Sidechain Bus

[omutumo]

I don't know if I'm going to explain this correctly first time so bare with me...

I was playing around with the Adam Freeland able10 pack and noticed he was using a channel titled 'sidechain' and it seemed like certain tracks were routed there but I could figure out how it was done.

I've been trying to figure out a different way to side chain for a while as I need to freeze more tracks in a few tunes I'm making to continue working on them (with my crappy old macbook) but because they are side-chained... you can't freeze.

Ideally, I'd like side chain kick/snare to a channel without going directly through a compressor/filer.

I'm after more creative side-chain ideas basically!

[fx23]

i use a sidechain send bus, it allow creative suff as you can live feed the sidechain signal various ways.

basically i use a return channel. Let's say A, and label it 'bass sidechain'. this rerurn channelA goes back on my track i want to sidechain (usually bass/pads). (on the bass trck, the compressor is in sidechain mode an pick ReturnA as sidechain source).
so then i can send ie my kick and snare to send A, and adjust, and it will duck the bass. very efficient and modular,
as you can live tweak sendsA knobs to decide wich element should take over the bass.

[abluesky]

You can not freeze flatten any track which routes audio, either from track-to-track or within a track itself.

[fx23]

that's true sorry i completely missed the freeze question, my eyes just catch 'creative sidechain'

Indeed this is quite annoying limitation. Nothing sidechained can be freezed. live should allow that, checking recursive dependancies and render all necessary elmts.

the workaround is to resample or fake sidechain via midicontrols.

.... quite boring and irrelevant when a track is full of clips.

thats a big issue, i use a lot sidechain, and so can't freeze, and so at some point run out of CPU...

[outershpongolia]

In my situation, I'm only side chaining bass OR pads FROM the kick - so I'll shoot for making those loops the same length when writing, then when it comes to bouncing stuff into the performance set, I'll have bass loops that are already ducking, as long as the corresponding drum loop is playing it will sound nice - BUT sometimes I mix and match bass loops and kick patterns.. say u play a second kick drum pattern over the top of a bass that is sidechained to the first pattern <-- not a huge problem unless the ducking is very obvious

sorry for the rant.. it's looking like either bounce down via resampling, or do it live - which I am torn between so I just do it with resampling, cheers

[fx23]

yup;

also if the sidchain compressor is at the end of the chain, man can temp remove it, render/freeze and reapply the sidechain so it keep in sync
with differents clips.

that's not what cost the more cpu, wouldn't work if sidechain is pre_fxs by the way..

[omutumo]

Cheers for the info.

@fx23- Just tried out sending a the sidechain through a return channel. I can see a lot of potential in this (need to play around a bit more), getting some nice effects automating the return too.

@outershpongolia- I'm the same, usually just sending kick/snare to bass/pads so try to keep these together.

[fx23]

cool, yes the main advantage i see is having a quick control, automatable and live tweakable.
by making clips modulation eveloppes for the send amount can vary over the liveset.
i forgot to say have to mute the return then, but you must have found it by yourself...