Everyone talks about the low end. As educated readers, I’ve got to assume you have heard about or at least
thought about attempting the tried and true method of side chain
compression in order to duck bass instruments during busy and
sonically muddy song sections.
The traditional way of side chain
compressing is to compress the bass with the kick acting as a side
chain input. This will duck the bass track as a whole whenever the
kick is active.
A more focused way of doing so is to
lowpass filter the kick before sending its signal to the compressor’s
side chain in order to only drop the bass when the low end of the
kick is present. This does away with unwanted compressor reaction
due to any higher frequency content in the side signal.
Beyond this,
you can take things a step further by muting and sending the bass
instrument track to two new send tracks, high and low pass filter
each (de-correlate), and only side chain compress the low pass channel. This
allows for the upper harmonics of the bass instrument to remain
un-ducked while the lower frequencies pump to make room for the kick.
My recommendation, however, is to save a lot of time and complicated
routing and purchase Wavesfactory Trackspacer.
Overview
Essentially, the Trackspacer acts as all
three of the above described side chain set-ups combined into a easy
to use plug-in. The plug-in itself is a single dynamic band reject
filter which allows the user to to select a frequency band of the
insert track to duck according to the frequency and amplitude of a
side chain signal.
This means—in its most proper usage—the low end of the bass would be ducked when the kick hits with the
bass’ high end being affected as little or as much as the user
dictates. In traditional side chain compression (and even filtered
side chain compression as described above) the upper end (harmonics)
of the bass would be ducked as much as the lower end in terms of
ratio which is not necessarily desired.
Even in the instance of the
de-correlated bass, the upper harmonics will end up sounding somewhat
unnatural as they will not be effected at all. This plug in
addresses all of these issues in a simple insert.
The main interface sports a visualizer
and three main knobs. The visualizer shows a frequency response of
both the insert signal—signal being affected—and the side chain
signal after filtering.
The left knob is a side chain high pass
filter while the right knob is a side chain low pass filter. The
center knob controls to what extent the insert signal is ducked in
response to the amplitude of the filtered side chain.
By clicking the small blue circle in
the lower right of the visualizer, some advanced options can be
accessed. The most useful of these are the attack and release
parameters which control how quickly the insert signal is ducked and
then allowed back to full amplitude.
The attack can be near
instantaneous with a response of 0.01 ms and the release limits out at
a seemingly excessive 700 ms, giving the user more than enough time
to space out their bass.
The pan knob and L/R-M/S options are
ones I do not find myself using very often, but are unique and
handy to have when the situation calls.
In L/R mode the pan knob
will control how much the left and right channels are compressed. In
M/S mode, the pan knob selects between reducing mid or side input
frequencies.
Bass is the Place
Below, you can hear an example of the
Trackspacer in action. I have a sustained and overdriven bass note
playing against an 808 kick. They both contain most of their
frequency energy in the lower octaves, so something creative needs to
be done to give them some seperation.
The initial sound.
Trackspacer set to 60% reduction with
the LPF set to 300 hz.
Immediately, you can hear far more
definition in the kick. The bass range of the kick has become much more distinct
where as with the initial example much of it was swallowed by the
bass note.
Furthermore, in the second example, although there is
some pumping in the mid-range harmonics of the bass, it is far less
distinct than would be gained through traditional side chaining and
much more natural sounding and less time consuming to achieve than with the de-correlation method.
Wormholes
The Trackspacer does not only come in
handy in the low end or need to be used solely as a single band
ducker. Suppose you’ve a recorded drum track where the attack of
the hi-hats is overpowering. The obtuse answer to this would be to
go for an envelope effect which would work, but a bit to well in that
it would also cut the attack of the kick and anything else on the
same recording.
By creating a dummy hi-hat track to use
as the side chain input and inserting Trackspacer on the recording,
we can create a sort of dynamic envelope effect which only acts on
the upper frequencies.
To do this, I have recorded a kick and
hi-hat pattern, doubled it, high pass filtered it to (mostly) only let through
the hi-hat and set it to no output.
I’ve then inserted Trackspacer on the
original track, set the side chain to the muted track and played
around with the parameters until I have managed to cut the harshness
of the hat without effecting the kick.
The sound.
The sound with Trackspacer.
Taking things a step further, I decided
to slice up the dummy track and mute a few of the hi-hats to create
accents where there will be no side chain input and Trackspacer will
not respond.
In a few simple steps I have changed the
dynamic and frequency characteristics of the original track; the
results of which would take numerous steps and channels to achieve with a traditional side chain compressor set up.
The accented sound.
Conclusion
As you can see and hear, Trackspacer is an
extremely easy to use plug-in and can be used in a number of
different ways to not only solve problems, but create new and
interesting sonics one may not have envisioned previously.
Due to
its simple nature and unique parameters the creative aspects of it
can not be overstated easily. I use it to duck unrelated elements or
play with extreme attack and release settings during production to
add spontaneous and improvised feels to countless track elements in
unexpected ways.
Its ease of use as simply a kick/bass ducker makes
it more than worth while and its creative and unthought of usability makes it a plug in I can’t recommend enough.
{excerpt}
Read More