Sidechained Compression vs. Volume Ducking

[SesG]

Can anyone explain to me the benefits of using sidechained compression over just sidechaining what you want to be prominent (e.g. kick drum) to the volume of what is interfering (e.g. bass)? Surely both are just ways to free up the necessary headroom in the frequency spectrum?

[r]

sidechain is also headroom trick... to me it's a groove maker

[boomstix]

as you say it does sound pretty similar

not sure how you are sidechaining the volume but if you are sidechaining a compressor you will have control over the attack and release, so you can add a bit of groove by getting them just right.

depending on what controls you have on the volume sidechain it might not be too different

[Basic A]

If your 'band' plays the right thing at the right level with a good sound, your tune will mix itself. All these sidechains and multiband doodads and insane eq curves blah blah - unless used specifically as creative effects - are just sticking plasters for the fact the 'band' fucked up.

[HAACK]

^This

Also, over-ducking and compressing can take much away from the tune, if it sounds good the way it is, then most likely you will never need to resort to such plug-ins.

I've heard tunes with great potential that are ducked beyond all recognition and would be even better if the producer had not used it.

[Basic A]

Also, over-ducking and compressing can take much away from the tune, if it sounds good the way it is, then most likely you will never need to resort to such plug-ins.

And if it doesnt sound good, and your not going for added groove, some subtle eqing and shifting in levels can make up for it...

O.P. , Have you read this man?
http://www.dubstepforum.com/this-thread ... 74832.html

Sidechains are for groove techniques lke said above, if your using them too duck bass too make room for drums, your levels/eq is probably funny...

[SesG]

It was just that in my latest I'd done a bit of cutting into the bass with an EQ where the kick was hitting, wanted the kick a bit more prominent, but without losing the charachter that the bass gained in that range and had read in a few articles about sidechained compression and wondered if it had any advantages that I had not picked up on - evidently not! Cheers for the replies

[mondays child]

......and some use it to good effect/make an entire career out of it al la Blue Daisy/Fly Lo.

So there's a good use for it experimentally as well, if it works, it works. End of.

[skwiggo]

Sidechaining is much cooler on pads and other melodic content than it is on bass I think. An Australian electro house producer called Pretension has a production tips blog where he uses the auto pan on ableton to create a fake sidechain. It gives a really good effect - http://pretensionmusic.blogspot.com/200 ... fakey.html

I find I use that more than either sidechain comp or volume ducking now

[futures_untold]

A compressor lowers the volume of an audio signal fed through it.

Automating a channel (or any other) volume fader also lowers the volume of an audio signal on that bus.

Thus, ducking and sidechain compression are technically the same thing.

Compressors are quicker to use than automating every volume duck by hand. One can set threshold levels, attack and release settings, make up gain etc for a whole track in just a few clicks.

Using the key input (sidechain) allows other audio signals to trigger the volume reduction (attenuation).

If you have a minimalist mix with few overlapping mix elements, then sidechaining can be effective in maintaining a higher average volume level for any given element in the mix (like a kick drum).

As pointed out above, one should achieve a decent mix without needing to resort to compressors to regain headroom. Simply turn down all your mixer channels and set the mixers master output volume to it's default setting (0dB). This will allow extra elements to be added to the mix while allowing the sounds within the mix to remain natural and uncompressed.

Although ducking can be useful for automatically reducing the volume of a radio mix when a presenter begins singing. I suppose one could use the same technique for recordign a song. It's your call!