Side Chaining for Live Set

The Lounge General Discussion
#1

I am currently setting up my new live set (house/techno) and I wonder if I should implement side-chaining or not. It will heavily depend on my decision on what mixer I should purchase.

My current setup:

  • Octatrack (as brain of live set)
  • TR-8S (drums)
  • Behringer Model D (for bass/arps)
  • JP-08 (for pads/arps)
  • Some FX pedals

Now my idea is that I will run everything into a mixer (that I don’t have yet; i only have a large venice in my studio) and this is where it gets tricky:

If I decide to use side-chaining on everything with my kick signal I would go for a Mackie 1204 mixer + RNC (side chaining) compressor. This mixer provides enough inputs to make a submix of certain elements but the kick, run it through the side chaining compressor and back into a stereo-in on the mixer.

If I do not go for side-chaining I could just go with a cheaper mixer (e.g t.bone 802).

So do you have any experience if side-chaining a live house/techno set is really necessary/a great advantage for the sound? Maybe you can share your experience.

Please note: I do not want to use the LFO side-chaining hack on the OT.

1 Like
#2

I may be wrong…
Maybe you could run the mix into tr8s
If it’s like tr8 it has sidechain input , driven by step triggers / bass drum ?

Otherwise I’m not very experienced in term of playing live / routing on that mixer , hopefully someone can advise .

1 Like
#3

sidechaining is a matter of taste. Never use it live myself. In fact I think it often sounds corny… But I imagine there are certain genres where its kinda expected

3 Likes
#4

yes that might be true, especially if you are all-hardware-live, which is new for me.
With my previous Ableton live sets it was easier because it is way easier to balance everything out I believe.
Curious if anyone uses side-chaining live.

#5

I asked someone this just last week… The RNC… Really Nice Compressor has a side chain input.

3 Likes
#7

I should probably finish my morning coffee and read your whole post before commenting hey :joy:

1 Like
#8

You will want a second opinion as I rarely use any compression either :diddly: I love the open ended dynamics you get running naked into a big PA. When you make recordings, you are always a slave to LUFS etc as to not sound “smaller” than the other recordings, but live, the FOH can just turn that ish UP :heart_decoration: You just need to make sure you dont accidentally have too much headroom because then, any level discrepancies will bring in a world or hurt :zonked:

2 Likes
#9

Pls search the various places where @AdamJay explains in great detail how the sidechain on the RNC works, ie not as a side chaining in the pumping sense but as a filter.

2 Likes
#10

Interesting method! However, Adding a HPF and feeding it back into the RNC on the master bus? I am a little afraid of the phase shifts that are introduced then…

#11

I think it’s more than just taste. It has to be used tastefully. As with most effects, it should be used sparingly and in subtle ways. Compression (side chain or not) is overused heavily IMO. If you side chain your kick (in the case of house/techno) but only apply it sparingly to certain types of noise or pads for example, it can add a bit of rhythmic texture to the music rather than cheese it out. I think the problem is when you totally slam the compressor, apply it to the entire mix, etc. where it kind of falls apart. I’ve found a few edge cases where applying it pretty heavily creates an interesting effect, but then it definitely loses the subtlety. That would generally be between two tracks that have offset rhythms already, and it accentuates that a bit.

2 Likes
#12

The TR-8S has sidechaining of its input signal if you run a master compressor effect. It’s not bad actually. The controls are a little limited but I’ve always found it possible to make it work smoothly.

You can specify any track as the sidechain trigger, it’s not a separate track like on the TR-8. So e.g. you can mute the BD and the sidechain will stop triggering.

You can’t hit the inputs too hard though. I found that I was getting digital clipping on the audio when the drum engine itself was not. Just have to adjust your kits to be quieter if that happens.

An RNC gives you more control but do check if you understand how the sidechain input works as it’s different to some other compressors. There’s a thread on it here.

2 Likes
#13

I’m finding that the side chain on the MX-1 is very nice. I applied it fairly lightly to some shift register noise in a recent track and I found it quite pleasing. Of course you can go way overboard with it on there too, but overall it’s pretty good. I liked it on the TR-8, but haven’t really used it on my TR-8S since I got the MX-1 around the same time.

#14

The TR-8 and MX-1 sidechain uses a dedicated step sequence to determine when the sidechain / ducking effect triggers. The problem with this is, if you mute the kick track the sidechain keeps triggering. It also means you can’t vary the kick pattern easily because for a proper sidechain effect you’d have to make the same changes to the sidechain track at the same time.

The TR-8S improves on this by allowing you to specify which instrument track should be also be used as the sidechain trigger track. So you can simply set it to the BD track, and then whenever the kick triggers, the sidechain triggers. Mute the kick and the sidechain stops triggering. It’s a lot more useful for conventional kick sidechaining.

#15

…by sidechaining u mean, u wanna make ur whole mix slightly pump within the kik signal?

making the whole signal pump out a bit more by sidechaining with the kik can become really nice…!!!

finetuned in the studio mix…
but in a stage situation, it would need a constant readjustment of it’s innerleveling, so that the pump effect works out the same on all the trax u like to perform…

only chance around is, using pretty much the same kik interacting with pretty much the same backend arrangement elements all the time…then, that’s amazing and consistent…
if ur pre configurations translate well to the venue…if.

any other way, u’ll end up with different feels of that pump up /ducking effect each time ur track edges change…which changes the whole overall groove vibe…and that…can become a real downer on a big pa system…

almost impossible to handle this without a dedicated foh…u got only two ears and two hands per second…and u r in a live situation with lots of other things u got to keep together…in realtime!!!..
while u only hear stage monitoring…no front of house…so, er, forget it…

and don’t go for cheap mixers anyway…u’ll always end up more expensive, end of the day…
so, sidechaining option or not, should’nt make any difference in ur choice of which mixer to pick…

or do u really wanna send all that cream u got there through a cheap pipe end of the line…?

1 Like
#16

Me too. And, look at the back end of any club. They have levels and levels of processing before the main outs. You’re going to get some natural pumping in there.

#17

this is correct. the default application for the sidechain jack on the FMR units is to route a copy of whatever input signal you have back out there through an insert-style connector (send/receive on TRS jack) and therefore have the ability to EQ/filter the signal before it hits the detector.
this won´t affect the actual audio that gets processed.

BUT:
it IS still possible to get the “pumping” (ducking) effect with the RNC/RNLA, however. all you do is connect an insert cable to the “sidechain” jack and leave the “send” portion unconnected, then take the “receive” part of the insert and connect it to your source (your kick drum in this application) that you want to ‘duck’ against.

it is explained well on the FMR website´s FAQ section, under points 10 and 11:

http://www.fmraudio.com/rncrnla-faq.html#sidechain
http://www.fmraudio.com/rncrnla-faq.html#usingsidechain

#18

Definitely worth noting here of course. However, in my case I prefer to have the separate triggers, especially when using the MX-1 for this. Definitely a good distinction to make though for someone looking into this.

#19

Yes, that’s also a valid use case of course - it is also possible to dedicate an unused track on the TR-8S to do the same thing, if you have one spare.

#20

Oh wow! Definitely interesting! I never knew that about the TR8S! That’s very handy.

The MX-1 will suffice for the OP.
I, for one, have been using it to good use. Especially the gate function that will allow the kick to breath even more.

1 Like
#21

Thanks for all the input, interesting comments!
I could use the sidechain on the TR-8S but then I would end up with a weird and complicated routing: all instruments (incl. TR-8S) into mixer, use the send on mixer to send elements to be sidechained to TR-8S, send sum of side-chained signals to mixer… Maybe I’ll just try to omit sidechaining or do it on the samples beforehand in Ableton.
Side Topic: Any recommendation for a live mixer? I am thinking of Mackie 1204VLZ4 because of 2 FX sends.