Side chain input for buss volume control

[RBH]

Currently I have a couple of projects where I'm using a side chain assignment from multiple tracks to lightly volume reduce a buss track that is used for ganging a group of rhythm guitars. I'm ducking the rhythm guitars when Lead vocal and or lead guitars are present above a threshold. I'm using Fabfilter Pro c for this - and it's working out pretty well.

Any thoughts or recommendations  about using a more pure gain reduction plug with side chaining instead of using a compressor for this ? The release time on the compressor is useful for smoothing  time transitions. I'm probably only reducing only 1 to 2 db. If such a thing exists - or is utilizing a compressor plug typical ?

[Gswitz]

I recommend eq automaton instead. It's a little tedious but this isn't live anyway. The best you can do live is the compressor. But you can notch eq before the singing or lead playing starts and that doesn't suppress all of the signal, just the part competing with the vocals... Also, when the vocal or lead is softest you need to suppress more not less.

 

[Starship Krupa]

I really like Wavesfactory Trackspacer for this kind of thing. It does what it does so well and so easily that it feels like cheating.

[RBH]

Thanks  - I like the Idea of trying the same approach via EQ. Though most of these competing tracks are already Eq'd out each others way for the most part. I'm treating this somewhat like an automated envelope generation - which works well because the lead vocal and guitar leads can be edited and re-arranged last minute. It's working pretty well with the Sidechain compressor input, but I would like to excersize the technique a little more.

[Gswitz]

You don't have to change any eqing on the tracks.

Throw one on the bus, put a band in the right range and automate the gain.

This makes volume changes less noticeable while still letting the vocal and lead shine.

Once you have added the gain envelope for the eq band, you can just select the range for the vocal piece, right click the envelope and choose add nodes. Ctrl click the range between the nodes and drag it down. Next, add slopes to the change to make it more subtle... Listen...