Canadian Musician September / October 2019

DIGITAL MUSIC David Abravanel is a digital marketer with a knack for data, content/community sorcerer, creative technology obsessive, and synth junkie. He freelances in marketing/strategy/content, specializing in creative and emerging technologies. Current clients include Sensel, Sound Radix, Ableton, and K-Devices. For more information, visit www.dhla.me. By David Abravanel Sidechain Compression Common & Uncommon Uses Part 1 N ow that we’ve learned about sidechain compres- sion and its origins, it’s time to get our hands dirty. Here, we’ll provide some exam- ples of sidechaining applications – from recreating classic pumping house chords to head-spinning experimental trigger networks. The Almighty Kick Without question, the most popular ap- plication of sidechaining involves having other instruments fall in line behind the awesome power of the kick. In house, tech- no, or hip-hop, sidechain can be the differ- ence between a kick struggling to breathe in the mix and a strong, heavy thump. It’s easy to get started sidechaining this way. In Live 10, put a Compressor device on every track that you want to duck the kick. Where you put the Compressor is up to you – traditionally, it goes at the end of the effects chain, but you might find that you like the sound of, say, reverb after the ducking. Enable “sidechain” on the Compres- sor, then select the track that you want to use as a source signal. Note that there’s a second selection box for choosing pre-/ post-FX or post-mixer – useful if, say, you’ve slapped a heavy distortion on the kick but you want the more transient original signal to be the sidechain source. If you’re using a Drum Rack as a ducking source, this second box is also where you select whether you’d like to use the entire Rack as a source or just one part. Select ratio to taste and play around with attack/release/knee until you’ve got just the right pump and snap. Once you’ve put a sidechain on a track, you might try in- creasing the output gain for an even more dramatic “rise” at the tail end of the pump. snare cuts through without sacrificing the overwhelming, claustrophobic feel that we want from the synth and reverb cloud. When you’re working with heavier tracks, you may want to duck things with more than just the kick. Bump It In hip-hop, sidechaining helps to accentu- ate the “bump” sound that you get with a heavy kick. We’ve previously heard exam- ples of this in tracks from J Dilla, Madlib, and Flying Lotus. If you’ve got a nice enough drum loop but the sounds just don’t re- ally grab you, turn on sidechaining for the chords, lead, and bass. In addition to mak- ing room for the drums, the sidechaining may also provide the track with a kind of bond, where it feels like the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Elbow Room So far, we’ve shared solutions on what to do when some parts sound like they’re fighting each other in our mix. Truthfully, this is often easier to manage working with software instruments; things get more dif- ficult when you bring external instruments into the mix. Say we’ve got a pop rock tune and we like the tone that we’re getting from some accenting guitar chords but they completely smother the rest of the piece. In this case, we don’t want as dramatic a pumping effect as we’ve had thus far, but definitely need to stop those chords from hogging so much space. Here’s where we can use sidechain compression more subtly, as a utility and not an effect, but no less essential. It will give the drums more life and bring a better balance to the track. Also, we can beef up, say, the bass a bit by having it sidechained by the kick to avoid those two lower-end parts fighting for space. The Long Tail In techno – especially the modern, dark variants – it’s common to hear larger-than- life noises and pads with reverb tails that stretch far out into the horizon. Say we’ve got a distorted Drum Machines 909 lick, an acid line, and a pitched-down speech sample with an enormous reverb tail. Left totally naked, these parts can make a real muddy mess. Between the reverb cloud and the acid line, things just get murky. The drums will seem to be swallowed up, and it feels like the parts are fighting with each other. In this case, we can use the entire drum kit as a source for the sidechain on the other parts. The smack of the kick and This article was adapted from David’s post on the Ableton Blog. Check it out along with a ton of helpful tutorials, artist interviews, videos, and other content at: www.ableton.com/en/ blog/. CANADIAN MUSICIAN 31

Canadian Musician September / October 2019 | Page 31