Sidechaining several tracks in ableton live? Help please!

boudo · Post by **boudo** » Mon Dec 08, 2008 12:02 pm

Hi. I want to know how to be able to sidechain several tracks without having to duplicate my kick for every single sidechained sound. It takes both time and cpu. There must be a way to make all tracks duck only one channel, i just can't figure it out.

MINIMALTECHNOHOUSE · Post by **MINIMALTECHNOHOUSE** » Mon Dec 08, 2008 1:07 pm

group channell??

boudo · Post by **boudo** » Mon Dec 08, 2008 1:12 pm

MINIMALTECHNOHOUSE wrote:group channell??

Thanks for reply but i think i need a little more step by step guide

Artificial · Post by **Artificial** » Mon Dec 08, 2008 1:48 pm

just route all your channels that u wanna sidechain to that 1 kick channel
or if your using ableton 7, you can use compressor on every track u want with sidechaining (new in live 7)

boudo · Post by **boudo** » Mon Dec 08, 2008 1:52 pm

Artificial wrote:just route all your channels that u wanna sidechain to that 1 kick channel
or if your using ableton 7, you can use compressor on every track u want with sidechaining (new in live 7)

But the way i do, i route it the other way around. From the kick to the sidechain compressor

hydrogen · Post by **hydrogen** » Mon Dec 08, 2008 3:13 pm

read the manual about routing and making subgroups of a mix. but it seems that you are actually looking for individual compression on each channel and one kick channel.

if you are using live 7, the new compressor will allow you to sidechain with one source. I don't think you can do what you are talking about using a different plugin because of the way ableton does its routing.

Brian Ffar · Post by **Brian Ffar** » Mon Dec 08, 2008 4:49 pm

Can't you create a new audio channel, and route all of the tracks you would like to duck to that particular bus? (Make sure you select monitor in instead of auto).

Then, insert Ableton's compressor (or any other with SC capabilities), and choose your kick drum as the source signal.

Play with threshold, attack and release to fit.

Sphere42 · Post by **Sphere42** » Mon Dec 08, 2008 8:31 pm

Ok.

Put this on channel you wanna compress.

Click that little arrow

Switch sidechain on

Select source (kick, also hats does nice things). If you are using DrumRack (or Impulse, but I'm not sure about this one, I'm fan of Drum Rack, cos it's more universal), you can select exact sound from options below.

Start lowering Threshold, until you'll hear the effect. You can also shape effect to desired form by changing values of Threshold (which measure when and how much is sound compressing, e.g. lowering volume), Ratio (which is basicly Threshold * Ratio = level of compression), Attack (means how fast will compressor lower volume when compresssor is triggered by chosen signal) and Release (means how fast will compressor raise volume back to normal).

If you wanna sidechain from loop or some auudio with lot of stuff going on, but you just wanna use the kick from it, use (and activate) EQ. U Can also listen to signal with that headphones button, if you wanna set sidechain signal right. Use lowpass filter on kicks, highpass filter on hats, band filter on anything else.

Hope this will help