Bitwig

ZiggDubstep · Post by **ZiggDubstep** » Sat Apr 19, 2014 3:40 am

is it possible to side chain individual parts of a drum machine like for instance in ableton where you could side chain individual parts of a drum rack?

qtheerearranger · Post by **qtheerearranger** » Sat Apr 19, 2014 4:45 pm

Each channel in the drum machine is a sampler track essentially, and automatically it routes them to their won seperate layers. You can throw a dynamics device on the whole drum machine, or if you go to mixer view in the top where your drum machine is labeled and colored you will see an arrow, click that arrow and it will show you your individual channels, from there you can put the dynamics device on for each sample if you want. (ps dynamics device is the compressor with sidechain input)

abique · Post by **abique** » Sat Apr 19, 2014 5:38 pm

ZiggDubstep wrote:is it possible to side chain individual parts of a drum machine like for instance in ableton where you could side chain individual parts of a drum rack?

I did not find how to do it in Bitwig. I think it is a missing feature.

qtheerearranger · Post by **qtheerearranger** » Sat Apr 19, 2014 8:58 pm

abique, did you try what I just mentioned? It should work. It works for me.

pdxindy · Post by **pdxindy** » Sat Apr 19, 2014 9:13 pm

qtheerearranger wrote:abique, did you try what I just mentioned? It should work. It works for me.

You can put Dynamics on one pad, but the sidechain function cannot listen to a different pad...

Likewise, if you put Dynamics on a different track, you cannot listen to a specific pad. So if you have a bass track, you cannot sidechain to the kick unless you take the kick out of the drum rack and put it on its own track.

M-Prod · Post by **M-Prod** » Sun Apr 20, 2014 6:50 am

Yes this does not work (yet?). Bitwig does not support multi out nor selection of individual drum machine sounds. For EDM I always create a separate kick track for side chaining and set the output to none, even in ableton. This gives more control over the compression. Eg when you have a booming 808 kick in your track, the sidechain pumping will be slow, but when you use a separate kick track you have way more control. I just use the kick synthesizer (any sound will do, since it will not be audible, the envelope is all that matters) and create a kick with a much shorter decay, so I can make the pumping effect as short or long as I want.
This also makes it possible to keep your synth or bass pumping in a break without kick.
An envelope plugin also does the trick. Eg point blank's free auto sidechain (max for live, so al only).

abique · Post by **abique** » Sun Apr 20, 2014 5:47 pm

So if you're not using you're original kick, you could just multiply your bass signal with a periodic envelop?

M-Prod · Post by **M-Prod** » Sun Apr 20, 2014 10:02 pm

Im not sure if I get your question. I meant the volume envelope of the sidechain signal (The volume envelope of the synthesized kick sound). This envelope also affects the way the compressor reacts, similar to the attack and decay setting in the compressor itself. (Be aware that the compressor with sidechain input is called dynamics in bitwig).
I just read that you can also create pumping with the compressor effect by using the envelope setting.

I hope this all makes sense! The odd naming of the bitwig compressors makes it a bit confusing I guess.

Bitwig

KVR Audio

Question regarding side-chaining