How does sidechaining work

In extreme cases, the result might be heavy gain reduction on each kick-drum hit or bass-guitar note, which might not produce the required overall control at all. One solution is to insert an equaliser in the sidechain to filter out or reduce the sidechain signal's low-frequency energy.

The result is that the compressor sidechain now determines the amount of compression on the energy in the mid- and high-frequency ranges, which will probably produce a more natural and consistent sound. So, because the sidechain tells the compressor what to do, reducing the level of a frequency band using an equaliser in the sidechain also reduces the compressor's sensitivity to energy in that frequency band.

Another technique using equalisation of the sidechain is to deliberately increase the compressor's sensitivity to certain frequency bands, and the classic example here is the de-esser. Sibilant singers, for example, tend to produce peaks of excessive energy in a fairly narrow frequency band somewhere between 2kHz and 8kHz.

Ideally, such problems should be avoided through careful mic selection and positioning, but if you are faced with a recording already containing sibilance, you can often deal with it quite effectively using a de-esser, or a compressor with an equaliser inserted in its sidechain. By using the sidechain equaliser to boost the frequency region containing the sibilant energy, the compressor is made more sensitive to that frequency region. As a result, even quite small increases of energy here will result in quite large amounts of compression, thus reducing the audible impact of the vocalist at the moment of sibilance.

Sidechain equalisation can also be used with gates and expanders in the same way. Consider a snare-drum mic which has a lot of spill from both the hi-hat and the kick drum. Some artists even sidechain lead vocal lines to their drums—so when the kick or snare hits, the lead vocal ducks.

If you turn on the radio today for a few songs, you can almost guarantee that one of them is going to have a super punchy kick and sub-bass. When you have too many clashing frequencies, the mix starts to turn muddy, and harmonics and melodies get lost. To fix this issue, put a compressor on your bass track, and use a bus to send your kick signal into the sidechain input. You can clear up the clashing frequencies and really make your kick drum pop in the mix.

You can also center your rhythm around the kick even more by sidechaining sounds that are in the mid and high range, such as vocal harmonies, synths, or even white noise samples. But that can change the quality of the vocal, and even end up distorting it. By sidechaining other tracks in your mix to the vocal, you allow other elements of the track to quiet down when the vocal comes in, making room for it to shine. Try to achieve that balance. Got a track to sell? Let us distribute it for you, fast and easy.

Oftentimes, if you have lush soundscapes or string pads, it can be hard for other sounds to stand out, such as guitar lines or hi-hats. If you have a busy soundscape and multiple layers that are masking essential instruments such as your snare, you can use sidechain compression to help make room in the mix.

One thing that has been incredibly popular in beat music has been excessive use of sidechain compression for stylistic effect. On certain J Dilla songs, for instance, whenever the kick hits, every other sound in the track ducks.

This is finding its way into popular music, too, especially in genres like hip-hop and EDM. But be careful not to use it too much, because it can easily become tacky and overused. I'm going to share more ways to use this technique that you can explore.

Gain Vocal Clarity - As I mentioned before, whether in music or broadcasting, ducking the audience or a guest's "noises" behind that of the host can help tremendously. You can make reverb duck behind the lead vocals or even the rhythm guitar or keyboard, for example. The idea is to make sure the most important tracks take precedence, especially over those in the same panning region and similar frequency ranges.

Slap an EQ plugin on it and locate the frequency band where the sibilance is occurring and boost it that's right, boost it. Now the trick is to sidechain the equalizer to the compressor and let the compressor act on those frequencies. Or you could, you know, just use a de-esser since those exist now. Reduce the Snare in the Overheads - When you record overhead tracks for a drum kit, you'll usually end up with too much snare volume in them.

All you need to do is setup a compressor on the overheads and sidechain them to the snare bus. When the snare hits it'll suck it's own sound out of the overhead tracks and everything else too, so don't get too aggressive.

Use a very fast attack on the bass but a medium release. The main thing is to duck the bass fast so the attack of the kick can be heard clearly, which is what increases intelligibility the most. It also preserves massive headroom. Punch Through Ambience - In movies we'll record the sound of the scene so we can use it as background noise.

The same goes for keyboard pads and reverb. It's all to create a realistic and lush sound, but we don't want that in the way of the main sounds, so duck them at the right time.

Make Your Kick Meatier - A huge trick in rap production is to make a beefy kick. Sometimes people layer with kick drums but you can also just tune a deep sine wave and play it beneath the kick. But how do you make it fire only when the kick plays? Your noise gate can also have a sidechain that can be attached to the kick bus! When the kick fires, it lets the sine wave play. It's as simple as that. Now you know one of the open secrets of professional mixing engineers.

The funny thing about these secrets is you can share them out in the open and only a fraction of the people that encounter them will ever put them into practice. I want you to be one of those people that actually use this method, because you'll get a lot of mileage out of it. There's hardly a song you won't use it on once you understand fully when and how to apply it. Now open up your mixing toolbox and put sidechain compression in it!

Features Columns. What is Sidechain Compression? Uses for Sidechaining Compression I want to list out a few uses for sidechaining compression so you can start to get an idea why we do this in the first place: Making the music duck behind dialogue e. Making ambient and crowd mics duck behind the speakers live TV events, etc. Forcing the bass to drop in volume when the kick drum occurs.

Punching through a reverb or ambient pad. The Benefits of Sidechain Compression So obviously this is mainly about making sure the sound that should be getting most of the attention can be heard by the listener with the most clarity possible.

How to Sidechain a Compressor First and foremost you need to make sure you're using a compressor with sidechain capabilities. In this case, I'm going to use the stock Logic Pro compressor plugin: So far I've not done anything with this other than apply the plugin to the Bass track and open up the compressor. But on this one it's in the top right corner: I made a big arrow pointing to the option. Step 3 - Configure the Compressor to Taste The rest is easy, but you want to keep it straight in your head.

Sidechain Compression Made Easy! Join Our Mailing List. Jared H.