side chain compressor

borud · Post by **borud** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 12:41 pm

topic says it all.

zebebop · Post by **zebebop** » Sun Apr 15, 2007 1:01 pm

Not only for compressor & gate... i guess for all fx !!!

Include the side chaining directly with routing schem of live would be great to expand creativity and new idea for sound design !?

Luque · Post by **Luque** » Sun Apr 15, 2007 2:16 pm

davidbayles · Post by **davidbayles** » Mon Apr 16, 2007 4:13 am

are there programs out there that allow you side-chain any plugin? i was thinking that it had to be built into the actual plugin itself. i would love, for instance, to be able to use any track as the key input for a compressor (or even something more creative like beat repeat) on another track. this would be a major new feature for me... so is it possible or does it have to be done inside a plugin?

Nokatus · Post by **Nokatus** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 2:57 pm

Needs to be done in the plugin. It requires the inputs for the actual signal to be processed, and additional inputs for the key signal.

davidbayles · Post by **davidbayles** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 3:08 pm

Thought so. It would be sweet though - "includ[ing] the side chaining directly with routing schem of live". I'd love to be able to side-chain any plugin made by anyone. I guess the next best thing would be to add side-chains to the Ableton devices. But I'd be really happy if they just added one to the compressor, so...

+1

Nokatus · Post by **Nokatus** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 3:13 pm

^^ The routing scheme already works with sidechain plugs. You can route a key signal effortlessly into any plugin which supports it.

Set the "Audio to" of any return channel to any available key input, and you can send anything as the key just by adjusting the corresponding send level.

davidbayles · Post by **davidbayles** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 3:26 pm

I think zebebop was talking about plugins that don't support it, which is what I was musing about. It would be sweet to side-chain really weird plugins that manufacturers normally don't add side-chains to - "to expand creativity and new idea[s] for sound design". Would be sweet, but I guess it's not possible to add one after the fact (e.g. if a given plugin doesn't already have a side-chain).

But here's an interesting plugin that seems to do the trick:
http://www.twistedlemon.nl/site/index.p ... &Itemid=32

Would be sweet if Ableton could add a device that does this.

Nokatus · Post by **Nokatus** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 3:43 pm

Nope, that plugin just adds the ability to perform the staple ducking sidechain effect when there are no routing facilities in the host to genuinely use any plugin with a sidechain input. But, as I posted above, it's simple to use such plugins in Live.

As for the "sidechaining any plugin" thing, the plugin would need to have some sort of material-dependent functionality in order to benefit from sidechaining. That is, some parameters of the plugin should respond to the qualities of the input signal in realtime, and only then it would make sense to use another signal as a key to control that response. Think of the auto filter, for example. These kinds of plugins, if made to be genuinely sidechainable, would need to be altered themselves (adding key inputs).

That being said, a general "follower" plugin which could output control data based on different characteristics of the signal being fed into it -- now, that might indeed be something. That way you could assign a control data stream to any arbitrary parameter in any other plugin, based on the qualities (amplitude, frequency content, etc) of another signal (than the one being effected by the target plugin).

davidbayles · Post by **davidbayles** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 4:01 pm

First of all, "benefit" is a pretty relative word in music, don't you think? Universally held fact: there is no standard of what is beneficial and what isn't. It's all about what you like, what you're hearing. I think a lot of Ableton users would love to throw a plugin like beat-repeat or saturator or reverb or delay (or anything) on a guitar or bass (or anything) keyed to a kick or snare (or anything). I use Live because it really promotes creativity. Side-chains would be another step in this direction. Again...

+1

davidbayles · Post by **davidbayles** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 4:03 pm

The follower plugin sounds pretty sweet too...

Nokatus · Post by **Nokatus** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 4:22 pm

photonicrecords wrote:First of all, "benefit" is a pretty relative word in music, don't you think? Universally held fact: there is no standard of what is beneficial and what isn't. It's all about what you like, what you're hearing. I think a lot of Ableton users would love to throw a plugin like beat-repeat or saturator or reverb or delay (or anything) on a guitar or bass (or anything) keyed to a kick or snare (or anything).

Heh, I wasn't talking about creative type of benefit at all, but technical. There would be no benefit in having a sidechain in a regular reverb plugin, for example. The plugin itself, by its nature, needs to contain some sort of material-dependent functionality in order to benefit from a sidechain key input. That way the key input would actually do something.

Of course you could devise a lot of auto-filteresque setups, where (for example) the amplitude of a signal controls the amount of a certain parameter inside an effect, be it a reverb or what ever. However, that would be a new effect design, first adding that material-dependent functionality and then making it sidechainable. As this kind of development path for all of Live's effects is not very probable

, something like a generic signal follower plugin for control assignments would be more realistic.

Edit: and returning to the original request, yes, of course a sidechain key input in a compressor bundled with Live would be nice, thank you

(although, as there are already good sidechaining compressors around and Live's routing scheme completely supports them, I must say I'd much rather see appropriate grouping/soloing before anything else ...)

davidbayles · Post by **davidbayles** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 5:18 pm

Maybe I'm retarded or something, but this is what I'm thinking, specifically:

Example 1:
- Reverb (small room settings) on guitar track keyed to snare track
- In other words, track 1 is the side-chain input of the reverb device.
- This would make the guitar sound like it's in a small room on every snare hit.
- Snare is unaffected by the reverb.

Example 2:
- Beat Repeat on a bass track keyed to kick track.
- The bass "beat repeats" every time the kick is kicked.
- Kick is unaffected by the effect.

How is this not "do[ing] something"? And how would this be "a new effect design"? And what does this even mean: "The plugin itself, by its nature, needs to contain some sort of material-dependent functionality in order to benefit from a sidechain key input"?

Again, maybe I'm missing something, but it seems to me this would be as easy as adding side-chains to the devices.

Nokatus · Post by **Nokatus** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 5:43 pm

photonicrecords wrote:How is this not "do[ing] something"? And how would this be "a new effect design"? And what does this even mean: "The plugin itself, by its nature, needs to contain some sort of material-dependent functionality in order to benefit from a sidechain key input"?.

An effect doesn't gain the ability to control its parameters according to the characteristics of an audio signal if you just add a sidechain key input. By material-dependent functionality I mean just that: the effect actively responds, in some manner or another, to the material being fed through it. If you add key inputs to an effect, you assume the effect already has the functionality to actively adjust itself according to an audio signal - or else the key inputs just do plain nothing. So, it would be a case of designing what the material-dependent parameters in every effect are and how they respond, before just slapping sidechain inputs on everything.

In your example number 2, this particular functionality is "trigger repeats according to incoming audio amplitude", yes, and when this triggering is being controlled by feeding it a sidechain key signal, it would respond like you would expect. A fine sidechain feature, that.

In your first example, if I understand correctly, the parameter which is being controlled is the level of the wet reverb signal on the guitar track. In this case, the material-dependent functionality would be "adjust the reverb level according to incoming audio amplitude", in a gate manner. After that feature is in place, it would again be made to respond to a separate key signal. However, as this is simply a process of controlling a send effect level according to a given amplitude, there is no need to make it a separate case, modifying the actual reverb plugin just to achieve this result.

A level adjusting plugin with the appropriate settings could be placed on a return track after any send effect. When equipped with an appropriately responding sidechain feature, it could control the level of the effect according to any signal. I'm often controlling the reverb levels through a sidechained dynamics plugin, although in the opposite direction in relation to the key signal than in your example. I believe there are good choices for exactly that sort of thing around, too (I would guess the sidechainable Kjaerhus GAG-1 can be used for this exact purpose with good results.) Of course, I wouldn't mind if the gate in Live was something like that, too

. But for this sort of level adjustment, adding sidechain key inputs separately to every plugin would be redundant.

The beat repeat example is excellent, and that's the kind of creative sidechaining I'd like to see more. Filters responding to key signals in various ways, setting grain delay parameters, whatever. It would just need additional functionality inside the plugin, not just adding the inputs. Or, some of it could be realized with that follower plugin idea I wrote about.

davidbayles · Post by **davidbayles** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 6:02 pm

I still think we're missing each other a bit. I'm saying there's no difference between reverb and compressor plugins with regards to side-chaining. They're both black boxes with ins and outs.

It would be cool to trick a Live device into thinking it's being fed the signal of the track it's on, when really it's being fed a signal from another track.

In other words, I want to say to a device, "I want you to apply your effect to this track, but I want you to respond like your hearing this other track".

I'm not talking Dry/Wet, Decay Time, Shape, or any other knobs in the effect. I'm talking about the black box itself, whether it be Reverb, Beat Repeat, Compressor, or anything else.

I'm saying the beat repeat example is no different from the reverb example.