Apple Logic Pro /LogicExpress Discussion

--- In Logic_Cafe@yahoogroups.com, "pete_buchwald" <pete_buchwald@...> wrote:
>
> Hey Guys,
> 
>    In my insomnia (prescription drug related) last night I got up at 3:00 AM and wrote 
down 
> a list of things I wanted to learn to do in Logic.
> 
>     I got the EVOC (vocoder) working as a sidechain.   That is cool!!!   
> 
>     What other good production tricks have you guys used for doing sidechain activity??

Somebody mentioned the ES1. There are a few things like that in Logic that are cool but 
aren't well documented. I think you'll find one  whole sentence about putting a sidechain 
into the ES1 to control its filter in the plugins reference manual.

My most common use of the sidechain is for ducking, which has been around a long time 
and so may not be too 'cool', but is very useful! I understand that Logic 7.2 comes with an 
actual ducking plugin (I have 7.1.1) but even then, I'd probably still go the sidechain+bus 
combination route out of habit.

The most common use of ducking is to reduce the volume of one thing a little bit 
automatically while something else is playing. When the vocal's on, you have the guitar 
drop in the range of a few decibels, that kinda thing. But you can use it creatively to have a 
certain sound effect punch 'holes' in another track, stuff like that.

Basically, you put a compressor on the track which will be ducked. You set the sidechain 
source of the compressor to the track which will be doing the ducking. Now, the 
compressor reacts not to the track it's on, but to the sidechain. Set the compressor so it 
has no makeup gain and you are in effect lowering the volume of the target track 
dynamically in response to the audio output of the sidechain track. Adjust compression 
ratios and attack and release times to the taste of your desired effect. For holepunching I 
like to use really fast settings and an extremely high compression ratio.

My most common use of ducking is actually on bass elements. If I have a main bassline, 
but then I have some other kind of bassy sound effect which arrives infrequently (common 
occurrence in my electronica tracks), I often duck the main bass by the sound effect. What 
with bass frequencies taking more frequency up than anyone else, I like to gain a bit of 
bandwidth this way, but more importantly, it's less muddy when these two bass things 
occur at once with the ducking. With the right settings, the transient effect is really clear 
and yet you'd never know I dipped the other thing beneath it temporarily to make it that 
way.