Advanced Technique Sidechaining in Logic Pro 8

What your sidechained audio does and where it is routed to is, of course, totally up to you. It can be used for many purposes, from reducing gain in a compressor for classic ducking effects to feeding audio to gates and vocoders for more experimental sounds. But whatever you use sidechained audio for, it’s useful to remember that absolutely any sound in your mix can be used for the ‘source’. Once you have grasped this concept you will realise that you have access to a very powerful routing

try applying the sidechain compressor to a reverb buss or a backing vocal line.

matrix between the sounds in your mix and many processors in Logic Pro.

It’s well worth checking all the processors that support sidechaining in Logic as some of them may come as a bit of a surprise. You may not have expected to fi nd a sidechain input on the ring modulator or on auto-fi lter plug-ins, for example.

We will now break down the main plug-ins that accept sidechain inputs into sections and suggest possible ways in which you can utilise them.

Compressing and expanding These are the most obvious processors when it comes to sidechain capability and probably the most heavily used. If you want to achieve classic ducking and pumping effects these are the plug-ins you will reach for.

Remember, when it comes to ducking, that the bass line doesn’t have to be the treated sound. Try applying the sidechain compressor to a reverb buss or a backing vocal line. Equally, the kick drum doesn’t have to be the trigger sound. Sometimes it’s really effective to duck one guitar line as another plays. This sort of treatment can allow some elements to cut through a busy mix without your having to remove other instruments.

Logic has added plenty of new features to its main compressor in version 8 so it’s worth familiarising yourself with these. For instance, on opening the extended controls you will see that there are now distortion settings, frequency-dependent sidechain settings and even a mix control. Also, when choosing your sidechain source – and this goes for all sidechain-capable plug-ins – the channels’ names are now displayed for improved workfl ow.

If you want the opposite effect to ducking, try the Expander. This will enable you to increase the volume by a pre-determined amount and use a sidechain input to trigger the process. This can be extremely useful for creating accents in drum and percussion patterns.

STEP-BY-STEP Setting up a classic ducking effect.

1

First locate the sound you want to trigger your sidechain. I have used a kick drum sample but you could use any sound in your mix. You may find after some experimentation that you get better results using percussive sounds, but every situation is different.

2

Now navigate to the sound you wish to treat with the ducking effect. Again, this can be any sound in your mix, but usually you will focus on a sound that needs to be suppressed to enable other elements to shine. In this case a piano phrase is used.

3

Insert a compressor plug-in on the target channel, making sure that it is of the same format as your sound (mono or stereo). You can now choose the model of compressor you wish to use. Here the platinum model is loaded to ensure maximum transparency.

4

Using the dropdown menu Side Chain (in the top right corner of the Compressor’s interface), select your trigger sound (the kick drum). This creates the sidechain routing and any compression will now cease. Compression will now only occur if the kick drum is playing.

5

Adjust the attack and release frequencies to complement the program material. Generally, the attack should be pretty fast, while the release will vary from sound to sound and should be adjusted so that it moves in time with your project.

6

Finally, balance the threshold and ratio parameters to reach the desired amount of gain reduction. The further you go the more obvious the effect will be but go too far and the pumping will become so intense that you may lose portions of your sound.

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