Mixing & sidechaining

[tiger jackson]

So I'm learning more about how to use Reason and currently learning sidechaining which dived a bit into mixing. So the way I'm doing it is: Kong kick sample through its own mix channel, synth dynamic inputs>kong kick sample parallel output, and using the mixer to activate sidechain, no external compressors.

So I can get the sidechain work, but I'm confused about a whole nother thing... during my research, I see people saying to hard pan the drum samples to the left and right for odd and even. So with kong, drum pad 1 is hard panned left, drum pad 2 hard panned right etc. However this is sorta an issue for me because since birth I only have one functioning ear, and I use headphones mainly, and I end up swapping headphone sides to hear differences, and everything ends up seeming so messy to me. Why is this done? How necessary is it? Could I keep them all centered if I really want? I've listened to many music through headphones and have noticed in some songs, some instruments only appear on one side of my headphones, tended to be a pain for me when I had the headphones on the wrong side, heh

[Popey]

Hi i am not sure if this is technically right as i am self taught but i always have my kick, snare and bass down the middle(not panned left or right) and then use eq and compression so the kick and bass have their own space. I will pan things to get them to sit in the mix but this tends to be high hats, pads, leads etc. There are others with a lot more experience of music making than me on here though and from my experience they will be really helpful and provide advice too.

[chimp_spanner]

So I'm learning more about how to use Reason and currently learning sidechaining which dived a bit into mixing. So the way I'm doing it is: Kong kick sample through its own mix channel, synth dynamic inputs>kong kick sample parallel output, and using the mixer to activate sidechain, no external compressors.

So I can get the sidechain work, but I'm confused about a whole nother thing... during my research, I see people saying to hard pan the drum samples to the left and right for odd and even. So with kong, drum pad 1 is hard panned left, drum pad 2 hard panned right etc. However this is sorta an issue for me because since birth I only have one functioning ear, and I use headphones mainly, and I end up swapping headphone sides to hear differences, and everything ends up seeming so messy to me. Why is this done? How necessary is it? Could I keep them all centered if I really want? I've listened to many music through headphones and have noticed in some songs, some instruments only appear on one side of my headphones, tended to be a pain for me when I had the headphones on the wrong side, heh

Glad to hear you got sidechaining going! Also look into Pump RE! That’s my favourite tool for sidechaining by far.

With regards to the odd/even panning thing...this is to double the number of outputs from 8 (stereo) to 16 (mono). The idea is that you use each half of the stereo pair - L & R - as a single mono channel. So you’d pan pad 1 to the left, then shift drag from the left output of 1/2 to the left/mono input of mix channel to prevent automatic stereo routing. Then you’d pan pad 2 to the right, and shift drag the right output of 1/2 to left/mono input of a second mix channel. And now you’ve got two outputs from one stereo pair. Repeat as needed! Just remember to assign your pads to new stereo pairs incrementally, and to shift drag the outputs to prevent auto routing and also to use the left/mono input of the connected mix channels. Hope this helps!