Hardware sidechain compressor

[callingltu]

Any ideas how to make that electro sound with sidechain comp. and kick drum? What compressor should do the job ant what mic or trigger on bass drum?

[bongomania]

Any compressor with a sidechain input will work just fine. There are lots and lots of rackmount units that have that feature, and if you want a pedal then check out the FEA Opti-FET. Any normal mic will do for the kick drum, it doesn't even have to be a good mic--any crappy mic will do.

The one thing is, almost all sidechain inputs are unbalanced (2-wire), meaning they take an instrument-cable type of plug; whereas most mics use 3-wire cables and have XLR plugs. So you can either pick up a cheap dynamic mic that already terminates in a 1/4" unbalanced plug, or you can buy or make an adapter to convert from XLR to 1/4".

Or you can run the mic straight to a mixer, and then take an aux send from the mixer channel out to the sidechain input.

[callingltu]

Thanks for ur answer. But what about background sounds? Wouldt crappy mic catch them? For example, drummer monitor? guitar? even my bass?

[bongomania]

Often, a "good" mic would catch those noises even worse than a "crappy" one. Just pick a mic that has a "hypercardioid" pickup pattern (like many vocal mics), because they reject background sounds the best.

[callingltu]

Okey, i'll have a go. we have some crappy mics in our studio, shure pg48, pg 58,bg2, cheapest akg and etc.

[recnsci]

Originally Posted by callingltu

Any ideas how to make that electro sound with sidechain comp. and kick drum? What compressor should do the job ant what mic or trigger on bass drum?

Any mic, just stick it as close to beater as possible (you actually want to capture initial transient of bass drum, ultralow freq stuff is not as important).
For comp, I would choose something with VCA, with proper attack and release control, rack based (so, dBx-ish clean stuff or something like that). Just sticking mic in SC input might not work, signal level from mic would probably be way too low. So Mic->MicPre->SC in.

However,
if you are thinking about that pronounced kick-ducks-rest-of-the-mix-in-violent-manner effect that is so common in current dance music, there is additional thing or two you should think about.
First, on those tracks dynamics of both kick and bass are already flattened, with "artificial" dynamcis provided by sidechain action. To simulate effect, you should smash dynamics of BD and BG with comps before whole sidechain thing, so that would mean 3 comps instead of one. Second, on most of tracks kick ducks a bunch of stuff in the mix beside bass track (most notably hats&cymbals and pads/leadSynths) to get effest so pronounced. Finaly, BD is usually some simple pattern (usualy straight 4-4) and bass track is aranged with idea of ducking in mind.

If you use just sidechain comp in this manner in normal band situation, it will turn out like recording/engeneering tool/technique to glue BD and BG a bit better, rather than strong FX. If you want "that electro trick" bass->fuzz to flatten it and get synthish sound, play simple, with fewer notes and play longer notes (remember, now BD is governing percieved dynamics) and force (by any means) drummer to reduce BD bashing (in therms of complexitiy of BD pattern) to minimum.

Finaly, before buying anything, if you have any multitrack of your band, try this at home on computer with that recording first (there are bazilion plugins that will do this; and anyway, 99% of contemporary electro/tech/house stuff is done strictly ITB these days) before you commit to gear buying.

[callingltu]

Thx for sucha detailed answer

I have tube mic pre-amp, it should do the job. What do you think about this compressor http://www.zzounds.com/item--BEHMDX1600 ? i know its cheapest thing, but i wont be using it all the time, just on few songs, so dont wanna buy some fancy stuff

About bass effects i know. have 11 pedals, they might work I have 2 synth pedals, one sounds really electro, so adding some ducking with it would sound awesome. Also i think octaver + big muff + ducking would be awesome

[recnsci]

Originally Posted by callingltu

Thx for sucha detailed answer

I have tube mic pre-amp, it should do the job. What do you think about this compressor http://www.zzounds.com/item--BEHMDX1600 ? i know its cheapest thing, but i wont be using it all the time, just on few songs, so dont wanna buy some fancy stuff

About bass effects i know. have 11 pedals, they might work I have 2 synth pedals, one sounds really electro, so adding some ducking with it would sound awesome. Also i think octaver + big muff + ducking would be awesome

that behringer will probbaly do the trick (sidenote: I never had as much problems with "tone" of B'ringer toys as I had with reliability, I've once allmost threw those nearfilds trough the window when they crapped on me for 3rd time - but "reliable" comp of any brand would be $300+). Start with attack between 0.3 and 20, release between 0.15 and 1 and ratio of 8:1.

Also, you could (maybe) use other chanel on MDX as sort of lofi mic pre for BD mic (just set threshold to max and crank output to 20; if mic is sensitive enough maybe 20dB of gain is all it needs, and more noise because of unbalanced connection wouldn't be much of a problem since it will be below detectoro threshold).
Further more, another trick would be to use one of those $2 plastic crap computer mics for picking BD for side chain (AFAIK they are a bit more sensitive than average studio dynamic mic, and sice they are plastic and lightweight you could simply tape it inside BD as close to skin as possible instead of sticking some proper mic stand inside of BD). You would only need to buy 1/8" to 1/4" adapter and stick it in other chanel of MDX for some gain.