Snare sidechain --> (Rhythm guitars + bass) bus?

[RoTo]

I've been trying to use the following technique to get more room for snare transient (hard clipped btw).

So I just routed my rhythm guitars + bass to a single bus and sidechain it using the Waves C1 triggered by the snare close mic.

I've got pretty good results using this so I wanted to share it, I guess this isn't the holy grail of mixing but I was wondering how many of you guys are doing something like that.

Later I'll post some clips.

 

[RoTo]

No Sidechain


Sidechain
[SOUNDCLOUD]https://soundcloud.com/alvaro_romo/sets/andy-sneap-forum-snare-sidechain[/SOUNDCLOUD]

 

[Random3]

I can't listen to the examples at the moment but I'll have a look when I get home.

The idea of side-chaining the bass to the snare doesn't seem like a good one to me, because they occupy different frequency ranges. This would mean that every time the snare is hit you will get a peak at, say, 200Hz, and simultaneously get a dip where the bass is at everything under 150Hz.

If you are having issues with the snare not popping through enough I would have thought just subtractive EQ on the bass/guitars would be sufficient but either way it will be interesting to hear the audio clips.

 

[Korwent]

Isn't the snare a bit low in both samples anyway?
Apart from that I agree with Random3 as for the different frequency thing!

 

[Jormyn]

I genuinely can't hear a difference between them, on my Reveal 402s.

 

[MrBongo]

The idea of side-chaining the bass to the snare doesn't seem like a good one to me, because they occupy different frequency ranges. This would mean that every time the snare is hit you will get a peak at, say, 200Hz, and simultaneously get a dip where the bass is at everything under 150Hz.

frequency range doesn´t matter. the bass sits at, let´s say -6dBFS in the master file. Even if you manage to completely mute everything else during the snare hit, it´s limited to the rest of headroom (-6 to 0 dBFS) if you don´t want to duck the bass. But when you want a blasting snare shot, you gotta have it at maximum volume. There´s no way ´round it

Use a suitable FX chain for that, set it up right, and you get this:

I genuinely can't hear a difference between them, on my Reveal 402s.

Bass can be ducked for the duration of a snare transient. If done properly, it´s the least obnoxious and obvious thing you can do to increase snare impact. I can´t hear the bass lacking anything when i do it myself, but i can see the result on the graph and i do feel a harder snare shot that´s not being drowned by guitars

you can do so many great and invisible things with ducking, it´s hardly believable. Just don´t overdo

 

[Random3]

frequency range doesn´t matter. the bass sits at, let´s say -6dBFS in the master file. Even if you manage to completely mute everything else during the snare hit, it´s limited to the rest of headroom (-6 to 0 dBFS) if you don´t want to duck the bass. But when you want a blasting snare shot, you gotta have it at maximum volume. There´s no way ´round it

Ah I see, that does make sense. Thanks for clarifying

 

[J.L.BeelerMusic]

I've done this on centered guitar "thick'n'r" tracks for a while now, but never thought of applying it to the hard-panned tracks. Cool idea, I'll give it a go sometime soon.

 

[Jormyn]

Bass can be ducked for the duration of a snare transient. If done properly, it´s the least obnoxious and obvious thing you can do to increase snare impact. I can´t hear the bass lacking anything when i do it myself, but i can see the result on the graph and i do feel a harder snare shot that´s not being drowned by guitars

What I meant was that the two samples sounded identical to me. Having the snare duck everything else should make the snare "pop" a little more, but on my system they sounded the same.

Ducking the bass with the snare just seems silly, though. They aren't fighting for space.

 

[nezvers]

Well I thought that non sidechained snare was ok, but in sidechained I heard in some places that it actually gave a hair of clarity.
If sidechain I'd go with multiband sidechaining, like 200/4k on guitars but only on transient peak length.