MultiBand Sidechaining

Here's a little technique that I came up with some time ago now for that subtle (and boy do I mean subtle) sidechaining. Although, technically, I think it should be refered to as ducking. But I don't give much of a rats ass about that sort of thing so I'm calling it:

Multiband Sidechaining

What is it?

Really it's a way to set up your parametric EQ in FL to allow multiple band-passed kicks to control it, using the peak controller plugin. This guide will address how to achieve just that specifically in FL8, but I am guessing that it could be done in any DAW.

To start with...

Take the kicksample and clone it 4 times, like this:


The top channel is the original, all the others are just clones. Notice I'm using the same pattern, which, ofc, should come to no surprise. (note: you don't have to use the kick, I'm just using that for explanation purposes, any element of your track can be used this way. You don't even have to use 4 of them, you can use 2, 4 or even 15 for all I care)


After you have done this, you are going to assign each of the kicks to different mixer channels, I'm going to use channel 1 for the original kick, naming it 'kick'. For the others I will use channel 2-5, naming them 'low', 'lowmid', 'himid', and 'hi'. Why I'm using those terms should become clear later. After this you add a parametric EQ to all the channels except the original ('kick'). You will only use it as a BP-filter though, so set one of the bands to Band Pass, and turn the other bands off. The band width should be set to 1.00, the tightest possible. The setup so far should look like this:



Now, add a spectroman to you original kick channel and try to work out the main freq points of the kick you are using. Just loop the sample and look at the way it uses the spectrum. The low point of the kick I am using seems to be at around 60 hz. So, I'm going to set the freq of my BP filter in the 'low' channel to 60 hz.

The kick I am using is rather monotone, and doesn't have many dips and leaps to its spectrum. So I'm going to arbitrarily set the 'lomid' to 200 hz, the 'himid' to 1200 hz and the hi to 5000. Note that these settings are individual to the kick you are using, so take care in selecting how to set the freqs.

After that, take whichever channel peaks the loudest, ignoring the original 'kick' channel, and add a compressor to it. This will almost always be your 'lo' channel. Set the threshold to 0db, the ratio to 1:1, and turn the gain until you peak at 0 db. You never want it to peak above that. Some compressors, and I am now talking mainly about the Native FL compressor, have a limiter built in and if you peak above 0 db, it will slighty mess up your sidechaing later.

Now, after you have set your 'lo', or whichever peaks the loudest to start with, to peak at 0 db, add a compressor to the other channels, again, ignoring the "kick" channel, and set them to the same excact settings. They won't peak at 0 db, because you just want them to peak relative to eachother, with the loudest peaking at 0 db.

We are starting to get somewhere. Just bare with me for a few more minutes.

You will now add a peak controller to every channel, do I need to say you should ignore the original 'kick'?. Set the base to 50%, the volume to -50%, tension to 100% and decay to 100%. Leave mute on. You can play around with these settings later. You don't have to set them all the same, but I most often do. There might be technical or musical reasons to set the 'lomid' differently than the rest ofc. But for now, use those settings for all the channels. It should look like this:



And we are getting even closer now. Add a parametric EQ to an unused mixer channel. I'm going to use channel 6 in my example. Name it "Multiband Sidechaining", or something shorter if you prefer that. Set the band to the same freqs as your kick channels, in my example it's 60, 200, 1200 and 5000. Also, you want to set the band type to "peaking". Then right-click the levelfader on your first band, which is set at 60 hz in my example, and click "link to controller..." on the pop-up menu. Use and "internal controller" and select the controller called "peak control (low) - peak". I'll give a quick explanation if you don't use the peak controller much:

"Peak Control" in the name means it is simply a Peak Controller plugin that controls that internal controller. The name in the parenthesis refers to the name of the mixer channel it occupies. And "Peak" means it is controlled by the Peak of you Peak Controller, you can use the Peak Controller as an LFO if you want to as well.

Thus link all the band levels to its appropriate controller. Also, set the band width of all your band according to how wide the band is on your original 'kick'. For example, if there is a dip in your kick at 200 hz, which there often is, set the width of your lo (say at 60 hz) and lomid (say at 300hz) so that you leave some space in the 200 hz are. Try this out by by just lowering all the levels to 50% or something and see what form they take. You want it to look roughly like the spectrometer in your 'kick' channel looks like.

And it's done. If you want any elements to be controller by your multiband sidechaining just route them to that mixer channel. The parametric EQ will shape the sound live according to what the kick sample sounds like. No need to duck the entire frequency spectrum when you only need to duck at 600 hz is there?

Here's a quick example using only native FL8 stuff:

Multiband SideChaining Test

Experiment with this please. Try using the vocal to control the melody, instead of just using the kick. Best of luck, and if you do come up with something intresting using this technique, please let me know.