Pumping on your stereoīy sending a duplicate of the audio channel to the external sidechain, we can shape the audio in any way we choose. A de-esser is essentially a compressor with a highly tuned sidechain filtered to respond only to the sibilant region of the audio. In some compressors, including the Dyn3, this is taken even further by including not just a high-pass filter but a low-pass, and sometimes additional EQ bands. In effect, this reduces midrange and pushes the low end forward in the mix.

This way, the detection circuit no longer responds to low-frequency signals and only reduces the gain of the audio signal when the midrange and high frequencies trigger the detector. In this example, the sidechain signal and the audio signal begin the same but a high-pass filter is applied to the sidechain signal. Sidechain filtering is an almost essential component of mix-bus compression.

Some compressors use an alternative to sidechain compression to lift the bottom end out of the detection circuit. This effect is actually built-into iZotope DDLY, a dynamic delay effect that has the compressor and sidechain built-in and pre-routed. This will reduce the level of the effect the louder the dry signal is, allowing the reverb/delay to come through at full volume when the dry signal has ended. Try keying a compressor after the reverb/delay from the input to the send. Use a low ratio, as well as slow attack and release times.Ī similar trick can be used on reverb and delay sends. Be careful, however, not to overdo it in this scenario – the pumping can be quite unnatural sounding as, unlike a kick drum, a vocal performance is rarely so rhythmic.

This example can be similarly used in music to key the instrumental bus in a mix from the primary vocal, allowing the main vocal to sit more clearly above the instruments. This technique is also regularly used in radio to duck the music when a DJ is speaking over it. You could have a single long drone and create a rhythm in it by using gain reduction from a sidechain rhythm, which you needn’t even send to the mix bus at all. In the example of a bass synth keyed from a kick drum, the gain reduction will follow the shape of the kick drum. In this situation, the audio signal will be reduced in gain whenever the sidechain signal goes above the threshold, rather than in response to its own level. However, in some compressors, such as the Dyn3 used in this workshop, you can use an external sidechain fed from a completely unrelated signal.

Fl studio 12 how to sidechain