Notch ducking

[NinjaEdit]

I conducted an experiment.

I was inspired by two things: THE MONEYSHOT THREAD and this page of Thinking inside the Box: a complete EQ tutorial. The caption under a picture points out that the box of EQ describes only one point in time, although it may be more correct to say it exists in one short, but sufficiently long duration of time, since a sample is simply a measurement of an amplitude. Macc in The Moneyshot Thread wrote that if you EQ well, you won't need "fancy" sidechain compression, and that you should notch space in your bass for the kick drum because masking in that range is a common problem.

Macc's method is only a solution for the period of time in which the kick drum plays. If he were only handed a short clip of the final mixdown, and in this clip the kick drum does not play, I suspect he would consider the frequency response to need correction.

One solution is to have the kick trigger an EQ band cut on the bass at the fundemental of the kick drum. This can be set up in FL Studio, but I am not aware of a way to do this in Reaper, so I found an another method.

I set up a synth to generate sound in the complete audible spectrum. I played a continuous C0, with saw waves playing the fundemental and first and second harmonics (in GSinth2). I laid a kick drum sample on the one, and a snare on the three. I bandpassed the drums for the purpose of this experiment.

I notched two bands out of the synth. The first was at the fundemental of the kick drum, and the second was a wider band at the fundemental and lower frequencies of the snare. I had duplicated the synth twice, and bandpassed these one each at of those frequencies. I set up sidechain compression from the kick to the first copy bandpassed at the lower frequency, and the snare to the second copy.

The overall sound was "fuller," and it preserved the character of the drums, which could be EQed less, and also be set absolutely quieter in the mix. I found this to be more interesting sounding then a constant EQ setting on the synth. While it takes longer to set up, there is in total less EQing actually happening.

I also tried splitting a synth into five bands, and sidechaining some of them in different amounts from the drums, but this influenced the character of the synth, actually making it talk. It also happened to take longer to set up.


Bottom line is: Notch out space for the drums, but have bandpassed replacement copies duck the appropriate drum hit.

[NinjaEdit]

I just realised a way to to sidechain to the EQ band amplitude.

[ehbes]

For reason

Split kick drum one to channel another to comp, cv route eq enable to compressor. Boom

[Augment]

I remember when I first figured out how I could assign the peak controller to the different eq bands, epic moment of revelation.

[Maxxan]

I do this for all my growls and sometimes other sounds too. Sometimes it's nice to have a permanent notch for the kick frequency though, bit more dynamic if you dont fill the whole frequency range at all times.

What I do is hook up a Fruity Peak Controller on both kick and snare channels, then link to a dip on respective frequency in my EQ so I don't have to mess around with duplicate sounds or bandpasses or nothing, the EQ just moves after the kick/snare. Really cool to look at when you're a bit buzzed haha, especially since the Fruity EQ 2 looks so cool with all the colors and shit

[NinjaEdit]

Outdroppt actually gave me an idea of having the EQ triggered by the instrument it's affecting.

[Njamimars]

I remember when I first figured out how I could assign the peak controller to the different eq bands, epic moment of revelation.

Holyshit, didn't even knew that was posible.

[sunny_b_uk]

yeah i commonly do this when mixing down, i remember mentioning it on DSF two years ago and 1 or 2 people were telling me that EQ ducking is for guys that cant EQ properly lol..
i disagree, when im making "brostep" i feel its necessary to use this technique since a lot of sounds i make tend to fill up the spectrum.. even when timing sounds and melodies appropriately within a song, i still feel i have to sidechain volumes or eq points here and there.

[hasezwei]

welcome to reaper, where we assign everything to anything

[glottis5]

welcome to reaper, where we assign everything to anything

yeah its always fun to assign random shit to random shit

[NinjaEdit]

welcome to reaper, where we assign everything to anything

Feels good. FL's like that as well.

[ehbes]

Reason shits on everything routing capabilities wise

[outdropt]

"GlissEQ is a parametric equalizer plug-in for professional music production applications. The most interesting and unique feature GlissEQ offers you is its filters with dynamic behavior. While when using a normal equalizer you always get what you have set: if you specify 6 dB boost at 100 Hz you get exactly 6 dB boost at 100 Hz. GlissEQ offers you a slightly different approach: when you specify +6 dB at 100 Hz, you don't necessarily get 6 dB of gain, filter’s effective gain is adjusted dynamically according to the sound material you are filtering."

http://www.voxengo.com/product/glisseq/

Check it out!

[sunny_b_uk]

Reason shits on everything routing capabilities wise

reason wins with routing synths parameters & FX together since no other DAW can do that, but the exact same kind of results can be achieved in FL etc especially if using a powerful modular synth like VAZ modular.
also there are tonnes of VSTs out there and plenty of ways to route FX in most DAWs, which in the end can give any result desired.