Pictographic Tutorial: How to Sidechain in Ardour

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Irwin J. Cespedes
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Pictographic Tutorial: How to Sidechain in Ardour

Post by Irwin J. Cespedes »

Hi there! As a newbie here I'd like to share with you some of my tricks, most of them learned through the pass of time and by trial and error process. One particular effect I have not seen here is how to make a Sidechain effect in any GNU/Linux based DAW. Because the genres I commonly produce are EDM styles I just thought this may be a little help for the ones that are like me.

First of all, Sidechain or ducking is the act of compress a sound by using a second source for accomplish the job. It is used in House, Trance, Ambient and the like. however, you can use it to give creative effects in instruments like electric bases, or synthesizer pads. You may know in GNU/Linux, specifically in LADSPA and LV2 plug in format there is only one compressor that acquire this effect, the Scott Harris' SC3 Compressor. For this tutorial, we will need three important components:
  • ·Ardour 2 or 3 (Version do not matter)
    ·SC3 Compressor (LV2 or LADSPA)
    ·A 4 on 4 kick and a WhiteNoise sample (For purposes of example of this method)
The project I used for this will be available at the end of the topic for personal study. With this on the records, we will begin: Open Ardour and create a blank project. Import the *.wav files in order to create two tracks, something like this:

Image

After we created the tracks, open Ardour's mixer. As you may know, mixer we'll be plain and square. Just the two tacks we have created:

Image

Now, create a 3 channel Bus. This one will be named "Sidechain", as this:

Image

You may wonder, Why 3 channels instead of 2?, Mainly because SC3 has three inputs. Channel 1 activates the Sidechain and Chanels 2 and 3 are the simple stereo outputs you connect to the next part of the chain. With this is mind, we need to remember the next mantra:

"Channel 1 excites, Channels 2 and 3 receive"

As this, we go to the Bus, and we insert the SC3 compressor after the Fader:

Image

As personal taste, I always use it after the fader. However you can put it before the fader. It is just a personal thing. Later on, we need to set the "Aural Position" (Dunno if this is the correct name, correct me if I'm wrong). We go to the blue circle alike graphic and right click on it. We select the "Reset" option. It should be like the following picture:

Image

After we did this, we can route al the signals to the bus in order to get the SideChain working. So, go to the kick channel strip and create a mono send to the bus:

Image

We just need on side of the kick, It is not necessary to use both. This kick needs to be connected to channel one. Remember the Mantra?, well you need to follow it with no hesitation. Now, we route the WhiteNoise from the channel strip towards the Bus. So we open Ardour's patchbay and route it to channels 2 and 3 of the bus, like this:

Image

Important!!!, The outputs of the instrument that is going to be SideChained must be disconnected from the master. Why this? We do it in order to avoid distortion and "double listens" or phase problems. The output should look like this:

Image

The output chain must follow this route: "Instrument -> Bus with SC3 -> Master"

Finally we can play with SC3 at the bus, We tweak the sliders in order to reach a good SideChain effect:

Image

We set:
  • ·Attack Time: 2.00ms
    ·Release Time:2.000ms
    ·Threshold Level: -30.00db
    ·Ratio: 10.000db
    ·Knee radius: 10.000db
The Chain balance is the most important parameter, because it is the one that engages SC3 to accept SideChain from a third source. I like to use it at 1.000, however you can modify this parameter to make it fit in your personal projects. You can mess around with the parameters and the send volumes to make different effects in the instrument.

And as simple as this, we have a bus doing SideChain from a third source in no less of ten minutes. You can do very crazy stuff with this like stacking more busses in order to get a more aggressive effect, or for letting a nice ducking touch to your synth pads (As deadmau5 and other Progressive House producers do) or for more simple thing like ducking electric basses in any kind of genres.

But, all this must be showed up. This is the project without doing SideChain:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/19463730/Sound ... ession.wav

And here, it is the sidechained version of the project:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/19463730/Sound ... ession.wav

And, as a musical example, you can remit to one of my songs called "Tormenta Electrica", specifically at 4:17. This is the very first time I used SC3 for SideChain purposes.

http://soundcloud.com/irwincespedes/tor ... a-original

In order to finish, I'll let you the Ardour project for personal study http://www.mediafire.com/?uf3xdgvw2467xb1 and the gallery with better definition http://goo.gl/uRuoe

And with this, I finish this pictographic tutorial. I hoped you liked it and put it into practice in your following projects. Cheers and happy symphony with GNU/Linux!

P.d. You may wonder where's the sounds? Well, Im kinda new here and I don't know why the board does not let me attach mp3 or ogg files... I must read more in here. :lol:
I am also known as altiplΛne, this is my music

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Re: Pictographic Tutorial: How to Sidechain in Ardour

Post by i2productions »

Sidechaining is not just for compressing. In fact, compressing,IMHO, is the least likely bit of processing to be done via sidechaining. I will quite often put compression on a troubled bass, or something similar, and then put the aux send in right after the compressor and send it to say and distortion on the sidechain bus so that I have some clean bass to mix in and the distorted bass is compressed also. A sidechain is pretty much mandatory for reverb and delay. Create your aux send(in A3, we now have internal sends for easy routing), and put the delay or reverb in the PRE-FADER position. For any sidechain there is very little gained by putting a plugin in the post-fader position. You pretty much always want to control the volume after you process something, right? Other effects like distortions should also be sidechained most of the time.

I'm glad you posted something about this, since not enough people use or understand sidechaining. It is a very important part of professional audio mixing! However, some of your premises seem off. Particularly the part where you're putting in a compressor post-fader. If you are planning on controlling the release volume in the compressor, than be my guest, but otherwise you will almost always need to control the volume after you compress something.
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Re: Pictographic Tutorial: How to Sidechain in Ardour

Post by StudioDave »

I'm not especially knowledgable about sidechaining or audio compression, but I know when someone is trying to make a good tutorial.

Well done, sir, and I hope you continue to make more instructional videos.

Best regards,

dp
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Re: Pictographic Tutorial: How to Sidechain in Ardour

Post by Irwin J. Cespedes »

Thank you both for comments!

And well, I'm a novice in this, as many other forum user. The fact is that I like to try as much as I can and like to share my experiences. The ride with the sidechain is basically taken from a tutorial I had seen at the Ardour forums. I just followed it and used it in my projects.

In EDM, most of the tracks are very equed or delayed or similar the usage of a sidechain in a Bassline is out of context, as far as I consider. It is more used for creative processes than for fixing mixing issues.

I will try to continue posting things like this, because many people ask but a little show.

Cheers!
I am also known as altiplΛne, this is my music

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Re: Pictographic Tutorial: How to Sidechain in Ardour

Post by i2productions »

It's not out of context. I was just giving another example of sidechaining. I was illustrating that sidechaining is used for many many things. It seems your example in the post is more for maximization?
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Re: Pictographic Tutorial: How to Sidechain in Ardour

Post by Irwin J. Cespedes »

i2productions wrote:It's not out of context. I was just giving another example of sidechaining. I was illustrating that sidechaining is used for many many things. It seems your example in the post is more for maximization?
No, no, I mean in electronic music it is hard to find a record with sidechained basslines. They tent to sidechain leads or pads, but no basslines. Though, there are some exceptions.

Probably was a misunderstanding :-)
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Re: Pictographic Tutorial: How to Sidechain in Ardour

Post by i2productions »

Yes misunderstanding. You are absolutely correct in electronic music compressors are almost exclusively for maximization.
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Re: Pictographic Tutorial: How to Sidechain in Ardour

Post by tripomatic »

Nice & clear written tutorial. Such tutorials are always welcome.
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