Original subtitles

hey guys joey here and in today's video

i'm going to show you how to get

extra clarity and excitement from a mix

using sidechain compression

side chaining is a process where one

track is affected by the input of

another track the most common use

is with compression you can have a

compressor reduce the volume of an

instrument based on information from a

different source

it's a really cool way to automate your

mixing which is something that i'm a

huge fan of so

let's get into a few examples and you'll

see just how it works

the first example is the most common

bass frequencies can make or break your

mix

so they've got to be clean getting a

bass guitar and kick drum to sound

powerful means having enough low end but

if they're both going at full volume

it's going to be a mess

check out this track

[Music]

the kick and bass sound pretty awesome

on their own but step all over each

other in the mix

i'm going to use side chain compression

to clean this up start with the

compressor on the base track you can use

any multi-band compressor that allows

side chaining as a general rule i try to

keep my compressors on whatever the

sustained signal is

each bass note rings out longer than the

fast kick transients so it makes more

sense to reduce that i only want to

compress the low end here so

we're going to set the compression

frequency range to everything under 100

hertz

now select the key source since i want

the bass track to duck every time

there's a kick hit i'm going to set the

kick as the key track

now watch how the bass compressor reacts

every time the kick hits

[Music]

great the low end is cleaner and the

base gets out of the way of the short

kick transients

you can even take this a step further by

reading from a midi track of the kick

that way the reduction happens instantly

on each kick

instead of relying on the algorithm to

pick the timing correctly if you don't

have a midi track and your daw

can't create key spikes there's still

one more way to get a super accurate

response duplicate your kick and make a

pre-fader send to the side chain bus

if you've been following this video in

your session make sure to delete any

side chain processing that you have on

the original kick

filter out all the low end on the side

chain kick track

and zero out the side chain kick fader

so it doesn't mess with the mix

now go to the compressor on the bass

track and set it to read the high

frequency information on the kick

[Music]

awesome now each time that the filtered

kick hits

the low end from the base will duck this

is a great way to get a super accurate

side chain since the timing of the

kick's high end transient

will be more exact than the sub

frequencies just make sure that the

release is set high enough so that the

reduction lasts for the entire kick hit

by now it's common knowledge that the

impact of a snare drum usually comes

from the 200 hertz region the problem is

that this is also where a lot of the low

end on a rhythm guitar lives and just

reducing 200 hertz on the guitar track

is going to make it sound weak but side

chaining them together will get the

impact needed without sacrificing the

power

just like before i'm going to load the

compressor on the sustained signal which

is in this case the guitar

set the compressor from 100 to 300hz and

have it listen to the snare track

[Music]

the goal here is to get enough

compression that you feel the snare you

don't really notice the reduction on the

[Music]

guitars

[Music]

awesome that's perfect the attack and

release times are super important on

this stuff so

make sure you've got it set

intelligently you'll know it's set right

when the entire snare hit is heard but

the guitars don't sound like they're

going in and out

[Music]

if you're having trouble getting your

vocal to stand out it could be because

the guitars are masking it let's set up

another side chain on our guitars and

set it to read information from the

vocal

focal intelligibility tends to come from

the 1000 to 3000 hertz range

so let's set that as the compression

range on our guitar

just like the snare i didn't want to

notice the dip in the guitars let's find

a subtle amount of compression that lets

us hear the vocals clearly but doesn't

interrupt the guitar sound

[Music]

[Applause]

breathing

awesome those vocals are cutting through

the mix and the guitars still have a

good amount of presence

[Music]

this last one's a cool one that requires

pretty specific routing i'm going to

start by making a sub drop with sub

destroyer i'm going to use the trigger

mode so that i only have to set one key

spike

and then let the plugin take care of the

rest it's super easy to get a sound with

this plugin just automate a trigger

point where you want the sub to drop

[Applause]

the start and end frequency knobs let me

pick exactly what range i want the sub

to drop through

cool now i'm going to set the length

this knob lets me control

exactly how long it takes to get from

the start to end frequency

awesome just for texture i'm going to

add a little drive on the output section

[Music]

[Applause]

that sounds huge but it's starting to

distort the low end of the mix

to fix this i'm going to set a side

chain between the sub

and the entire mix just send all the

instruments to an instrumental bus

i leave the vocals leads and any other

special effects out of this bus

since they don't have any sub

frequencies load a compressor on the

instrumental bus with the key source

being the base drop

now set the side chain from the highest

note of your sub drop and below

since sub destroyer lets me choose the

exact starting and ending frequency

i can set the frequency range of the

compressor to be exactly what i need

when the sub drop hits i want the low

end to stay relatively close to where it

was before

set the compression to a point where the

total volume of the low end only goes

up a couple db at the drop

[Music]

now set the attack and release so that

the reduction only lasts as long as the

sub drop

yep that's exactly what i'm looking for

the base drop is huge

and clean and the low end of the

instrumental is back right when it's

finished

this is a pretty extreme effect so make

sure that you've got a good

listening environment whenever you're

doing sub frequency automation like this

you'll know it's right when you don't

notice that the low end of the

instruments are going in and out

what are some interesting ways that

you've used side chaining in a mix

leave a comment below if you found some

creative mix elements to tie together

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until next time happy mixing