compressor settings for sidechaining

seannash

so was just thinking about this today.
seeing as how getting the release times right on the compressor is very important when sidechaining for that proper natural pumping action i figured that surely because of the project tempo being locked in it wuld be possible to figure out release times for projects of a certain tempo.

i mean a a track with a tempo of 120bpm will have a slower release time compared to a track that is 128.

would it be possible to have universal release times for different tempos?

jtsuited

yup. let's do 128 as an example.

60 seconds in a minute. 60/128 = 0.46875.

that means that every 469th millisecond there is a quarter note (kick).

so then you just have to decide how long after the kick has gone below the threshold. ya see it's not an exact science because it depends on your kick and your threshold.

If we use a theoretical momentary kick where it only causes the compressor to duck right at the beginning of the sample, you'd set the compressor's release at 469/4 = 117ms (to make it kick back in on the 16th note after the kick).

But this is theoretical. because we don't have a kick that will only duck the compressor momentarily.
There are so many variables here, that the maths is fairly boring. for stuff in between 120-128bpm, I start at 48ms and then adjust from there depending on whether it's pushing or pulling too much. Never really is (to my ears anywho).

seannash

i guess there would be a few too many variables.guess ill just stick with relying on the ears.seems to be doing the trick

Bluebirdstudios

Ears always first - Its music!!

hans aus dtschl

Yeah sometimes you'll want big boomy kicks and your release will need to be a leeetle bit linger and smoother, so it's always gotta be a matter of playing with it...unless you're out to get thet prydz/guetta/etc ducking sound...in which case you set the threshold ridiculously low and duck everything by a huge amount for about 50ms lol

condra

I tend to start with extreme settings, and work my way back.

krd

From Ableton 7 sidechaining lessons

For the famous pumping sound associated with classic French house music. Try

Threshold very low - (-40db)

Ratio: the higher the better

Attack: 2-8 ms

Release: 35-45 ms

It works - you can vary the attack and the release to get it pump slightly differently.