so i finally made the crossover from fruity to logic! i feel like a baby learning to walk again and im having trouble with sidechaining, i can side chain by linking the compressors but how would i saidechain with a muted input (for example, gross beat in fruity would sidechain volume without the need for a trigger, or using a peak controller on a drum allowed me to mute the drum!) how do i do this in logic? i read that you can just turn down your channel volume but it just stops the compression? cheers
On the track you are side chaining from, change the output routing from "stereo output" to "no output". That should do the trick. The option is right above the levels-meter of the track.
There's one catch about using a bus as the "trigger" source for sidechaining in that if you solo the instrument that is being affected, you won't here the compressor working unless you solo the "trigger" as well.
For example, let's say I have an instrument channel named "bass" that has the compressor and I have a channel strip named "kick" that has my kick sequencing. I then created an aux send of my "kick" channel strip to a bus named "trigger," with the output of "trigger" has been set to none. Now, after setting the compressor on "bass" to use "trigger" as the source, we can hear the audible "ducking." However, if we just solo "bass," we can no longer hear the compressor reacting to the sidechain.
What I typically do is:
Create a channel strip named "Sidechain 1" that is an exact replica of my "kick" channel strip
Disable the output of "Sidechain 1"
Insert a compressor (or other side-chain compatible insert) on the channel you wish to apply the sidechaining to.
Assign channel "Sidechain 1" within the compressor GUI window.
You should now be able to hear the sidechain kicking in (for best "ducking," use Peak, not RMS–and find the "sweet spot" between ratio and threshold).
If you don't want to hear the pumping while soloing the respective channel strip, just option + click the compressor to disable/bypass it.
One thing to note: If you have copied the sequencing beat for beat from your "kick" channel to your "Sidechain 1" channel and there is a section with a fast kick roll, consider removing some of these hits from "Sidechain 1." When a sound is triggered in succession at a very fast rate, the compressor often can't "catch up," so instead of a defined "pumping/ducking," you tend to get left with a near inaudible mess.
