PlanetZ forums - scopeusers.com

hi there planet Z,
i was hoping for some info on side chaining, i notice lots of modules have a side chain input (especially compressors) and was wondering if someone could shed some light on it for me.
simply - what is it? - what kind of sonic results do you achive using it? - when should you use it? - and what is the most effective way of using it? any info would be useful.
cheers

sidechain is for letting a separate sound source operate an effect on a sound.

common usage - a track sidechain-compressed to the lead or vocal will compress according to the lead's peaks, rather than it's own. Used well, it can make things stand out.

another example - When a tv show finishes, usually the theme music comes on, then a voiceover cuts in and theme drops to another level, then back up again. That's another sort of sidechain comp known as ducking.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: wayne on 2004-09-28 10:28 ]</font>

take a synth, play one long note continuasly, throw reverb at it, after the reverb make sure you do distortion/overdrive anything to make it sound as raw as possible! then feed your kick into the sidechain! Oh, I use a limiter when creating such effects! It gets the groove going (for me) But I have no idea how these agressive-limiting-pumper-chain-of-effects(tm) will sound on a huge system! But on my monitors it often works GREAT!:)

Cheers for the replies guys,
@Wayne - aha! so thats what ducking is! presumably its the same for engineers talk overs and stuff like that. You learn something new every day, well on planet Z you learn at least 10 things every day!!
@Fransh - that sounds cool i'm gonna try that, top tip. i'll let you know if i get any good results on my monitors! i imagine that it could work with a snare or any other rhythm as well!?
I love this forum, it always seems to get the creative juices flowing in new directions - now i'm gonna go and side chain me some beats!!
Free Tibet.
Peace.