Sylvan
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Why is side-chaining important?
I would like someone to help me understand how I could benefit from side chaining. I keep hearing about it, but I guess I just don't understand how I can directly benefit from applying it.
I record mostly metal. How could the application of side chaining help me? Maybe I am not totaly sure what it is. Can someone help me out?
Thanks,
-Charles
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yep
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RE: Why is side-chaining important?
2006/09/12 11:41:37
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I have no idea if it would help you. It's just a capability, not an "effect." It's using one signal to trigger compression or gating on another.
For instance:
You could use the kick drum to trigger compression on the bass to "lock" the two instruments together.
You could use the lead vocal to trigger presence-range compression on the guitars to keep a "huge guitar" sound that opens up just enough for the vocals to be intelligible.
You could use the snare drum track to trigger sharp gating on a white noise signal, to give the snare a more "explosive" sound.
You could use a dry instrument to trigger compression on a reverb send, to get a big reverberated sound that doesn't wash out the original track.
You could use one rythm guitar part to trigger gating on on other doubled-up guitar tracks to get a heavy multitracked sound with the tightness and expressiveness of a single performance.
The way a typical hardware dynamics processor works is this: the incoming signal is split off into two "chains." The "main" chain is the signal that goes through the processor and gets compressed or gated or whatever. The second "side" chain is the control signal that the processing circuit references to alter the gain of the "main" chain. Being able to access that seperate "side chain" independently allows you to perform any number of tricks that you could not do otherwise. None of them are critical to overall sound quality, or essential for making realistic-sounding records, they're just cool tricks. A lot of people never use them.
cheers.
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krizrox
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RE: Why is side-chaining important?
2006/09/12 12:00:50
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Dude you should write a book  I would buy it. It was the last comment that caught my attention that I would like to reply to. I can't remember the last time I used any sort of side-chain trickery. Those are perfectly good solutions but I might suggest, in general sort of terms, that those are more of an "old school" solution to things. That doesn't mean side-chaining isn't a perfectly good solution in today's modern DAW world. But I have found, what I think are better alternatives. What I mean is, if I'm ever in a position where I think that side-chaining a compressor or gate or whatever might be a solution, there is usually a quicker and more accurate approach using volume curves or EQ curves or whatever. More "bit-level accuracy" if you catch my drift. I'm just funny that way. It seems like I can never be fully confident that a snare track is going to trigger a compressor perfectly (you know what I mean). Side chaining anything takes time to get it right. I've always thought of that approach as using a hand gun to kill a fly. Actually, side-chaining could be used as an effect. I might humbly suggest that as an effect, it might be more interesting or useful in the DAW world. I don't know. If you've never experimented, then you should do it just so you at least understand how it works. You might find plenty of situations where you need it.
Larry Kriz www.LnLRecording.com www.myspace.com/lnlrecording Sonar PE 8.5, Samplitude Pro 11, Sonic Core Scope Professional/XTC, A16 Ultra AD/DA, Intel DG965RY MOBO, Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4GHz processor, XFX GeForce 7300 GT PCIe video card, Barracuda 750 & 320GB SATA drives, 4GB DDR Ram, Plextor DVD/CD-R burner.
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Joe Bravo
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RE: Why is side-chaining important?
2006/09/12 12:06:49
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Well, I was gonna say that it was mostly just something DJ's used a lot during the 60's/70's to make the music drop in volume automatically when they were talking over it... until I read Yep's post.
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Sylvan
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RE: Why is side-chaining important?
2006/09/12 14:31:52
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Thanks for the responces. Yep, that was very informative and I am very thankful. Krizrox, I think I will follow your advice and look into it and experiment so that I understand how it works, just in case I have a situation that might benefit from it.
Thanks!
-Charles
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krizrox
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RE: Why is side-chaining important?
2006/09/12 15:24:58
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Yeah and don't be afraid to just be totally wrong about it. Turn those knobs all the way and see what happens. Sometimes those experiments produce happy accidents. Maybe use a soft synth as a side chain or... well... you know what I mean :-) In fact, since it came up, maybe I'll revisit that and see what kind of mayhem I can come up with. Anything that stirs creative juices is ok by me.
post edited by krizrox - 2006/09/12 15:39:49
Larry Kriz www.LnLRecording.com www.myspace.com/lnlrecording Sonar PE 8.5, Samplitude Pro 11, Sonic Core Scope Professional/XTC, A16 Ultra AD/DA, Intel DG965RY MOBO, Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4GHz processor, XFX GeForce 7300 GT PCIe video card, Barracuda 750 & 320GB SATA drives, 4GB DDR Ram, Plextor DVD/CD-R burner.
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Sylvan
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RE: Why is side-chaining important?
2006/09/12 16:46:30
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Cool. Hey I found this link to a tutorial on side chaining. What do you think? Side-chaining
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fejede
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RE: Why is side-chaining important?
2006/09/14 12:27:03
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ORIGINAL: krizrox
Dude you should write a book I would buy it.
Yep, please, write a book! please....... Regards,
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