I’m trying to figure out how to instantly mute and unmute my kick track without waiting for the 4/16 sequencer quantization to kick in. I know the trick of chopping up the sample so it’s spread out more over the 16 trigs, but I’m wondering if there is an easier or better way?
My setup uses a wide stereo kick spread across two tracks: BD1 (panned left) and SD2 (panned right) to create a stereo effect. I make all my kicks, hats and percs in ableton and play them live on my analog rytm. I also have an Octatrack.
Alongside the instant muting, I want to find the cleanest way to sidechain my hats and percussion tracks to this dual-track stereo kick so everything pumps tightly around it.
I have been thinking about getting Roland tr8s, as it plays everything stereo and also has a sidechain function, but I just love the analog rytm and how it looks and feels. I don’t know why 
Can anyone help?
Rytm’s mutes are not instant? (Edit, Rytm mutes are sequencer mutes, not audio mutes, so you have to time them to execute before the trig is played, but the action itself doesn’t have a noticable delay).
I guess you’re talking about loops? I just hold function to cue mutes (you can cue one or more tracks) and when function is released, the tracks are muted or unmuted. Pretty easy to hit the 1 with that technique.
Also works for loops, just have to practise a bit to let go of the function button right at the end of the pattern.
For sidechaining, you can let the compressor duck the highs by making your kick really loud, the compressor will duck all other sounds, but it’s most noticable with high frequencies like hats when the kick plays. If you mute the kick, the other tracks will audibly pump up (edit; how fast it pumps up is set by the compressor’s release time, how aggresively it pumps is set by ratio and treshold), but that can also sound nice. If you drop the kick, the compressor will aggresively duck all other sounds again, on some tracks it works, on some it doesn’t, but you can dial it back by adjusting treshold or ratio.
Octatrack can do pseudo-sidechaining with the lfo (one shot lfo with inverted exp wave on volume or filter width - filter width is smoother).
Edits for clarity.
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