My Best Sidechain Compression Tips (Using Triggers)

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In this tutorial I cover some my thoughts on sidechain compression in Ableton Live.
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[@gagnorblu]

Have you considered doing a tutorial on Tipper squelch bass design for the next synthesis tutorial?

[@jamesdixon5881]

Yes Ahee, I use LFO tool to side chain my kicks but I'm now using this way for my snares! Maybe I should use it on kicks as well...

[@PirateRadioNYC]

Thank you for this. Making our first D&B track and didn't know how to correctly sidechain things to both the kick and snare, the multiband sidechaining advice was exactly what we needed.

[@officialtrvpinsteinbeats2458]

I love multi and sidechaining I use the fab mb for it

[@bohman3231]

Love using this in your template and your so right on the visual preference !

[@cryptochiefs4752]

Would love to see the video on limiting

[@zee6115]

To all watching this, take note of the length of the white noise blip. His White noise blip is 4 grid lines long on the 1/1024 note grid.

[@ElectroCouture]

LOVE YOU BRO!

[@coreybramwell635]

ive been trying to find my go sidechain/ducking technique to implement into my template. Ive been using track spacer which is dope with its frequency range precision. ive never used a click track and have been looking into it after watching your transient trigger style for shorter and more custom length. i also found the max for live chain shaper which is volume shaping vs compression. I aslo found Duck by deviant machines and think its what im gonna use. its kinda the best off all the others in 1. for ease and workflow id rather not use a click track and trigger it from my kick or kick snare group.

[@SnoMan1818]

Duck on midi mode with external instrument grouped to kick and snare is the easiest way to sidechain in my opinion

[@SnoMan1818]

Also the best since you can draw curves

[@SnoMan1818]

(Send external instrument to duck)

[@jordanhansell6439]

can u explain this more? not really understanding

[@SnoMan1818]

@@jordanhansell6439 group the pad for your kick in drum rack. One instrument rack will be your kick sample and one will be your external instrument sending midi to duck. (I route my channels/groups to an audio track at the bottom of my project called premaster and duck sits on that) Everytime your kick plays a note it will then send midi data to duck and you will have sidechain. Repeat for snare/anything else u want sidechained

[@maxmaxington5873]

Aren’t you better off using a faster look ahead, then a slower attack on the compressor, and pushing the track latency compensation forward in the trigger to match the attack? This way you don’t get any artefacts from the snap of the compressor (which is working slightly too hard with the ultra fast attack)?

[@ccching07]

Hola Max, can you explain how you would do that?

[@elmosputterspark9939]

Damn right, mate Always walk the line

[@as_ismusic]

excellent tutuorial.....again! do you have any other songs that don't use sidechain? I would have never guessed the Conrank remix didn't use sidechain...fascinating stuff

[@brandontomlinson4301]

Amazing

[@MoDzZz135]

Yesss thank you so much! This is very helpful

[@peanutPNUT]

TiVo here and bro did u make the snare fully from scratch??? Best snare of 2020. And as a drummer I love the snare big time

[@boymatmat]

Where can I find a sample like that to trigger the sidechain??

[@MrUkelela]

Do you always keep the release set to 27.7 or is that dependent more on bpm/style/length of transient?

[@jamesdixon5881]

Check out Streaky masterings latest videos, it depends on the tempo. I believe drum and bass 174bpm should be 21.5.

[@MrUkelela]

@@jamesdixon5881 yo thats insane, i was literally asking because i was working on a 174 dnb tune hahahaha, i ended up going with around 13.5 i think, 20 sounded too long on the release

[@OfficialAHEE]

It changes with each song, go with what sounds good!

[@theodillon9931]

ep whips dude gj

[@jakehettinger1087]

how do you feel about the lookahead parameter in Ableton's compressor? I've seen some people use it to get the sidechain compression to kick in before the kick plays that way there's no clicking and it also has time to react.

[@Roscoesadie]

Coming up in the music industry who do you credit for most of your success releasing your music on all these popular labels?

[@OfficialAHEE]

Maybe Reid Speed b/c she gave me my first chance to build an audience with Play Me Records.

[@Roscoesadie]

@@OfficialAHEE wow that's cool who introduced you to her

[@giahuy6471]

i find using volume automation is the most efficient

[@hel112]

Do you do this with an autopanner with the phase at 100%? interesting approach

[@giahuy6471]

@@hel112 why do that???

[@hel112]

@@giahuy6471 Otherwise you'd have to manually set all the parameters for a full song. Just wondering

[@giahuy6471]

@@hel112 i use fl studio so its pretty easy to do that, and save some cpu

[@hel112]

@@giahuy6471 Aah, that's why. Learning something everyday haha

[@DamnHeadHumpers]

I CAN FEEL IT

[@melchiorvandijk6138]

Stoner loner is def my favorit. Although dont like to smoke anymore

[@rent2386]

ive applied these compression settings and used your blips and everything but I still get a click/pop every time the side chain is triggered, any ideas?

[@arisnieman2721]

try maybe a higher lookahead.

[@OfficialAHEE]

I get clicks in mine too but it doesn’t show up in the final, only when soloing. Doesn’t effect the song at that point.

[@PlaylistunesCommunity]

At 6:09 we can see that you use the same release of 27.7 ms on the sub. This is probably a mistake, because your kick's low frequencies will certainly last for more than 27.7ms, meaning that the master will receive low frequencies from both the sub and the kick at the same time. Not good.

[@MrUkelela]

it would only be the tail of the kick, i really doubt that matters much

[@PlaylistunesCommunity]

@@MrUkelela actually it does a lot. Superposing low range information will add a lot of signal to the limiter, decreasing the overall loudness of the other elements. In addition, a sidechain compression with this setting is useless on a sub: 27ms is the duration of a transient, the part of the kick without any bass. You don't need to reduce sub information for the transient to go through the mix, they don't compete in the same frequencies.

[@MrUkelela]

@@PlaylistunesCommunity we'll see what ahee has to say lol

[@PlaylistunesCommunity]

@@MrUkelela Yes I would also love to hear his comment on this particular topic. Btw I'm not questioning his abilities as a producer or mix engineer, quite the contrary. He's clearly very skilled. I'm just sceptic of this very tiny parameter choice. Cheers!

[@MrUkelela]

@@PlaylistunesCommunity

[@crayonman242]

What is up aliens 👽

[@ratikanto]

i am convinced that you dont use these settings in every song that u write .