can someone explain this? keyboard side-chained kick drum?

[mick thompson]

"We had a keyboard pad sound and it’s a real kind of dance music trick of having the kick from side-chaining the pads via the Compressor. The main pad sound that you hear going through Human is being side-chained off Ronnie’s kick drum all the way through. That’s an example of dance music thing coming into the band world if you like”.

im not an engineer so can someone explain to me what the hell does it mean and what effect does it produce because if its what i think it is i wana know how to do it.

cheers in advance

 

[John_C]

It's kinda hard to tell what's trying to be said.

It sounds like the keyboard sound is being made to "duck" when the bass drum hits. This is done by using a compressor with sidechaining ability (such as reacomp). Set the auxillary inputs/side chain to be coming from the kick drum track. mess around with compressor settings and it should work great

 

[everybody's x]

They are talking about using the kick drum to trigger the synth sound. This is a real old trick and very useful to keep a bass track tight with a kick drum, for example.

 

[John_C]

it's the "via the compressor" that makes me think it's to do with ducking

 

[mick thompson]

like...a dj - when he speaks the music drops level but when he shuts up it suddenly boosts?

how would i go about doing that to 2 separate channels?

add them both to a bus channel and do what exactly? or what do i do? ie: using plugins - not a hardware comp.

my song is kinda dancy and i want to make it "pump" with the kick drum

 

[John_C]

well if that's the effect you want then my description is the one you want

I'm afraid i know nothing about logic or protools though, so someone else will have to help you with the actual details

 

[TheDriller]

I know that song, The pad sound ducks every time the kick hits, and then "swells" in after. results in a noticable "pumping" keyboard sound, just like in trance music.

its just sidechain ducking, nothing fancy at all.

 

[Sweetnothing]

like...a dj - when he speaks the music drops level but when he shuts up it suddenly boosts?

how would i go about doing that to 2 separate channels?

add them both to a bus channel and do what exactly? or what do i do? ie: using plugins - not a hardware comp.

my song is kinda dancy and i want to make it "pump" with the kick drum

In logic:

Insert a compressor in each channel/bus you want to pump

In the compressor's sidechain input, choose the track you want to use as a trigger.

Adjust to taste

 

[mick thompson]

sweet! cheers sweetnothing - i'll give it a go. i was trying to do it in garageband. (i wasnt in the mood for logic tonight) but i noticed i cant find bus tracks in garagaband. the only place i could put it was in the master channel which ended up pumping every channel which turned to shit pretty quick.

i'll give that a go in logic tomorrow. im going to make a stab at reverting back to adobe audition tomorrow too. i know audition inside out compared to logic so if i cant get it working properly in logic i know i can do it in audition. then just bounce them back to logic.

thanks everyone!

 

[ahjteam]

http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/production-tips/403851-sidechaining-faq.html

 

[mick thompson]

oh perfect - thanks ahjteam - have a beer on me