progressive house drop elements are sidechained hard but still not pumping with kick

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Reezy

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Here's the new prob im facing these days. The drop is sidechained properly everything is at right level when i play it pumps but doesnt feel like kick is pumping the other elements. I use fl studio's sidechain plugin gross beat. Pleass help
 
Gross Beat doesn't actually sidechain, it just mimics pumping effects usually achieved with sidechain compression via simple volume automation.
 
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So how am i gonne use my kick to trigger other elements. I know theres so many techniques are there but i just want to achieve the pumping effect most of modern day prog.house tracks features. Like borgeous tracks as an example.
 
Reezy said:
So how am i gonne use my kick to trigger other elements. I know theres so many techniques are there but i just want to achieve the pumping effect most of modern day prog.house tracks features. Like borgeous tracks as an example.
Click to expand...

Automate the volume or use a kick to trigger the sidechain,
here's how to do this:

1) Choose what you want to make it "pump" and place a compressor that can receive signal from a different track (so if you want to make the bass, for example, to pump put a compressor there)

2) Select to get signal from a different track (kick for example). If you don't want your kick to be heard, mute it, the signal will still be sent to your bass (or synths, or anything that you want to pump)

3) Make the kick to hit 4/4 or more depending what you want.

4) Compress using auto release.


Ready.
 
Yeah thats an cool trick.i dig that. So is fl studio's fruity limiter is okay for this sidechain compression job or there's any other better plugins out there that do the job better ? Any recommendation? Should i sidechain my main synths of the drop differently with less pumping effect? Because if it ducks everything it doesnt sound full.i mean like theres a vocal missing on the top
 
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Reezy said:
Yeah thats an cool trick.i dig that. So is fl studio's fruity limiter is okay for this sidechain compression job or there's any other better plugins out there that do the job better ? Any recommendation? Should i sidechain my main synths of the drop differently with less pumping effect? Because if it ducks everything it doesnt sound full.i mean like theres a vocal missing on the top
Click to expand...

I'd wager since you seem new to sidechaining, the plugins you've got in FL studio is more than enough until you know what you're missing out on (if you ever will). But yes, some plugins do some things better than others (or simply differently).

As for how you should sidechain different elements.. Whatever sounds best is the greatest advice I can give you.

Also in my experience it's easier to get a nice pumping effect with volume envelope plugins like kickstart, volumeshaper or even grossbeat (not sure what it is exactly but, sounds like that to me). I tend to use actual sidechain compression more as a way to make the kick or snare/clap (or whatever really) transients shine through some sounds a bit easier, like a band-aid for difficult mix situations.

And don't forget there are more things you can sidechain than compressors, just an off-topic tip. :-)
 
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I suggest lfotool for faking a sidechain, I honestly find it to be more useful since you can draw the exact curve you want. I've gotten to the point where I rarely use an actual compressor for harsh ducking because it requires a lot of fiddling to achieve what lfo tool does in seconds. Yes it's a vst purchase but lfotool isn't that expensive.
 
thanks guys for valuable information's. i have been using kickstart and gross beat from beginning.though the compression technique is a bit time consuming but it worth's and it gives the natural ducking feeling which i personally think,cant be achieved by a plugin that fakes sidechain
 
That really depends, but with a plugin like volumeshaper by cableguys you can create whatever kind of envelope you want, as well do a bunch of stuff that sidechaining a compressor can not, with more control of the actual shape of the curves.
 
If you don't want to "fake" a sidechain, you have a lot of other options. The limiter, the peak controller, and the compressor are the standard ways to do it.

I personally use the peak controller to mute kicks so I can set up ghost sidechains. (No idea if that's the proper term, but the kicks still sidechain even when they're muted without messing with mixer routing).

The peak controller is the easiest to understand way to sidechain, so I recommend going with that. Here are the details of setting it up.

Route a kick to any mixer channel and open up the peak controller. By default, it will mute the kick, but if you want to unmute it, click that button little box in the corner.

Now, you have to decide what you want to sidechain. If you have another synth, for example, on another mixer channel, you probably want to sidechain its volume parameter. Right click the synth's volume slider and select "link to controller".

Under "internal controller", select the peak controller PEAK. (With LFO, or PEAK alone, doesn't really matter). Then hit the arrow next to the Mapping Formula underneath and select "inverted". This is the key to the sidechain. It will duck the volume of the synth every time the kick hits because of this inverted formula. Where it says "1-Input", click in that and change it to "0.8-Input". FL does a lot of stuff at 80%, so this is important to keep things consistent.

And that's about it. Your actual sidechain effect will depend on the sample you choose to do it and its various settings, as well as the settings you use in the peak controller. Ton of options from here. You can set up more routing, experiment with other formulas, samples, etc.
 
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