpose better than quantity.

[Last Alternative]

Exactly. Besides using gate for an effect there's no need which is why I haven't bothered to fully learn it. The only live recording I do is acoustic guitar, acoustic bass, and vocals but I have a nice dead makeshift booth and a RODE NT2a with the 80Hz cut on and an Audio Technica AT2020. Luckily I don't live anywhere near planes and trains. Any noise from the AC/heater is so minimal it doesn't bleed thru while singing and of course I just trim off the audio clips after phrases.
My guitars and bass are all recorded DI.

[Last Alternative]

...I haven't seen overly high use of CPU on any of my recent projects. If the signal is good, then you should also not need very many REs imo. Especially compression and reverb... Is there a Reason you use REs over the native stuff? ...be nothing holding you back from bouncing that synth to audio...

I have TSAR1 and love it! Like I've said before I only use 1 per song and it's always send fx 1 for a nice drum room/ambiance.
Just about all my other REs are for dynamics. I use the Synapse EQ on almost every track because it's so much more versatile than stock EQs, not to mention the spectrum analyzer. And I always use Selig's REs on vocals. Sometimes I bust out the RE2A compressor for bass, sometimes the FET but my use of compression is only if needed. Otherwise any other REs are rare; I always try to use stock tools first and I only use the tools I need for the job, or, the tools I think I need- sometimes it turns out I didn't need it. :s0959:
I've had tracks that only needed a HP on the mixer for example. Oh yeah and I've been getting into using Scream for tape warmth on almost everything lately. If there's a group like vocals or guitars or drums then I only put tape on the groups instead of every single thing in the group.
My songs are usually 15-25 tracks including group buses.

Anything MIDI stays MIDI because I'm scared I'll need to change drum elements or tweak synths as the mix progresses, which could spare extra EQing and stuff.. I have a serious problem committing to a sound.

You think more RAM will help?

[Gaja]

I don't know if more ram will help, as I am not interested in the technical side of a computer, I only want it to work

About the midi stays midi point... Well empirically, how often do you go back to changing synth sounds etc? I personally had that approach for some time and would never get any actual mixing done (which I wasn't really good at anyway), because I was always tweaking the synths. I learned that it is important to make a decision, even if it is irreversible, in order to be able to at some point say: "It's done!" Now I actually often bounce all tracks (where easily possible) to audio stems and load them in a new session for mixing.
That way, if you're really absolutely definitely a 100% certain that there is absolutely no other way on earth than to interrupt mixing and get into production again (which is what sound design actually is [or patch design if you will]) then you can still do it and everything is like you bounced it.
But imo production and mixing (which is basically post production, meaning after production) are two so entirely different processes that I have to seperate them in order to be able to finish. If I don't commit to something in the production phase, then I won't be able to find a right position in the mix, because I'm not conviced of a certain lead or bass sound (like I should have taken a saw instead of a triangle). For me thenact of bouncing the audio helps to be confident about the sound (and at one point I obviously was, because it's how I left it), which helps me to focus on te transition to the mixing phase. Actually user stratatonic (I hope I don't confuse this up now) has a blog (or had, haven't visited it for at least a year and a half) where he described quite nicely how he sees the matter of workflow and how to find one that actually helps to get things done. You can find all kinds of his jist over here http://blog.kimlajoie.com/?s=Workflow&S ... mit=search
He helped me a lot with these articles.
Enjoy the read