Most people are familiar with compressor side-chaining by now, but Ableton Live offers more than just the Compressor that allow for sidechaining. Even the Compressor (or Glue Compressor) can be used for much more than just creating a pumping effect.
In the following video tutorial, we’ll explore which Live audio effects offer sidechaining and what you can achieve with them. If this whole topic is brand new to you, there’s no need to worry. We’ll start with the basics, such as what side-chaining is and the pumping effect, before exploring all the other audio effects with this feature.
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What Is Sidechaining?
Normally, the track’s audio is processed by the audio effect sitting directly on it. With sidechaining, however, you can set up another track for the effect to listen to and process instead. This means that a compressor, for example, is triggered by the audio of another track but still ducks out the audio of the track it’s on. This can be useful for mixing purposes, but you can also use it for sound design. Rhythmic tracks, such as those from a kick, can produce some very interesting results when used as the sidechained track. It’s worth experimenting with!
Compressor Pumping Effect
The pumping effect is the most well-known sound design effect in electronic music that employs sidechaining. This can be achieved by setting the Threshold quite low while keeping Attack and Release relatively low and the Ratio between 4:1 and infinity:1 (for the strongest pumping effect).
Glue Compressor
Sidechaining is also offered by the Glue Compressor, which is available in Live Standard and Suite. Although the interface looks different, the same parameters can still be found: Attack, Release, Ratio and Threshold. The Glue Compressor is a true compressor and cannot be used as an expander.
Compressor Expansion
The Compressor can be set to different modes. Both Peak and RMS result in compression, but the Expand setting lets the compressor work as an expander instead. This means that, whenever the set threshold is exceeded, the volume of the audio increases instead of decreasing. This is great if you want to blend two or more sounds together more, for example to make the bass more prominent when the kick hits.
Multiband Dynamics Compression
Multiband Dynamics works like a compressor, but rather than processing all audio over the full frequency spectrum, it enables you to process up to three frequency bands individually. This gives you much more control over the sound, making it a very interesting tool for sound design. It also offers sidechaining and is available in Live Standard and above.
Multiband Dynamics Expansion
Like the Compressor, Multiband Dynamics also allows you to use expansion, so you can enhance individual frequency bands as needed.
Multiband Compression & Expansion (+ OTT)
Unlike the Compressor, Multiband Dynamics allows for the compression and expansion of each frequency band simultaneously if desired. The famous OTT preset is a good example of this.
Gate
While a compressor reduces the volume of the audio when the set threshold is reached, a gate allows the audio through when the threshold is exceeded and blocks it when the volume dips below the threshold. With a sidechained track set up, the audio on the track becomes audible when the sidechained track’s audio reaches the threshold. Gate is not available on Live Lite.
Gate Flip
The Flip toggle in the Gate effect lets you reverse the behaviour of Gate. So instead of letting the sound through every time the sidechain kick hits, it would close the ‘gate’, and the sound instead would become audible when the kick is not sounding.
Multiband Gate
Multiband Dynamics can also be used for gating. There is already a preset in the Core Library called ‘Multiband Gate’ that can be used as a starting point.
Roar
Roar contains an internal envelope follower. Normally, it follows the audio signal of the track that Roar sits on. With sidechaining set up, the signal of the sidechained track feeds the envelope follower (Env). It can then be used to modulate any parameter in Roar through the Modulation Matrix. Roar is only available to Live Suite users.
Envelope Follower
Envelope Follower goes one step further, as it allows you to modulate any parameter in the Live Set. Normally, with the audio signal from the track it resides on, but sidechained with the signal of the sidechained track. Envelope Follower is not available in Live Lite or Intro.
Auto Filter
Auto Filter also offers sidechaining, but the sidechain signal modulates the envelope follower. For this to work, Envelope has to be set to something other than zero. Auto Filter is available in all editions of Live, including Lite.
How are you using sidechaining in your music production? Any questions? Let me know in the comments below.
