Ableton Live Tutorial - Side Chain Compression = Ned Rush

[@douglasl2409]

I love this channel so much! The side chain buss is such a good idea. But side chaining isn’t limited to compression. I want to see the wild things that Mr. Rush can do with the entire spectrum of components that use side chaining. Elphnt has a great video on the proper use case for a few devices. And that’s great, but Im dying to see that wild Ned Rush way of abusing (in a good way) these tools!

[@JohnathanDWalker]

I’ve compared my experience in music conservatory to “going to Hogwarts, but for music.” Learning theory was like learning spells. Straight up learning the magic of moving people with harmony, form, counterpoint, etc. Mr. Rush, legit, your channel is the most exciting educational space for learning that I’ve had since going to university. Just subscribed to the Patreon, and thank you for all this content. I’m super excited about it. Venturing from being a pianist into the realm of production has been a long and daunting road, but you’re making it easier. Thank you, from the bottom of my little black heart.

[@ratus7538]

what vids or learning tools do you suggest for the former lol? Harmony and counterpoint and stuff

[@Hollandvancewright]

My best solution has been using Gate's sidechain with the headphone button on to route chains to different places. I have a return track dedicated to further gating the kick and snare separately. The transients are so short that the release stays clean at longer settings. Two helpful tricks: selecting any track with a sidechain input gives you a list of _every single chain_ on the second drop-down menu so you can use the headphone button in really powerful ways, and if you select sends only for the output of the return track you can see your sidechain triggers in blue without any output (also the enable send setting is great for feedback)

[@thewolfgirlliberation]

SIDE CHAIN BUSS... mind blown!

[@davidmcgirr]

Such a happy little trees kind of idea. Thank you for all the lateral thinking.

[@StopTheWorld.I.WantToGetOff]

A SC trick I use often is a ghost trigger using a simpler with a noise sample and set the channel to no audio output. Then I can play ducking patterns or basic kick 4/4. You can then change the simpler envelope to change the compressor response. Helpful for long release kicks.

[@mqadr5780]

Okay, okay… I’m excited to get more fun mix bus tutorial fun. What whacky things have we been not using?! Oh, it’s nice to see Ned popping up once in a while on Reddit! I look forward to reading more from Mr. Rush!

[@MatthewGilliard]

Cheers Ned, learned a buch as usual.

[@mpeckmusic]

I’ve need this my whole damn life. Thanks mate.

[@PittsMultiPass]

Once again - super useful info. I should have know this already but I do now 😀

[@nicoincertezza5763]

marvellous, thank you!

[@marleenvos4126]

great info, thank you!

[@airfixx_8952]

Rather than use the pre & post mixer setting on the compressor, you can also set the RTN track to 'sends only' instead and that way you can still retain use of the volume fader on the RTN track...... Which can be handy for further automations and tweaking if your sends are set to various levels. Love the "analysis bus" idea.... Never thought of doing that before. Side rant: It annoys the tits off of me when you hear all these younger gen guys saying things like "Just add sidechain" in their instructional/tutorial videos; completely overlooking the fact that the input signal is the key aspect of what you're doing to start with. It also overlooks the fact that you can side-chain numerous different kinds of FX (not just compressors)....... Then there's the fact that half the time all they're really doing is volume ducking with an LFO/Env-style tool. Somewhere in all this; the diff. between a compressor and a limiter is being lost too. There's a whole lot of mis-education going on; including by a few of the software companies that are prolific 'tip' posters on YT. I brought this up with some big-time-charlie mumble-rap producer recently and got told to "bore off, grandad" (or words to that effect).

[@samiserhan6296]

is creating a return track within the chain group an ableton 10+ feature?

[@PretendPassing]

there is a free max for live tool named duck buddy from slynk. very nice stuff. because the workflow with your idea honestly sucks. it is a nice approach but damn it is a very setup heavy thing. another thing i want to point out is sometimes you dont want to have the actual kick or snare as the sidechain trigger. a much cleaner way of sidechaining is to use a muted noiseburst with no release so you can define the duration of the sidechain with the lenght of the midi note you draw. you don't want to sidechain the tail and the last part from the body from a kick or snare you just want the transient. kinda a short click sound that ducks away the elements on the duration of the transient makes it possible to phase align the kick if it is in tune with other things like the bass. it depends if you want to use sidechain as a pumping effect or as "i want the kick and snare cutting trough the mix" kind of thing.

[@HilbertSpacersson]

Couldn't you on the return track also *Audio to: Sends only?* Instead of disabling it?

[@sr_bob]

Dumb question man here again. How legit is it to sidechain frequencies on the eq vs sidechain the entire volume of the track?

[@monomonoaudio]

Totally legit and very common - filtering the sidechain signal is one of the best techniques to get the desired compression effect. Simplest example is low cut on the sidechain to stop compressing on heavy low end, such as kicks.

[@sr_bob]

Thanks for replying to this comment. This is huge for me, i always wondered what could i do if i had a kick and bass in the same frequency spectrum.

[@childrenoftheuniverse4348]

so post fx actually means post return track ?

[@NgaTaeOfficial]

Not exactly, post fx means after the effects in ANY track, but before the mixer output of that track.

[@childrenoftheuniverse4348]

@@NgaTaeOfficial i see... thanks a lot !

[@TaiBaSs40]

Very nice idea !! I just use same "ghost" 2 midi tracks (Kick and Snare) without sound, Is it worst ?

[@milkyway8353]

why not just simply duplicate compressor, one for kick one for snare, group them and save as kick and snare sc? Also if you want more precise sc use shaperbox as midi sc

[@tristanreid3971]

The possibilities for sidechain appear to be endless!! Do whatever works best for you it’s cool learning new methods

[@tristanreid3971]

I should try shaperbox, lately I’ve been referencing Mr bills tutorial using gatekeeper

[@monomonoaudio]

In this case your second compressor in series will duck the ducked signal when both kick and snare are triggered. It is a valid technique though if you want different compression settings for each element, but gotta be careful with double dipping.

[@beathaven303]

FIRST!

[@casicadaminuto1]

SECOND!