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Sidechaining your kick to allow it to punch through is very common. The amount of ducking is up to you but personally I think it sounds very shite if it's too obvious. If you can't get it to punch through without ducking it too much then other work needs to be done. (eq etc..)

Sound selection >>>>>>>>>>> eq >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> sidechaining

IMO of course

To take the liberty of quoting myself from a thread on the same thing the other day (sorry, I know this is terribly lazy but it was only the other day) ;

Useful when required, but not the essential mix process the internet seems to makes it out to be these days. It's a bit of an internet fad and IMHO a sticking plaster for poor arrangement (bar creative uses a la 'house pumping' and things like that). Good arrangement and sound selection negates its use as a mix process, and sounds fatter every time to boot.

YMMV IMHO etc.

God I am an arsehole on this forum, sorry... Just being honest!

The last bit still stands even if you disagree with the rest

But if you find yourself having/needing to sidechain in every single tune, I'd suggest there are more fundamental issues you could be looking at...

IMHO YMMV FWIW ASL BRB LOL etc

i think sidechaining is the same as any compression technique - if you don't exactly know what you are doing or indeed when to apply it, then you should probably just leave it alone

james fox wrote:i think sidechaining is the same as any compression technique - if you don't exactly know what you are doing or indeed when to apply it, then you should probably just leave it alone

this

Sidechaining, like low passing your sub at 80 blah blah blah, is one of those things that to my mind seems to have an unfair mythical status attached to it, esp. on forums.

Not slating anyone, this is a global epidemic, but the amount of domestic and foreign boards I go on, if you do a search for 'Side Chaining' you will on average get at least 4 pages of responses on the bloody subject.

As has been said above, sidechaining isn't the be all and end all of compression techniques, though for some reason many seem it to be - electro house boards are fucking terrible for this kind of behaviour.

I remember in the days when I was first getting my head round production on FL 5, I didn't have a clue about side chaining and used to do myself painstakingly tedious volume automations to get the same effect. Great way to give yourself RSI that

Seeing as Macc quotes himself (;)), I'll do the same;

I played a recent tune attempt to a mate of mine (trance producer that he is) and got the following response;

Him: You got sidechaining on?
Me: Um...........no
Him: Why not?
Me: Didn't really think it needed it tbh
Him: Why the fuck not? All my tunes have sidechaining, really makes it pump in and out!
Me: Makes what pump in and out?
Him: The tune!
Me: Um.......ok
Him: You should totally put some sidechaining on here, would really give the tune some pump to it, you know?
Me: But we're just listening to the opening 8bars. The bass hasn't come in yet
Him: So?

HOWEVER.....

Despite the above, I still use sidechaining a fair bit as it's easy to setup and gets good results if done properly. I use SideKick as a cheats way of doing it too