2 Ways To Use Sidechain Compression On A Digital Mixer

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Sidechain compression probably isn’t the first thing you think of when using compression live. Whether it’s music or speech it can be a great technique to make your life easier.
In this video, I’ll show you the basic principles behind sidechain compression as well as 2 real-life examples of how you can use it.
I'll be using a Yamaha QL1 digital mixer but these principles apply to all other digital mixers.

[@johankoerts9191]

Thank you, sound and clear!

[@audiostrongllc]

Thank you for this man.

[@relk5652]

Thanks man, be blessed 🙏

[@seriksson9721]

Thanks.

[@OffshoreAudio]

You're welcome

[@Kampsy]

Dude this was great. I’ve been thinking about how to do this on this CL5 console I use for FOH. I always use sidechain compression when studio engineering, and always wanted to know if I could do this on a CL series console for live sound. Gonna try this out this next week I go in. Thank you for this video

[@OffshoreAudio]

Hey, glad you found it useful! 🙂

[@delsurmusic]

I always wanted to know how to do this in the QL console!, thanks!.

[@OffshoreAudio]

You're vey welcome

[@jamescallahan]

Love the Channel. Thanks so much. The company I work for uses primarily Yamaha consoles. Your tutorial was concise and informative. May I suggest you do a similar video on the same platform but using the premium rack effects. Thanks again.

[@OffshoreAudio]

Thanks so much, that's Great to hear! I'm a big fan of those mixers. I'll definitely do that, anything in particular you'd like to see? I've got a video on using the automixer which goes into using the rack effects as an insert Using Automixer For Hands Free Mixing kzbin.info/www/bejne/nYerpXeBpMtlj7s

[@ghighrolla711]

why does it only give you the option of choosing the first 8 inputs to side chain to on the Yamaha board?

[@Babysitteronacid]

I was using the ducking function at stadium gig the other day (american football) whereby the Music (which runs nearly continuously when there’s no play on the field) would be ducked by the two commentator Mics (instead of choosing an input channel in the key in page you can choose one of four mixes (so you have to have set up a mix eg MX13 with the 2 mics). Ok....that works. However the one snag I encountered was that the music ducking function would be triggered even with mic channels muted or fader was off. So that if for instance music was playing at volume and the commentator (muted) knocked his mic or put down his coffee cup too heavily it might be enough to trigger the ducking. I can find no way in the QL1 to make the sidechain post fader/mute. Ideas?

[@OffshoreAudio]

Interesting. I'll look into it. My first thought would be to see if you can use a post fader aux send to send the mic to another channel, then sidechain off of that channel. I'll need to get in front of a mixer and check it out to see if that works though. I'll get back to you when I get in front of one.

[@Babysitteronacid]

@@OffshoreAudio The mix bus I used (to get more than one mic to trigger the ducking) was a post-fader mix. No joy. My work around was a combo of setting the threshold just right not to trigger with random noise but just speech, and having the commentator just switch his radio-mic on and off as needed.

[@derrick6111]

Thank you for this but you don’t bring out the exact effect. As the effect is setting in you stop So I can’t even tell what it is your trying to show

[@OffshoreAudio]

Hey, thanks for the comment and the feedback. The effect I'm talking about is at 3:35 where you can both hear the compression and see the gain reduction on the meter. The second technique I mention is at 4:50. Apologies if that was confusing, thanks again for the feedback and I'll make that clearer in future videos and focus on the effects for longer.

[@StegjaboabWatson]

Not sure I can approve of this technique, giving annoying radio DJs a tool to tell terrible jokes over music!

[@OffshoreAudio]

Privately, artisticly, I agree....