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Compression and Sidechaining from an outside source

Mingus Addict

Mingus Addict

May 10, 2007
1,031
38
Philadelphia
#1
Is anyone on here doing this in a live situation? What are you using? Anyone doing this off of the kick drum? Are you using a mic or a drum trigger?

I hear people talk about how you could do it with some of the new pedal comps like the Empress and FEA opti-fet, but I have yet to see someone actually implementing it. I'm really seriously considering getting into it, but I'm wondering specifically about how to get a signal from the kick into a 1/4" sidechain input. I'm really curious if a mic or a drum trigger would have enough gain w/o a preamp in the mix. Then I start to think, in a studio situation where I've implemented this trick before, the kick is being bussed into the sidechain after being nicely eq'd and gated, which effects the dynamic envelope of the sound. Maybe I don't see anyone doing this because its a PITA with out much of a pay off...
 
#2
Mingus Addict said:
Is anyone on here doing this in a live situation? What are you using? Anyone doing this off of the kick drum? Are you using a mic or a drum trigger?

I hear people talk about how you could do it with some of the new pedal comps like the Empress and FEA opti-fet, but I have yet to see someone actually implementing it. I'm really seriously considering getting into it, but I'm wondering specifically about how to get a signal from the kick into a 1/4" sidechain input. I'm really curious if a mic or a drum trigger would have enough gain w/o a preamp in the mix. Then I start to think, in a studio situation where I've implemented this trick before, the kick is being bussed into the sidechain after being nicely eq'd and gated, which effects the dynamic envelope of the sound. Maybe I don't see anyone doing this because its a PITA with out much of a pay off...
Click to expand...

Would be cool to do it with hardware, I've only done it with software but got some nice effects.
 
#3
I use this trick a lot when composing my electronic music project. It works great when you have a pulsating bassline, giving it a "breathing" illusion. But of course it's all done within the software (I'm using Ableton Live)

I don't know whether this is useful in a band situation. I usually just play along with the drummer, knowing when to pick softer or stronger.
 
#4
Yeah, I'm working on a project that is heavily influenced by French electronic music. That's why Im looking into this. I don't know how well I could try to pull this off with playing dynamics. I guess one of my main concerns is that I might put a bunch of money and effort into setting this up, and it will be too subtle of an effect to appreciate in a live setting. On the other hand, if I could get my hands on an FEA opti-fet, and simply attached a $25 trigger to the kick drum, and that would actually work well, it would be worth trying in my mind.
 
#6
Thank you for the good wishes, and the tip on the Empress! I am far more interested in finding the FEA pedal though, due to the fact that the sidechain is conveniently foot switchable. I supposed I could rig something up with the Empress, but it would require involving another pedal.

Since no one seems to be doing this already, I think I'm going to see if I can pull this off at a small studio where I go to jam with friends sometimes. On occasion I simply play through the DAW there into monitors in the room. I'll just set it up "in the box" and see how it sounds in the context of a jam and if it's an effect worth pursuing further in a live context. I'll let you know how it turns out.
 

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