Maybe you guys could help me out here..

I'm trying to find the "math" behind sidechain-compression for best ratio and release values on my kick/bass. I understand I could do it by ear and see what sounds the best, but I'm wondering if there's a mathematical way to determine what values to use. Maybe there isn't one, but there is a lot of science and math involved in music after all.

Essentially what I am trying to achieve is having the release time on the limiter parallel that of the decay time on my kick so the bass is at max volume as soon as the kick is fully decayed.

I suppose I would first want to determine the decay time of my kick - I've searched many forums and can't really find an answer to this. Does anyone know how to find the decay time in ms? Edison?

Just try and use your ears. I always put a 150/200 hz lowpass on my master while mixing the kick and bass and trying to get the sidechain's release perfect. Also for sidechaining to the kick, I always have an attack time of 0 seconds and the ratio is at the max ratio. (30:1 or something). Then I mess around with the threshold and the release.

So far I've been playing it by ear to hear when exactly my kick gets muffled by the bass being released, anywhere from like 4.11ms to 6ish is the closest I can really come give or take like 1.5ms in either direction.

My ratio is set at 5:1 right now, attack of course at 0, and I've kept the release at 4.85ms.

It definitely sounds decent so I can't complain, just looking for some possible math that may help make it even better

Quote from: Kenny Troy on March 10, 2016, 06:18:13 am

Quote from: Miles Dominic on March 10, 2016, 06:11:56 am

Just try and use your ears. I always put a 150/200 hz lowpass on my master while mixing the kick and bass and trying to get the sidechain's release perfect. Also for sidechaining to the kick, I always have an attack time of 0 seconds and the ratio is at the max ratio. (30:1 or something). Then I mess around with the threshold and the release.

So far I've been playing it by ear to hear when exactly my kick gets muffled by the bass being released, anywhere from like 4.11ms to 6ish is the closest I can really come give or take like 1.5ms in either direction.

My ratio is set at 5:1 right now, attack of course at 0, and I've kept the release at 4.85ms.

It definitely sounds decent so I can't complain, just looking for some possible math that may help make it even better

I think 4.85 ms is way to short. There's no kick that short lol. My 'average' release settings are between like 30 ms (for stuff like arps and high melodies) to like 50-70 for things like chords/mid-basses and up to 90 to 100 ms for sub-basses. I'm not saying you should copy that, but probably best to take a longer release time.

Also, maths wont help you in this situation man. Its all about hearing how your bass and kick (and other instruments) sit best together.

Yeah you're definitely right here. I changed the release to 30ms and it sounds better, but the only thing that was lost is a very quick pluck sound on the bass which I was trying to avoid losing (why I was messing w/ <10ms release). Then again that's probably unlikely to be possible with sidechaining

I'll probably play around with this for a while longer lol. Thanks again

Split your bass in a seperate sub and a plucky mid bass. Sidechain the sub super hard but sidechain tje pluck bass less to retain the texture. Ez

To the guys who set 0ms attack on their SC compressors;

0-2ms setting might cause artificial 'click' sounds while compressing on certain compressor types, especially VCA's.

Thus setting the attack on 2.5ms can be a safer choice in the long run

One can make the Compressor work in sync with music bpm by using a chart like this (maths!)  http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-bpmtempotime.htm to get that perfect time align sidechain. The advice by abshiva about 0 attack is spot on as it can cause clicks.