Sidechain unwanted noise [SOLVED]

[Josiah]

Hello everyone,

I have an issue within Logic. When I sidechain an instrument, for example a bass line, I send the signal to a bus channel with no output, then add a compressor to the bus, chaining the bass line compressor to the bus compressor. So that works fine. But when there is no bass line playing during some point in my track, I still hear a faint pumping from the sidechain signal, just a very low frequency rumbling. I tried muting the bus tracks when there is no bass, but still hear it. Anyone experience this?

[David Nahmani]

I send the signal to a bus channel with no output, then add a compressor to the bus, chaining the bass line compressor to the bus compressor.

Either you worded that wrong, or you're doing things wrong...

 

First, a couple of questions:

1) Are you trying to make a bass line pump down and up in volume, so that its volume drops while a kick drum is playing and comes back up when the kick is no longer playing?

2) Is your kick drum generated by an audio track or a software instrument track?

[Josiah]

Thanks for replying. And it's hard to explain it any better. But i have a channel set up with ultrabeat, just the kick drum pattern, with no plugins and no output. Sent that channel to a bus channel. The bus channel has a compressor and has no output either. I have another track of a bass (or some software instrument like strings) with a compressor sidechained to the bus channel. Now, the instrument channel has midi regions on it and it sounds fine when played. But when a section of the song plays where that instrument channel has no regions in it, because I don't want it playing at that point, I can still hear the ducking sound...and I realize the compressor on the bus channel is still going since it is picking up the ultrabeat send. I tried muting the ultrabeat channel AND the bus channel at that point but I still hear it.

[Josiah]

I just figured it out. It wasn't the sidechain at all. It was another instrument making noise. Now I feel silly. Oh well. Thanks for the reply and the effort in helping. Sometimes it takes me posting a question just to realize what the problem is.

[David Nahmani]

Great, glad to hear.

 

FWIW you don't need the compressor on your bus channel. You can of course keep it if you want to compress your drums, but there's no need to compress them in order to have your sidechain pumping effect on your bass/strings. A single compressor on the bass/strings channel, with its side chain menu set to the kick signal, is enough.