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Marc Matthews is a musician, producer, and mix and mastering engineer. You’ve come to the right place if you want to know about your favourite synth music artists, music engineering and production, songwriting, and the music industry. Marc has been songwriting, producing, mixing, and mastering music for over 15 years and wants to share what he has learned with you.
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Intro:
You're listening to the inside the mix podcast with your host, Mark Matthews. Hello, welcome to the inside the next podcast. I'm Mark Matthews, your host, musician and producer, and mix and mastering engineer. You've come to the right place. If you want to know more about your favorite synth music, artists, music engineering, and production songwriting, and the music industry.
Marc Matthews:
I've been writing, producing, mixing, and mastering music for over 50 years. And I want to share what I've learned with you. Welcome to the. Inside the mix tutorial episodes. So this episode is going to be different to the usual ones and that there is going to be no interview. Uh, so it's just going to be me talking about, uh, mixing techniques and the mixing techniques that I like to use. So this week we're going to be looking at side chain compression. So I'm just going to pull up my mix here. So this is a mix for, uh, my latest single actually he says his called take me back. And it features the singer indigo fantastic UK singer. So while I'm going to look out here in particular is the use of side chain company. And citing compression used on a synth pad. So this is a synth, uh, it's called the ultra trans saw pad. So this is what it sounds like at the moment. This is just. So, as you can hear, we've got a nice sort of a lush sounding soar. And, um, at the moment there is no ducking with the kick. So what I want to do is I'm going to use side chain compression to add a bit of movement. So what I do is I've got the left and the right here. So the left and the right, and what I've done is I've added a compressor. So I've used the kilohertz compressed it, just a simple compressor on both channels. So as you can see here on my second. So now what will happen is when I play the track back, you should hear, uh, what is sort of an audio audible pumping sound. So what I've done to create this is I've, uh, side change, the kick to the killer hurts compressor. So what I can do is in the sign chain feature on this particular plugin. Now you should be able to do this on any compressor plugin, and he stopped compressor. So the side chain I've set as input, uh, input three and four in particular on a kilohertz compressor. And then what I can do is I can go up to. The input at the top. And I can find the bus that I've used the bus out. My kick in this instance, I've used bus one. I always use bus one for my kicks. So what happens now is the side chain is going to recognize the symbol coming from my kick. So then what I do is I adjust the threshold and adjust the threshold. So the compressor starts to trigger. So I'll just demo it. So I'm going to move the threshold. And you can see or hear rather that there is no compression. So I'm going to slowly bring this compressor threshold down and you can begin to hear that bumping. Now it's important also to bear in mind the use of attack and release and the ratio in particular on this. So with my compressor here, I've got their tax. So all the way down to the fastest possible setting and the release is reasonably fast as well. And the ratio, I've got a set of five to one that you can play around with the ratio to enhance the, the audit will affect. But what I'm going to do is I'm just going to play around with the attack and release so you can get an idea of what that would sound like if you were to change it. I'm going to, it's been the threshold down of it. There we go. You can properly hear that. Now I'm going to move on to the increase, the attack surface 15, 17 30 milliseconds. You can start to hear how they affect. Lightly later. So we'll leave that there. Now I'm going to increase the release so you can see how it's quite skewing it now, but that's with a slow release now. So that's said about 250 millisecond. And a hundred meter seconds on the attack. But as I said, I like to have a fast attack, so I'm gonna bring them all the way back again and bring my release back. So that's a release time of about five milliseconds. I generally leave the makeup or the game that sort of zero. I don't actually go and alter that. Um, so that's so cheap compression with trans pads and a kit. So what I'm going to do now, it's just going to demo how it sounds in and out in the full mix. So another side chain technique that I like to use is a side chaining the kick to the base. So in this instance, I, uh, I don't actually use the same compressors I used before, which is the kilohertz compressor. I actually use the wave C6 side, Jame. Uh, so it's a multi-band compressor, this one in particular. So what I like to do with this one is I find out the fundamental frequency of my Kik. In this instance, it sort of sits around. 500, 500 sits around 50 to 60. Let's take a quick break from this episode so that I could tell you about a free resource that I made for you. It's a PDF checklist that describes what you need to do to properly prepare a mix, but mastering. So you've done the hard work and you love your mix yet. Suitably preparing a mix for mastering is often overlooked by musicians resulting in delayed. So. Excessive back and forth conversation and frustration on both parts. I want to help fix that. So if you want this free resource, just go to www.sincemusicmastering.com. As this checklist will help and guide you to make the mastering process as smooth, transparent, and exciting as possible. So again, the URL is www dot synth music, mustering.com to this free preparing a mix from Austrian. Let's get back to the episode. So another side chain compression technique I like to use is, uh, I like to side chain the kick to the actual base. And I like to use that to create space in the sub frequencies and the low-end frequencies for the kick to poke through without having to use a high pass filter and sort of roll off all of the low end of the base. So in this instance, I don't use the same one as he used before, which is the killer Hertz. Well, I like to use is the waves C6 multi-band compressor, and that compression in particular has a unique feature in that I can actually move this particular band around. So I've got what is essentially a band pass filter that I can move up and down, um, on, on the waves cease. And what I use that for is I sort of target the fundamental frequency of the kick. So this is what it sounds like without, so this is just kick and the base. Um, okay. So what I do is I find out the fundamental frequency of. And I will then set this band pass in the wave C6 to that fundamental frequency. So at the moment it sort of sits around 60 Hertz. And then what I'll do is I'll just lower the threshold or the range in this instance, which is in the C6. I have a relatively fast attack again, as I did with the, um, with the synth and a relatively fast release. Actually in this instance, I use the, uh, the IARC release in the wave C6, which is an automatic. And we also used the op so sort of behavior as well, which is a sort of kicks in a lot faster. And what I'll do is I will, as I said, I've targeted that fundamental frequencies. So that way, once again, I've signed chained using a bus one, which is the kick bus or side chain that, to this particular compressor, once again, top right, as all compressors are generally I use logic, but I'm sure in any other DAW, you will find that the side chain feature generally is at the top. Right. And you could find that kick. And what I've done is, as you can see for those who are watching the video, or rather you can hear in a minute, you should be able to hear just a slight ducking of the bass frequencies around 60 Hertz. And that just lets the kick poke through that little bit more. So this is what it sounds like with the compressor. So I'm going to drag down the range, rather this threshold, and then I'm going to drag down the right. You can see, you can drag down the cane as well to make them a little effect. And also the range I like to set the gain. So it sort of comes back to you to TA cause I don't want it to be too exaggerated. I just want it to be sort of like the half a DB DB, just so pokes through that a little bit more. So this is now, as you can hear with this particular track, I've used a lot of side chain compression, to be honest, cause there's a dance track and I want to have that exaggerated movement.'cause I think having those frequencies ducking in and out helps a lot. Another technique that I like to use as well. A side chick impression is I will cite you in the vocal to sort of the synth bus as it were. Um, and what that allows me to do, because I've got a lot of synths going on in my music. There's a lot of synth, as you can see here, many, many tracks of synth, and there's a lot of, uh, effects attracts as well and using sidekick. I used the multi-band compression as well in the C6. And I will target sort of like those presence frequency. So generally it depends on if it's a male or a female voice and the timbre of the voice, but I like to use female vocals a lot and it sort of sits around. Four to six kilohertz and I'll find that band pass again, using the wave C6. And I would just duck, they sent frequencies just so that vocal can poke through a bit more. Um, so I pick and choose really. I use a lot of mixture, um, of, uh, overall just multi-bank impression and a normal compressor if I want it to be really subtle. And I want to focus on hone in on specific frequencies. I'll use a multi-band as I've used on the bass and the vocal. And if I want it to be just specifically on. The whole track as it were itself or the whole instrument I could do with the synth, I use just a normal, every sort of everyday compressor is probably the wrong way. But yeah, hopefully that gives you some ideas of how you can use multi-band compression. Um, it's very much, I like to experiment with it. Sometimes the exaggerated effects sound great. Um, it's something new, something interesting, particularly in this is sort of experimental style of music that will be more of these episodes. As the weeks progressed, they are shorter episodes of, there are no interviews, but it's hopefully. Take some mix and production ideas. I'll wait from these episodes. So please do join the Facebook community. You'll find a link in the show notes where you can find more exclusive content to do with the podcast and look out for the next episode.