Any REAPER users out there know how to do this?

[Leonfrost]

So I had a bit of a weird idea just now, and I'm wondering how to put it into action. See, I'm the kind of metalhead who thinks cab thump is the coolest thing ever, but I'm the kind of engineer who hates hearing cab thump mingle with bass guitar.

What I'm wondering is, could a form of sidechaining be used, where (just a theory), when my ReaXComp is triggered by cab thump, it also triggers a duck on the bass guitar, allowing the cab thump to shine through unobstructed?

 

[RedDog]

You just said it yourself, man. Try sending pre fx to channels 3/4 on your bass track, load up ReaComp and set the input to auxiliary. Sidechain duck.

 

[Leonfrost]

I don't understand. Like, I get how to sidechain. But wouldn't what you're suggesting cause the guitar to duck the bass CONSTANTLY? I only want those speaker-thumpy chugs to duck the bass, if that's possible, but I don't understand how to do that.

 

[AudioGeekZine]

You'll need a filter on the sidechain signal. insert ReaEQ and change the IO to 3-4.

Or something like that.

 

[LeSedna]

yeah you can try by filtering your guitars in a way that the comp gets only the thump signal.

If you can't figure out a way to do it, there is another one which is the more effective although more tiring : you can duplicate your guitar track, and edit it by keeping only the thump parts. Use this track to trigger your compressor

 

[Nimvi]

I think the mainproblem would be that ReaXcomp doesn't have sidechain functionality (at least not to my knowledge?).
You can set the normal Reacomp to trigger on a certain part of the frequency spectrum but that still compresses the entire signal, so it's not ideal.

EDIT: you could ofcourse just use the normal reacomp with guitar-sidechain on a track that contains only the low bass info.

 

[John_C]

Make the track 4 channels and use the JS plugin 3 band splitter/joiner, you'll soon be able to work it out

 

[RedDog]

Or just automate the fucker on when you want it ducked. Trying it later today.

 

[bryan_kilco]

You'll need a filter on the sidechain signal. insert ReaEQ and change the IO to 3-4.

Or something like that.

This is where I start to get confused while trying to route/sidechain.......

 

[AudioGeekZine]

A track with sidechain active will have 4 channels. 1-2 is the audio from that track, 3-4 is audio received on the sidechain.
If you want to use ReaEQ to work only on the sidechain signal you change the plugin routing to 3/4 for in and out.

Looks like I should write a better tutorial on this.

 

[FarBeyondMetal]

Not sure if I am understanding the question correctly, but couldn't you mic the back of the guitar cab and then make a send to the bass track to channels 3/4 and insert ReaComp and set the inputs to 3/4 and be on your way?

 

[Leonfrost]

Well I could, but that would require recording another take, and I've already got the guitar parts all set up and done. I was hoping for an ITB solution.

The suggestion of using a dedicated thump track to trigger the sidechain on the bass sounds like the best method. Interesting. I'll check that out later today.

As for automation: There are a lot of instances of thump given the chuggy riffs we play, and some are spaced quite close together. I feel like automating upwards of 100 individual notes for a four minute song would be...impossible

 

[RedDog]

Ugh, you're missing what I'm saying. Automate the bypass on during a chuggy passage, turn it off when not needed.

But wouldn't what you're suggesting cause the guitar to duck the bass CONSTANTLY?

Isn't that what you want?

Or if I'm reading everyone's replies sober finally, couldn't what you want be done with simple EQ and of course, a little automation?
A simple google search should be able to find you a sidechainable multiband comp no problem.

I don't think you're being clear enough, but I have a tendency to overthink things.

 

[Shinozoku]

Still a Reaper noob (just now figured out that the Guitar amp sims can sound killer on bass tracks!), but couldn't you set ReaFir up as a multiband compressor and sidechain it?

 

[Leonfrost]

Ugh, you're missing what I'm saying. Automate the bypass on during a chuggy passage, turn it off when not needed.



Isn't that what you want?

Or if I'm reading everyone's replies sober finally, couldn't what you want be done with simple EQ and of course, a little automation?
A simple google search should be able to find you a sidechainable multiband comp no problem.

I don't think you're being clear enough, but I have a tendency to overthink things.

It's certain probable that I'm not getting my point across. My english is not the best. So let me try again; sorry. I don't desire a CONSTANT duck on the bass from the guitars. Let's say I'm playing a riff that uses a lot of low b chugs interspersed with normal, non-muted notes on other frets. Moderate tempo, maybe straight 16th notes at about 80-100 bpm.

What I would like is to have those palm mutes on the low b get full reign of the bass frequencies to let the sound of excursion through. But once those slightly higher regular notes come back in, I want the bass guitar to be there again.

So, you know how a multiband comp is usually set so that its threshold is only reached by those bass explosions that happen on thumpy palm mutes? Well, I have that set on the guitars to tame the wumpiness a bit so that it sounds powerful, not flabby. What I was thinking was, since said multiband comp is only triggered by the thump of speaker excursion, I wondered if it could also be used to trigger a duck on the bass guitar at the same time.

Does that make more sense? Sorry for my murky english.

 

[Nimvi]

I'll try to elaborate on the method I've mentioned before, since I think it does exactly what you want. It takes a couple of steps but once you get what you are doing you should be able to recreate and/or make it fit to any situation. It is by no means the ONLY way to do it, but I find it an easy one.

First of all, split up the bassguitar-track into multiple tracks with the desired frequency-bands. In your case you probably want one with the low bass (the one that will be ducking with the guitarchugs) and the rest. So you could copy your original basstrack to another channel (or create a send from the original channel to the new track) and put in a ReaEQ with a LowPass of, let's say, 100 Hz. Now you create that same EQ filter on the basstrack that ISN'T going to be ducked, but you make it a HiPass at that same frequency. So now you have 1 track that only contains the below-100hz-bass and one that contains everything above it.

Now you go to the "IO" menu of the low-bass track (the button is on the channel), and set "Track Channels" to 4.

Now, go to your guitarchannel(s) and create a send to the low-bass-channel. On the send it should say : Audio 1/2 to 3/4. What this does is that it sends the guitarinfo to the low-bass-track, but it won't be audible on that track. It will be usable as side-chain detection info though.

Now you go back to the low-bass track, and add ReaComp.
On reacomp, you will set "Detector Input" to Auxilary Input L+R. What this tells ReaComp is to listen to the auxilary tracks (the info that is being sent to input 3/4 of your low-bass channel) and compress your current signal according to that info.

Now we only want the low frequencies of the guitars to trigger the comp, so we set "Lowpass" on Reacomp to about 100 or so (finetune to your needs at a later point). This makes it so ReaComp only listens to the lowest frequencies of your guitartrack, so anything but chugs shouldn't really do much. It will still compress the entire track, but since you've split the bass into 2 channels, it now only squishes the region you have set your ReaEQ at before.

This is where you have to set ReaComp to taste, like you would for any compressor. Start off with extreme settings to make sure it is reacting only to the guitarchugs. Set ratio to 8+ or so, and pull the threshold down until the gain only gets reduced on the chugs and not during normal play of guitar. Your low bass should now duck whenever there are heavy chugs, but will remain normal when there aren't. Set attack and release to taste. Probably a pretty fast attack and a medium release so it ducks fast, but comes back naturally with the decay of the chugs. Same thing goes for ratio.

Hope that's clear, enjoy your squishing!

PS: You can still automate the comp to be active or inactive if it triggers during parts where you don't want it to trigger.

 

[Leonfrost]

Thank you so much! Setting it up now