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Author Topic: Side chaining techniques  (Read 4560 times)

Stephen Martin

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Side chaining techniques
« on: December 14, 2014, 08:51:57 PM »

Hey everyone, I have a Yamaha M7CL and I have been the tech director for about 2 years now. I have been taking the small steps now to polish things up after revitalizing our sound. Anyone have any experience on side chaining? Specifically on a M7CL? I would like to use it for a kick and bass setup. Possibly other methods as well.
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Jonathan Kok

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Re: Side chaining techniques
« Reply #1 on: December 22, 2014, 01:05:51 PM »

Hey everyone, I have a Yamaha M7CL and I have been the tech director for about 2 years now. I have been taking the small steps now to polish things up after revitalizing our sound. Anyone have any experience on side chaining? Specifically on a M7CL? I would like to use it for a kick and bass setup. Possibly other methods as well.
I'm not sure what the question is here. The internal side-chaining works fine; I've used it in the past to give a bit of 'boost' to a flat kick drum by side-chaining in the tone generator.
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Luke Geis

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Re: Side chaining techniques
« Reply #2 on: December 23, 2014, 02:07:17 AM »

The tone generator trick is a cool one, but requires a tricky setup and eats an extra channel, not to mention the tone generator. If your not understanding what is meant by the tone generator side chain trick, I will give you a quick and dirty run down. The kick channel is set to be the trigger for the gate of another channel which has the tone generator routed to it. The tone generator is set for a frequency of 50-60hz. The kick drum will open the gate allowing the tone to be heard and then of course as the gate closes it will cut the tone. It is a cool way to get the kick drum to have the same basic sound all the time. You can even place a high pass filter on the kick channel so that you only get the boom from the gated tone channel and the click from the actual kick channel.

In terms of using the side chain stuff in the more conventional manor,it is really dependent upon the quality of the engineer. I personally don't like to gate things if I don't have to. I don't often have the same group through the same PA everyday either. Gating is usually not ideal for festival settings where things change a lot. You can generally get it close pretty quick, but it takes more time to lock it in real tight.

Another thing to be sure of is when in the signal path is the sidechain being effected? Pre/post EQ or HPF? I have also found that if the bassist and drummer are that far off to begin with, sidechain gating one or the other won't help much. If you have a bassist and drummer that are really tight, the effect can really make the mix pop, but I feel that it is best done on a per song basis. Your not generally going to find a one size fits all setting.
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Mike Caldwell

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Re: Side chaining techniques
« Reply #3 on: December 24, 2014, 04:54:36 PM »

The tone generator trick is a cool one, but requires a tricky setup and eats an extra channel, not to mention the tone generator. If your not understanding what is meant by the tone generator side chain trick, I will give you a quick and dirty run down. The kick channel is set to be the trigger for the gate of another channel which has the tone generator routed to it. The tone generator is set for a frequency of 50-60hz. The kick drum will open the gate allowing the tone to be heard and then of course as the gate closes it will cut the tone. It is a cool way to get the kick drum to have the same basic sound all the time. You can even place a high pass filter on the kick channel so that you only get the boom from the gated tone channel and the click from the actual kick channel.

In terms of using the side chain stuff in the more conventional manor,it is really dependent upon the quality of the engineer. I personally don't like to gate things if I don't have to. I don't often have the same group through the same PA everyday either. Gating is usually not ideal for festival settings where things change a lot. You can generally get it close pretty quick, but it takes more time to lock it in real tight.

Another thing to be sure of is when in the signal path is the sidechain being effected? Pre/post EQ or HPF? I have also found that if the bassist and drummer are that far off to begin with, sidechain gating one or the other won't help much. If you have a bassist and drummer that are really tight, the effect can really make the mix pop, but I feel that it is best done on a per song basis. Your not generally going to find a one size fits all setting.

Those tricks go Waaaaaayyyy back, not really something you can set up on the fly though.
Personally I feel if your working with the same kit all the time, maybe a couple different drummers you should be able to get it sorted out at the drum itself with proper tuning, dampening, mic and mic placement.

Just having the kick trigger a sample would be simpler than more or less creating one with a tone generator.

Tim Padrick

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Re: Side chaining techniques
« Reply #4 on: December 27, 2014, 01:34:23 AM »

Semi-off-topic: If the kick has no lows, put a Heil PR40 on it.
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Re: Side chaining techniques
« Reply #4 on: December 27, 2014, 01:34:23 AM »


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