How to Sidechain? Your bass with kick! Learn a new and probably best Technique

When you make a track, most often your bass and kick will play together. Therefore it’s often important to sidechain the kick with the bass and the 808 with either the bass or bass with the 808.

Learn a technique of Sidechain to remove muddiness and add room for a kick with the bass that is played in your track, like professional:

This the easy tutorial; Send kick to a channel, then send the kick to other mixer channel, then in the first have -12ms delay, and in the second mixer channel have your peak controller, which then adjusts the parametric EQ 2 200Hz cut which is connected to the peak controller on the kick you have. Which makes holes for the kick to play freely when bass plays.

By not using sidechain can cause that kick is somehow at a higher level when also the bass is played. Making your track very different bad from many other newcomers who use side-chain. Thus then giving characteristics of being muddy or at least annoying sound to most listeners. They will not comment on your tracks and would most likely step to listen to something else if they genuinely don’t have a high impedance that often can filter specific muddiness. Usually, trance was containing problems in the early 1990s; thus, companies like Sony used a higher range ohm through the system, delivering more vibrant and lovely sound by playing bass and kick together.

Specific analog systems like RS7000 didn’t give sidechain problems and thus delivering low-level muddiness when kick played together with bass, by certain bass levels to a mere better quality process. But for digital music, it was quite different, and it introduced the need for amplifiers, which as well could filter these problems more precisely.

To start with, we did gain the kick and the bass to a certain level with Fruity Limiter. “Using the Gain” You will see is limiting on the right Fruity Limiter “Picture Below;” This you should avoid in all of your tracks, one spike that gets nearly hard clip limited, which can cause some distortion. So watch out on any compressor for these levels. The distortion might sound as clipping if even used little on wrong equipment with no distortion filtering as some equipment as laptop speakers might render this specific of a clipping sound. Thus for your system, giving no particular ability to monitor the problem.

Besides using the gain in Fruity Limiter is like doing the right thing. But you, of course, need to reduce the wrong levels of your kick and your bass to further better avoid muddiness with this sidechain technique below:

First, you should route your kick, where you will have your Peak Controller to another insert of your mixer.

“In 2020 we been using the kick in one place and sending it to another insert, where the peak controller is, But we put on the kick -12 ms delay.”

Remember to turn off the channel to master from the routing since you don’t want the double sound of the kick.

You can, though, avoid sending it to the new mixer unit. But you will increase certain levels of kick with above pictures of limiter, thus enabling to turn off the mute on peak controller you can avoid sending to master. Either way, you need to do this procedure so that kick will be sourced out to the master once.

When you add the Peak Controller to your kick at mixer unit 2, when it has enough levels, try to maintain the peak to reach high enough levels in the Peak Controller. That way, you can have the peak controller to achieve the best possible reduction of bass when the peak is on.

The tension, if you set the pressure more to the right, you will eventually get a spike, which will be depending on the actual volume.

Remember to set decay as high as possible, but not too high. But as good as the kick is and how long it is in itself. Having a higher level of decay will ensure that the effect of sidechain does not stay for too long. So that the cutoff of the sidechain is made more like how your kick is, the tension sometimes might increase the peak level and thus give you the right characteristic of your kick. Often the peak should be at around 0.5-2ms bigger than the actual kick.

In specific procedures, you can send your loops to only one other mixer unit and use the preset 20Hz-18kHz of Parametric EQ 2 and thus then removing all frequencies above 200Hz for your loops to be only valued to have bass frequencies. Therefore this would even get your loops to sidechain the bass in certain moments.

In the below picture, this is thus a more decay reduced peak than the above picture; it will be less high but as well more likely how your actual kick is. The peak controller might sometimes need this adjustment because it already is specific to deliver a higher range than the kick sound is. It’s often dependable by the default volume level of your kick.

Now with your bass channel or your bass instrument. Put Fruity parametric EQ 2 into the mixer. Then right-click on the white mix button of the plugin. And “link to controller”:

Then chose the Peak ctrl – Peak of either kuxk1 or exact specific Peak and not LFO. Then push accept.

“Remember to turn off Remove conflicts if you use several basses for the sidechain”:

In some other techniques back in 2008, the invert of the peak was essential to be used in the proceeding, but the ducking of the mix of Parametric EQ 2 does not need that.

In the parametric EQ 2, choose your preset 40Hz Cut.

Then drag from 40Hz Cut to 200Hz. Then use the middle mouse wheel to make a curve like in this picture:

“This is a good option as well to use on your pads and instruments that need 200Hz below removal.”

Most likely, your bass and kick will be side-chained. And you are thus giving you the ability to play certain levels of the bass above 200Hz with the kick, making this specific possible proper procedure to your listeners. Therefore by as well centring the Parametric to around 100Hz is even still possible. But you need pro equipment with low impedance to avoid getting problematic muddiness if you though can monitor your levels by that specific.

Disclaimer: Sometimes, when you sidechain, you might add the specific probability of having no feeling of bass and kick; thus, this would end up for you having zero capability of feeling any bass levels. Then surely there might at specific points add up a particular problem which your procedure of sidechain has to short effect with as well the peak controller delay. But as well under such means, you will have no attack on the sidechain of the bass. Thus in these moments, we recommend using the delay compensation in a more specific way. To attain a small hole when your kick is in play after you start to sidechain the bass. Making holes is probably an essential process and is shown by this picture where you can see the bass has one hole line. This process ensures no glueing by your kick and bass together, making room for opening up for your kick to be felt in the way the listener listens to your music. Glued bass and kick aren’t recommended for any use in a track, as it sounds as if there is no bass.

But that’s not all:

You might need to set ms of your tracks to kick – If you have automatic plugin delay, you might not need to set the timing, but for beginners, it’s best to use automatic plugin delay, to not worry about more than enough. But even with automatic delay compensation, the timings aren’t perfect. Even for anything explained by us on the specification of glued sound.

But anyway, if you don’t use automatic, try setting kick at -8ms or -12ms delay. “12ms for FL 12 and FL 11.”

It’s minus in FL 20+

Remember to as well set your delay for basses at “6ms”, yeah, plus 6ms. “Does not work for FL 12 and FL 11.” You might sometimes set your bass at 8ms and -8ms for a kick. That is an option you should use if the kick still occupies your bass, and there is a difference that you might hear as blobby bass.

The above said isn’t always needed. All you might go off with was to set the ms before it hits Insert 2 to -12ms. That kind of delay might be needed in your track. But as the specific special way, you might delay back the kick if you need your kick to go straight professional. But that option does not tend to be needy. As kick might sound good at least -12ms delayed. Means backwards.

This below is the Plugin delay Compensation – Most tend to not put it on Automatic. Some tracks might sound weird for some plugins making a problem to even vocals and other instruments, so be wise using the option. Thus by having a newer version of FL Studio to the latest delay, compensation has been improved. But you still will have to figure out your magic touch to the glue.

Here it is most likely good side-chained, but you might only see some certain level that this somehow glued, and in total, you need that small lines to when peaks of the kick are coming.

By utilizing music, a dominant kick often is used with electronic music, EDM, Techno, Trance; thus, when you feel bass levels at nearly -9dB, they still are enough for most people to understand as well good levels. The recommended level of a kick would be -6dB for a track with -9dB bass. But even -2dB kick and -6dB bass is also a good option. To high bass, levels might be a different problem for most. But the sound systems do gain the levels if they are low and don’t gain if they are at max. Some systems reduce the 0dB plays, so maxing isn’t always important. Most for all maxing is bad.

So enjoy Sidechaining comfortable and adequately.

Tips: You can set your kick at higher milliseconds minus Up to even 12 ms. Since your bass has also delay from the plugin and through its plugins, up to 4 ms or more senior. You are making your kick come up on the bass. But setting your kick to delay is also a good option on specific basses, especially offbeat basses.

Important notice – FL Studio 20 has changed its use of ms option and as well giving – value, as well as the compensation, is set more appropriately. But upgrade to FL20 Now!

Dealazer developed this technique.