Mixing Fun: Sidechaining

I have a confession to make. Sometimes I get obsessed with a trick or idea in some aspect of my musical life and use it constantly. Lately, it's been new uses of my old friend, sidechaining.

For those that aren't familiar, sidechaining is essentially having an effect modify one sound based on listening to a different sound. The most common example we've all heard, whether we know it or not, is ducking. On the radio there are plenty of times a voice is happening at the same time as music. Instead of having a hand on a volume knob to control the level of the music, why not use an effect that would automatically turn the music down any time the DJ spoke? This is achieved by having an effect that would modify the volume of the music while listening to the DJ. The effect listens to the DJ, and when that voice starts it turns down the music.

Ducking is also very useful in mixing music itself, and I use it at Sawhorse Studios all the time. If you have a guitar solo tailing off as the vocals reenter, you can put a compressor on the guitar and have it listen to the vocals. Now, the guitar will duck down as the vocals come in so they don't fight. Maybe you want to saturate the vocals with reverb, but it's pushing the vocals too far back in the mix. Try ducking the reverb so it pokes out more when the vocals aren't there.

You can also sidechain other effects, like a gate. Do you have too much bleed in a tom mic, but you're having trouble getting a gate to behave the way you want? Try duplicating the tom track and editing it down to the times the tom is being played. Now, you can sidechain a gate to listen to the edited tom track. The benefit is that you can have your gate set to be a little more subtle so it still sounds organic. Try a 10-20db floor instead of slamming the gate shut. Now the toms are clear as day, but the bleed in between is turned down a bit. Your duplicate tom doesn't have to be audible to anything other than the effect, so the listener doesn't hear the same tom doubled.

One fun trick is having a note or chord pop in when something else is played. Just record a drone note, put a gate on it, and have it listen to a kick drum or a snare. There are too many sidechaining tricks to list here, but I'm curious: do you have any you can't live without or enjoy pulling out once in a blue moon for that special flavor.