My father just passed away last year... Go see your father, and clear things up, life is too short my friend, and people are gone to quickly... I wish I could see my dad one more time...
You can also sidechain a multiband compressor to duck only certain frequencies, like cleaning up low end clashes or making space in rhythm guitars for a solo track. Very useful in a pinch.
Very nice! But Sidechain Compression is one of the first things you learn, if you're doing EDM. ^^ So one word of advice to aspiring engineers: Look to other genres and learn their techniques too. They might help you out a lot in what you're doing!
Thanks, Glenn. To be honest, ever since I've started watchin' your vids (& you talkin' about sidechaining), I've often wondered "what exactly IS sidechaining?" & here's my answer. Now, to go through a few of my older recordings & experiment with sidechaining on those.
Hey man I just gotta say bless your fuckin soul for doing this, for free you’re helping countless people make the music they’ve always wanted to make and I myself couldn’t be more grateful for people like you
As someone who is aware of this in electronic music, it´s really cool to see this in real instrument music. I´m curious on your take on electronic heavy bands (Bloody Beetroots, Prodigy and then to the more metal with electronica... Rammsteim, Ministry, NIN and even Babymetal). In electronic music, almost EVERY thing is sidechained to drop out (from large levels in bassline and synths to softer on hi-hats etc.). That way the kick sounds more punching through the music. Love the channel Glen =)
Glenn, the information in this video has opened up my recordings tenfold. It's astounding how much this technique cleans up the low end. Thank you for all you share with the world!
Oh my god so much makes sense now! I've never seen/thought of this technique before, and have gone to crazy lengths to get the same effect! Glenn, youre a legend mate, keep it up!
I remember learning sidechain for EDM production. Tbh, I never used in metal, I normally keep the frequencies of bass a kick far away from each other. But this video is great to implementing SC compression in rock and metal. I’ll try it out just next time for fun. Thanks !.
Wow! those two applications (on bass and on overhead) made a really big difference for the better! Didn't even knew this technique existed. Thanks for featuring this
Very Awesome video. Had to wait till the weekend to watch it so I had theme to really give it full attention. Just stated using Drum leveler and I love it, might have to start exploring the side chaining abilities of it.
Thanks so much for doing these tutorials - they're great! Side-chain compression is something I've never really taken advantage of, so this has got me thinking that I should try it out some more on some things.
Man, these videos are great. To the point, concise and informative. They're really helping me anchor and solidify stuff I've kind of learned over the years. Kudos!
Excellent video man! Sidechain was always a little over my head, and I know you can screw up shit real fast if you don't know what you are doing. This definitely takes some of the mystery away from it's application. Absolutely love theses series of vids. You are covering the basics, but explaining the uses and application in a very useful and practical way. I dig it. Throwing horns from NC. Cheers!
I was shocked when I first recorded overheads because they basically make a terrible mess - cymbals that sound more trebly than they do in real life, washing chaotically over the rest of the kit which doesn't sound particularly trebly so how am I going to EQ that?? Then I listened to examples of professionally recorded overheads on RU-vid and discovered that yes, they always start off sounding like that! Which obviously means us producers have to knock them into shape. I've not got very far with learning how to do this, but I'm sure that these sidechain ideas will help. So it's time to step away from my fixation with the T-RackS modules and start using the Logic compressor, which actually *has* a sidechain. Thanks Glen!
Great video man thank you for sharing. I am new to recording and have heard the term side chain but actually seeing you apply it and explain it really just made it click in my brain.
Thanks man. Almost all my mixing knowledge comes from your videos. I have like 30 A4 size sheets filed till now with notes. And my mixes are starting to sound interesting. Thanks !
Thanks so much! I have actually been experiencing this problem in one of my mixes where the bass guitar and the kick were competing with each other. I'm gonna try this out! Thanks for the great videos, your content is awesome. Can't have a SpectreSoundStudios video without dissing bassists lol
Glenn, Glenn... This was taught to me in college about 10 years ago and I NEVER retained it, you just made something that seemed like witchcraft feel accessible. Kudos my man
I've found the best game to play with Glenn. It's kind of like a drinking game. Anytime he gives bassplayers shit, practice for an hour. Anytime he wears one of his anti-bassist shirts, practice for an extra half hour. Anytime he calls us cheap pricks, check to make sure you have a new set of bass strings for the next time you change them (which you should do REGULARLY, YOU PRICKS.) Just in the process of his rants about bassists, I've bettered myself as one! Thanks Glenn
Amazing! Ive been having difficulty getting vox to sit nicely with a distorted 7 and 6 string. This technique worked great by side-chaining the guitars with the lead vox. Bamm! Thanks Glen!
All this stuff is super useful and concise. Not many series' on youtube that go over the basic meat and potatoes in mixing. Got lucky with some equipment and space to work so I'm recording an EP this summer, but I'm relatively lost when it comes to what happens after tracking hahaha.
One neat trick for sidechaining kick and bass is to run the bass through a frequency splitter (REAPER has 3 band to 5 band splitters and joiners, I tend to use the free Crossover VST from RS-MET, which allows a 2 way split) and then only use the sidechain on the low end (usually around 150Hz or so, with a pretty steep Q). If you do this you can push the ratio pretty hard, but since you still get a lot of the harmonic content of the bass guitar you don't completely wreck the track. Basically this method allows you sort of homebrew a multiband compressor with the option of using either the effected audio or a separate sidechain per band!
Wow, just when you thought you knew enough to record something nice, Glenn is there to tell you to go back to your mom's basement ! Please keep going with this serie, I love it !
I have been recording longer than you, but I think you did a good job describing how to use a sidechain. I don't use it much myself because I like to make that space in the mix with eq unless something is seriously off that can't be fixed with phase alignment. We all have our quarks and way we like to do things. Nice mix on Amadeus by the way!
One good example of a misused, or used for effect compressor is that typical pumping sound of some EDM tracks. There's a noticeable dip in volume on each kick hit. Kick->Side chain->Master bus compressor.
Great vid. Wish I had this series when first learning. Used to always confuse file compression with signal compression. For your a Q+A: how do you feel about singing drummers and how do you deal with mic-ing them in either a studio or live setting
I've only used side chain compression on kick and bass, but maybe side chain processing is something I could dive more into. Thanks for the video, Glenn.
I've used most "industry standard" DAW's to mix, master and produce. This guy has explained side chain compression clearer than anyone I've seen so far. But it's hard to translate this info to, let's say, Reason 11 where you have to flip the rack to connect output to input track by track until you reach the "master rack." Does anyone have advice on this? Thank you!!
Absolutely love it! If I may suggest another topic, that would be stereo widening... what difference is there between that and panorama control? I've heard that you "widen the stereo field to make space for bla bla"... So, how does that witchcraft work?
If you pan you move your audio within a 90° arc in front of you. If you add a copy of the hard panned track, pan it all the way to the other side, flip its polarity and then change its level you can go beyond the stereo base (those 90°s) and extend the perceived position to a full 180°. If you go really far it becomes somewhat disorienting - we hear a sound coming at our ears with reversed polarity and our natural inclination is to tilt our heads, to figure out whether it is coming from the left or right(because "exactly from the left" sounds precisely like "exactly from the right", but "almost exactly from the left" is slightly different from "almost exactly from the right). But if you mix that way, turning our head doesn't help us. You also lose mono compatibility - if you listen in mono the polarity reversal leads to cancellation and the level of the sound drops. I would suggest using this sparingly and only on things that aren't essential. When you do something like record a glockenspiel to play along the open Hi Hat hits for the final chorus that's where you might consider it. It gives the glockenspiel its own space and it becomes something somebody can discover when they listen closely to the track on headphones or with a pair of good speakers in a decent listening position. A lot of "OMG, I never noticed that" moments come from putting things beyond the stereo base. But you don't want to do this on anything that defines the song.
