High Precision & Mathematically correct Sidechain

Hey folks, today I wanted to dive into the super important and interesting topic of sidechain compression. I'll use this video to do some tests, compare values, and maybe even bust a few myths. Also found a bug in ‪@bitwig‬ So, it's going to be a well-rounded video. I'd love it if you could drop me a message about which sidechain methods you guys use?
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[@Dun3Cat]

I once made a hit song but there was a 0.005 second overlap between the kick and the bass and now i live on the streets living on one sample pack from the next-- dont repeat my mistake boys.

[@johnmiller19925]

🤣

[@captain_crunk]

(Bit)Wigga please. Sounds like you're doing better than most musicians ;)

[@davisbindejazz]

"Track is nearly finished in my opinion" 🤣 bro, i like your humor!

[@garretthart3556]

Your intro cracked me up 😂!

[@thundermonk8180]

dude you should inject some dry ironic comedy in all your videos that was hilarious and made it so engaging XD

[@NVRMNDDUB]

👍

[@jbaguetta]

For real I love it! Could also really grow the userbase watching.

[@MagicCvstle]

That last example is amazing. I didn’t know there was a way to do it on the project level by selecting the kick input on the inspector channel. Great stuff!

[@Artek604]

"Psytrance producers will hate Bitwig users for this one trick" :D Great stuff ❤

[@Lumaa_Lex]

Psytrance refs is great. I think soon we will see Polarity PsyTrance track. :)

[@Lumaa_Lex]

«sounds like sh*t, but we havent applied sidechane yet” omg!!!! 😂

[@JustMikeH]

I am laughing so hard at some of your jokes that it hurts. Thank you for making informative and educational content hilarious. 🙂

[@PolarityMusic]

topic was so dry and boring, i needed to amp the jokes a bit 😘

[@JustMikeH]

By the way, my track was already done before you finished explaining, Too slow!

[@PolarityMusic]

every finished track is a good one (with enough sidechaining)

[@ohcibi]

As you mentioned failed people who failed in music industry, I havent seen any ads from unison in quiet some time now. Might be my ad blocker though.....

[@olivergretz]

For a 4 on the floor beat, the curves modulator can also be used in the Tool device to duck the audio. It can be switched on and off by the automation if necessary. However, one should keep in mind that if modulation shapes are too steep, they can introduce aliasing, which is especially audible on bass sounds.

[@icarusz000]

If Bitwig were a kitchen, you would be the 5-star chef with a Michelin star.

[@okoiful]

Nice ui colors.

[@TheAlburp]

It's about time a brave soul like you talked about this! 👏👏👏

[@UnizTRM]

I randomly came across this channel today, but man i am so hooked on the mad scientist level of Bitwig-specific geeking out. Definately got a ton of catching up to do with your videos !

[@cryptout]

You forgot to mention Psytrance, where the quest for the cleanest of bass never stops 😂

[@Lumaa_Lex]

Colors of your bitwig - is awesome! Reminds me colorblind mode at some point.

[@jdiamtr7705]

What I do is Group | Time Shift 5 ms - Kick Note | Time Shift -5 ms Segments of bass (target channel) receives the Kick Note signal This will only advance the sent notes without affecting the audio

[@iso_brown]

Never noticed the audio sidechain existed so I always sidechain with compressors which is a bad way to work in bitwig as I can see. thanks Robert.

[@FuncKeR]

Late to the party here but I just wanted to chime in and say this is another example of how nesting 3rd party plugins in a Bitwig container can cause unexpected/buggy behavior. I use the Chain device all the time to save a set of plugins/signal flow, but I've gotten into a protocol of after recalling the Chain preset, dragging all the plugins out of the Chain device, then deleting the Chain device, because I feel like I can't trust nested 3rd party plugins to behave correctly 100% of the time.

[@GodelsPrison]

Some great options, thanks!

[@akepamusic]

Amazing! Thank you for making in-depth content like this :D

[@FiYaDivine]

What are your thoughts on Borrasca style Ring mod sisechaining?

[@Dindindon1]

I got a click on the bass when use note SC with Segments and no smoothing. Any advise about that?

[@citadelo5ricks]

Try out Freq Split which is linear phase. Do a side chain on a band, clean AF.

[@maxpecas2]

I don't remember Polarity being that funny.... "The song is almost finished" killed me lol.

[@PaulEubanks]

Okay I was NOT prepared for how hard I was going to laugh at this intro. 🤣🤣🤣

[@noodlesushii]

i came for the tutorial and stayed for the comedy show, brilliant video as always

[@jaderington]

Well that would of been me finished with. Luckily I watched your other video on how to master so I now now the difference between a poly synth and a puly synth 😊

[@AGZT94]

How do we change the UI colors?

[@aup6764]

Lookahead is still needed. Although timeshift can adjust the sidechain, it will affect the starting position of the track.

[@PolarityMusic]

In my opinion, lookahead does the same, right? It adds delay to the audio to analyze the sidechain before applying it.

[@aup6764]

@@PolarityMusic You can try a lookahead similar to pro C2 for side chaining, extend the front part of the clip and then perform bounce. The time shift should correspond to delay compensation.

[@jimmac]

Loled at the intro :) 💓

[@NVRMNDDUB]

Adding segments to a channel or group allows for one input only. Better to do a note receiver and segments combo so you can actually sidechain kick and snare separately. Or am I missing something?

[@peterkoval]

Great comparison. Can you use the time shifter with the last Segments example if you wanted the duck to happen earlier than the trigger?

[@gu_u.]

I have solved it by placing a -4.20 sec timeshift in the kick drums track inside a chain with 0% wet, then in the audiosidechain I choose the output of the timeshift in the chain. in this way no track get shifted :)

[@PolarityMusic]

or "all" tracks get shifted by the same amound 😘 also a nice solution 👍

[@fabiandtheink619]

Great video! Personally, I use Bitwig for years and what always bothers me is mixing "real" drum VSTs like GGD drums in Kontakt with multi-out. Do you have an efficient way to route something like 12-16 stereo outputs to different chanels for mixing them individually, as well as in groups? My only idea right now is using multiple audio receivers and when there are no stereo outs left, put them in sub-groups, which isn't clean or great for visibility at all ^^'

[@angelite6027]

if you wanna get accurate sidechain even with huge latency plugin in the FX, you can use an Audio channel as the sidechain bus instead of an FX channel

[@nikolaiownz]

Is there a difference In these Tracks ? 😣

[@angelite6027]

@@nikolaiownz it was either a bug or a difference in handling PDC

[@Cmoral0]

Thankss 🎉

[@micemincer]

I create automation for every kick - then I can duck the base with that automation before kick etc - it is managable :) (I do this in FL with automation clips)

[@martijndehaas1637]

What about the green UI colors??

[@myshark9735]

Why did he choose Ekick post,instead of pre in the sidechain input?

[@joyemojiiboy]

Thanks Buddy 😊

[@mykolazhuravlov3829]

I knew, that I have so many finished tracks!!!) Going to fing wright labels for all of them!! :) TY for opening my eyes ;) But for real - many thanks for everything that you do!

[@NeZversSounds]

Mathematically correct would be using ring mod sidechain - RMSC a free plugin to do that.

[@BrokenTekk]

Having to use a time shift module every time one needs accurate audio sidechaining is frustrating. I know you joke about it not mattering but in some specific applications it could cause weird artifacts. but the main benefit of that bug being fixed would be just not having to think about it at all

[@PolarityMusic]

Agree, but Bitwig doesn't know how "accurate" you want your sidechain. Envelope followers always lag a tiny bit, due to the nature of how everything works. Music isn't a clinical task; most of the time, you want some overlap to glue things together.

[@BrokenTekk]

Sometimes overlap is nice, sometimes it's not. I'd rather control something like that with attack and release controls rather than the DAW make an assumption

[@sketchchomsky]

Great video as normal and I enjoyed the sarcasm! But the one thing I was pretty side tracked (not side chained) by was your UI colours. How have you done that?!

[@KozmykJ]

Core essentials. Polarity contemplates the Heart of the Matter. 😁

[@atetraxx]

I really don't understand Why dont they compensate? Is it because of the widely different latencies possible? I feel like the segments aremore accurate than kickstart though. It's what I've been using lately

[@drivingwithlee6550]

I noticed that your UI has a different colour scheme. Is that something you can change in the settings or did you have to down load something online to do it?

[@narukera8965]

Watching from the mobile screen the midi note is so hard to see from the clip. I don't understand why are they so thin and soft in bitwig. Should be all the way black and more thick.

[@PolarityMusic]

I mean, the app is optimized for desktop, after all.

[@okoiful]

How did you changed the UI colors?

[@royklerks1266]

I think its some kind of early-access over beta ... but would be alovely edition to bitwig

[@user-kn3tg2pv1c]

I think its about his post process of the video. You just change the hue on the video/

[@Dewi32]

Looks like he changed the hue in nvida control panel or equivelent. it will change it system wide though so not really usable in real world case :D

[@denystikhanov7949]

I wonder what the author will answer to this.

[@LockWithNoKeys]

lol on the street living sample pack to midi pack lol 😂😂

[@MagicCvstle]

Hi Polarity! I have been trying the last method where a global trigger activates the sidechain and I discovered a massive delay compensation bug. When using a separate MIDI trigger track to trigger the sidechain on a project level, Bitwig doesn't properly calculate the delay. For instance I have a bass track that is being sidechained in a group and the midi trigger exists outside of the group. The sidechain in the bass group triggers 200ms before it's supposed to. Have you been getting something similar by chance? It happens when the project starts to get big and there is latency that is accumulating. This seems like a MASSIVE oversight by the Bitwig team. Im still on 5.0.11 so it may have been fixed in the last few versions.

[@PolarityMusic]

I know they've made some fixes. Maybe try version 5.1; I haven't tested this in all scenarios because there are so many combinations.

[@MagicCvstle]

@@PolarityMusic Thanks man! I may have to wait until I upgrade to check if there is a fix. Sad that we don’t get bug fixes unless an upgrade is purchased. I really like this way of sidechaining. Appreciate you demonstrating it!

[@dammills]

Do you mind if I use this track in my next video?

[@TWDsje]

Is there a reason we need to export to audio to see this instead of just using the oscilloscope? Also, I always just used the dynamics plugin for sidechaining.

[@ohcibi]

I wonder whether polarity had some recent discussions about sidechain compression. There is subtile tendencies in this video that kinda suggest it.

[@tsicon9138]

Question... When using a timeshift device at the end of the chain and you told that it will effect the startpoint of all other tracks (kick), wouldn't it also manipulate the groove? I'm not sure, since the kick is just visualized by the noteOn midi event, but not by the resulting waveform? In terms of sidechain it will work, agreed.

[@PolarityMusic]

Sure, any timing offset will affect the groove, but we're talking about a few milliseconds for the entire track. So, not that big of a deal in my opinion.

[@tsicon9138]

@@PolarityMusic Thats right. The idea is great and helps in most of the situations. A blind kick track with an negative timeshift as input for bass ducking would be an alternative if timing has to be absolutly accurate (custom look ahead) :-)

[@Lumaa_Lex]

Wait! Bass already playing before you hit is 100% make sense... For psy trance. :)

[@J4n1k1]

I Like the Segments Method, i want to do one for my Kick and one for my Snare sidechain, is this possible with the Segments method?

[@PolarityMusic]

Sure, just add two and grab midi from snare and kick 👍

[@J4n1k1]

when i duplicate the segments there is still just one midi input on the device panel@@PolarityMusic

[@da6640]

On the bass😭

[@oscillatorstorm]

I think the kick sample is delayed by 5 ms

[@sinewave9208]

when are you dropping this edm banger on monstercat

[@NVRMNDDUB]

Hahaha. So many facts🔥

[@NVRMNDDUB]

I always do segments(also on eq for frequency side chaining). Used a note receiver, didn't know you could select an input on the left. Big win thanks for that!

[@creatingspacesproducer]

It's scientifically proven that midi packs are a gateway to crack

[@DjangoFlaherty]

Hysterical 😂

[@BorisBarroso]

Thanks. Use your sarcasm to make plugin reviews to get rich 😂😂

[@mikibelami]

I get less overlap than 0.1 ms with note sc. but sound as some shit without overlap 😜

[@woopeedyscoop1858]

finally.

[@impolitikful]

bitwig has themes now?

[@PolarityMusic]

no!

[@gianabrotherz]

02:39 ich weiß nicht wen du meinst 🙂

[@PolarityMusic]

❤️😂

[@iamdoomedmusic]

down vote for faking themes! :D

[@rogerbooth-entity-cruncher]

Only noobs get their comedy from Saturday Night Live. 😁

[@yajrobot]

This intro is ridiculous lmao. And they say germans can't into humor. BS!

[@Mhden2x]

💎💎💎