Sidechain to compress & expand?

[nettydrown]

I am just learning about sidechaining and ducking, reading about the Mdeq's at https://soundbytesmag.net/meldamdynamiceqpart1
And, a question, do audio engineers ever compress to duck one channel and expand the other? Thanks for sharing.

[Faiky]

It depends on the situation. Normaly you use a side chain to duck or expand the target. The sidechain is only the input.

[nettydrown]

What I was thinking is with side chains from different signal or even signals. I don't know yet if these plugs can take multi in to side chains but you could always use a group channel and was just reading about Meldas Dynamic EQs that can either compress or expand per instance, and I guess fab makes one that can do either in same instance - was also thinking of sidechaining to and from each other - don't know if it even can be done but conceptually - fer example simply using the side chain to duck instruments for the voice, and side chain to expand the vox over the instruments. I haven't tried to set it up yet... the concept seems like you wouldn't have to do either as much as with just one sidechain.... don't know just a thought.

[nettydrown]

What I was describing is implemented in compressors for audio engineers to use, just discovered.

[Faiky]

I'm not sure I got that right. Do you want to have multiple inputs, set per EQ point which sidechain to use and control each input separately and output all audio channels seperatly again?

[nettydrown]

Not so much what I had in mind... I was just learning about ducking for first time back then... Where, for example, a bass channel that is masking the frequencies of the kick channel, uses the kicks signal in the sidechain to control the bass’ compressors detector to uncover the kicks signal by triggering the bass’ compression each time the kick strikes. Well I posted that question back when I read about “ducking” and it made me curious back then to ask - If engineers might want to also at the same time use the bass’ signal, to in similar manor, to expand i.e. to increase the kicks gain when the bass signal is present in its channel. And also considered about combining signals to use for the sidechain detectors, and mentioned one could always use a group channel to combine signals. Found that answer too there are compressor that will accept more than one signal as the side chain. But, My last post was just as to answer the question I asked, that I found that answer. After reading more about it I did find that engineers do, do this. There are a number of compressors that provide means do that, and one of the pretty cool ways doesn’t need to use sidechain to do it – there are compressors and equalizer too, that can identify and display the actual masking and accept side chain inputs or even signal from other frequency bands in the same plugin to use that signal to not only duck the masking signal but to expand the signal that is being masked. It can also be done with out the need of a sidechain. There are, turns out, many ways these trick tricky audio engineers and plugin designers are doing all sorts of ridiculously compli-pickul-diculous stuff to make amazing recordings.