ableton compressor (sidechain)

regler · Post by **regler** » Wed Jul 21, 2010 3:42 am

I like to duck pads and bass a bit in my tacks, I like a little bit of pumping.

But I have just this feeling that it's difficult to get the right (that means right for the groove) envelope with abletons compressor in sidechain mode.

I really need much time with tweaking the attack release and I try all the envelope modes etc. but even after that I often have the feeling that it could be better, that the feeling is not 100% right for the groove.

When I use cubase own compressor with sidechain I have the feeling to nail the best envelope for the groove more often.

I haven't done any real comparison between these two so far, but I'm really curious what you think about this topic. maybe I can just learn something.

jobbanaught · Post by **jobbanaught** » Wed Jul 21, 2010 1:41 pm

Have you tried increasing the compressor lookahead?

regler · Post by **regler** » Wed Jul 21, 2010 6:32 pm

That may be a good hint, I will try it. In ableton I use the compressor with 1 ms lookahead, I try to avoid the 10ms lookahead because of the introduced latency - But I have no idea what the look ahead from cubase own compressor is, the manual just says that it has some kind of lookahead active.

jobbanaught · Post by **jobbanaught** » Wed Jul 21, 2010 7:47 pm

regler wrote:That may be a good hint, I will try it. In ableton I use the compressor with 1 ms lookahead, I try to avoid the 10ms lookahead because of the introduced latency - But I have no idea what the look ahead from cubase own compressor is, the manual just says that it has some kind of lookahead active.

Good luck and please report on your findings, have never been to happy with sidechaining the ableton compressor either

regler · Post by **regler** » Wed Jul 21, 2010 8:40 pm

I will. I have some time tomorrow, I think I will do a brief test. btw. What do you use for sidechaining now?

jobbanaught · Post by **jobbanaught** » Wed Jul 21, 2010 8:43 pm

I use the Sonalksis SV 315, but its fiddly cause u need extra tracks for the sidechain. Would love to go back to the native Ableton compressor because of that.

damagedgoods · Post by **damagedgoods** » Thu Jul 22, 2010 1:25 pm

Have you tried the two different compression modes (FF1 and FF2), and also using the filter on the sidechain (especially good for kicks - if you highpass them they decay a lot quicker)? Makes a big difference.

For more extreme experimentation, set up an effect rack on your sidechain source. Run one dry chain to pass the signal as normal, and a secondary chain, but muted. On the secondary chain, put whatever filtering or FX you want, and use it to feed the sidechain on your pad.

jobbanaught · Post by **jobbanaught** » Thu Jul 22, 2010 1:44 pm

damagedgoods wrote:Have you tried the two different compression modes (FF1 and FF2), and also using the filter on the sidechain (especially good for kicks - if you highpass them they decay a lot quicker)? Makes a big difference.

Dare to explain FF1 and FF2 to me? Afaik FF means feed-forward in contrast to feed-backward, but i dont know the exact difference. Nor do i know the difference between FF1 and FF2.

damagedgoods wrote:For more extreme experimentation, set up an effect rack on your sidechain source. Run one dry chain to pass the signal as normal, and a secondary chain, but muted. On the secondary chain, put whatever filtering or FX you want, and use it to feed the sidechain on your pad.

Gonna try that