Audiobus: Use your music apps together.
What is Audiobus? — Audiobus is an award-winning music app for iPhone and iPad which lets you use your other music apps together. Chain effects on your favourite synth, run the output of apps or Audio Units into an app like GarageBand or Loopy, or select a different audio interface output for each app. Route MIDI between apps — drive a synth from a MIDI sequencer, or add an arpeggiator to your MIDI keyboard — or sync with your external MIDI gear. And control your entire setup from a MIDI controller.
Download on the App StoreAudiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.
Sidechain Propaganda
What is a side chain?
I almost know what this is, but not quite. However, it is a perfect example of a question that could go into a new category (please see thread, "New Category")
Called iOS Beginners.
Does this question belong on the General Forum? I think it is possibly wasting members' time.
Would this question ever become a real thread? Hardly. The answer is probably no more than two sentences.
However, for a beginner it is important info! And this is true for the beginner who begins six months from now! If I were that future ingenue I could read all the iOS Beginner posts without the question having to be asked again and again. And wasting experienced members' time repeating the same things every few months.
Is this a shameless ploy to get you to state your opinion? Yes, it is!
Please read what folks are saying about "New Category" and add your personal opinion. Please!
And could someone explain side chain to me?
Comments
You would save yourself a lot of time if you simply asked your questions rather than worrying about the structure of the forum, which has served us well for a good few years already.
I post everything in the General cat. Never had a problem with questions being answered, unless they were el'stupido to begin with. Never had anyone complain that my post was in the general cat., instead of in support, or app tips or other places.
Maybe I should be more careful where I post my threads, but, when I come to the forum, I get all the categories together by default. I like it that way. Which is strange, cuz every other forum I have been on, it would drive me crazy to have all the topics together. Not so for me here, I guess.
And no...........I cannot explain side chain ing. I barely get compression, but I researched for a long time, and finally got a grasp of it. I just wish I could use it properly. A long with the frequencies of instruments. I know them, have a chart. But....when I mix.....It doesn't matter much that I "know" what compression is, "know" the frequencies. I still suck at mixing and mastering. O well, it's fun to have all these tools to use anyway.
Sidechain consist in modulate one target signal with the source from another affecting a parameter of the first. Usually compression. Usually bass line from kick drum or drumloop. Usually to help mix take some air due that compression process kill some frequencies from bass to keep bassdrum audible in the mix (or for musical purposes).
It could be done with any source and target, for improve mixing or musical experimentation but it could not be explained in two sentences since I’m explainning it short and supossing you know more of the involved process and terminology that probably you know (but I hope you know them and this is helpful)
Conclusion: idk if audiobus forum should be a space for basic/intermediate questions but just drop them and probably someone will answer them. In fact I promised myself don’t answer certain post across the internet and... well, I’m Britney Spears first hit.
I read the header and thought that was the name of some new musical act.
Nevermind...
Compression is basically volume control - turning the volume down during the loud bits, and then back up afterwards.
Sidechain compression is a technique that uses 2 audio signals - you turn down the volume of one signal as a reaction to the other. Track 1 'ducks' out of the way of track 2. It's popular in dance music styles, often to let the kick drum punch through the mix. Plenty of other uses, though.
It's worth taking some time to understand compression in general, as it's a fundamental technique. EQ and compression are both techniques to get good at.
There are some beginner guides here:
https://www.fabfilter.com/video/
You don't need the software, although it is excellent. It's the principles that count, and they're universal.
The most common example that nearly everyone is familiar with is radio dj voiceover.
The music is playing full volume. The dj starts talking over the music, and the volume of the music lowers, or “ducks” out of the way of the speaking. This is sidechain compression in action.
When the dj speaks, the volume level of that signal causes a corresponding lowering of the volume in a separate track, in this case the music. Normal compression reads the volume level and lowers it when necessary, but on the same track or signal or sound source or whatever you want to call it. Sidechain also tracks the volume level of a track, but applies the ducking to a different track, in effect getting it out of the way of the track being used to track volume levels.
You apply the compressor to the track you want the compression effect to happen on. The compressor usually has an additional input labeled “key input” and this is where the sidechained signal comes in. The compressor reads the volume of the key input, and applies the compression to the track it resides on. Not all compressors have sidechain capability, and some may use different labels and such, but this is the gist of it.
Those fabfilter tutorials are uniformly excellent. And as a recent ex-beginner, I have a suggestion. Watch all the tutorials now, and it's OK that you don't get them all. Then, after a few months of fiddling, come back and rewatch: that to me has been a revelation. You can't really understand compression until you hear it.
Sidechaining was a solution to a problem — as @Dubbylabby says with far more technical expertise than I have —how to ensure the kick drum in dance music remained prominent when the booming sub-bass was muddying all its frequencies. So instead of manually reducing the volume on the bass track every time the kick drum hits, a sidechain compressor kicks in on the bass only when the kick track sends a signal to it. It's how you get that doppler wave — whoom, whoom, whoom — in anonymous EDM festival music. But if that's what you're after, you need to learn sidechain compression.
Sidechaining, to me, is a baffling gimmick, like trap hi-hats or gated reverb. It's technically magical, I guess, but its sound is so corny and one-dimensional. (This Vox video is a really accessible discussion of gated reverb.)
Hi d4dOug my name is LinearLineman and I suck at producing! Now tell me if this doesn't sound like AA? Great video! I loved the bodacious humor. I understood about 10%., but for a novice 10% isn't bad. Tomato_juice your explanation was the clearest. I know about compression and now understand one purpose of side chaining... To drive an instrument thru the mix. Thanx
I enjoyed that, but I'll freely admit to gated reverb being a guilty pleasure. Just last week I was wondering why this breakdown sounds more 80s than everything else I ever heard:
As far as sidechaining goes, I think the best move is to leave space in the arrangement, so that things aren't in each other's way to begin with. It's easily said. I do use sidechaining sometimes, although almost always with a light touch.
Also a recent ex-beginner fwiw.
Some more compression tutorials:
You can also use it for the infamous pumping effect too, using a dummy sidechain trigger track.
Well, I think CP and ExAsperiss99 have made my point for me. CPs totally lucid example and explanation and E99s take and videos should be preserved somewhere, rather than lost, or only accidentally stumbled upon in this small thread. That wonderful information should be read and viewed by every beginner and possibly a lot of veterans. If you joined Audiobus three months from now, and were a beginner, isn't it much more likely you would find this if there was an iOS Beginners category?
Maybe sidechaining is a little advanced and, as pointed out, possibly dated... but what if the subject was "freezing"? It's a question I had and every newbie would!
So, if you agree with my way of thinking, please help out. If I don't step back soon I think some members will begin to think me pushy. If you want a Beginners category, please start a thread or contact me personally. And if the idea doesn't fly, that's fine.
This forum is so great as it is, and as someone said, you can always ask a question. (But should it be asked multiple times? Sorry, couldn't help myself!)
i also instinctively don't like the seasick EDM sidechain pulsation thing. But I really like to use sidechain in Caustic to create an automatic rhythmic accompaniment. Like, make a sequence with prominent spaces/pauses in it on track 1, put a Modular on track 2 with just a white noise generator droning right into the output, then put a sidechain compressor FX on the constant white noise track, turn it all the way up, and chain it to track 1. Noise track becomes a 'cymbal' filling in the offbeats which the main sequence isn't hitting.
That's cool-sounding. Would love to hear an example of that.
Yeah, very cool. Sounds kinda like building a modular hi hat, but using sidechain and white noise instead of the usual modular synth components.
I haven't finished anything in that vein yet - it's always the trap of the amazing 8 bar arrangement that I just leave looping on my headphones for half an hour without developing it into a song structure...
You should check out FAC Envolver when it arrives in the AppStore. You could probably expand on your sidechain technique with it. I can’t wait to get that app.
For A good example of sidechain compression listen to daft punk. I use an Alesis 3630 rack unit instead of an app though. It’s a good technique to wrap your head around if you produce edm
BM3 has sidechain in the mixer and then all womderful AU compressors could be used creatively. My favourite klevgrand ones...