I don't know about you guys but as a rapper/producer, I like my drums loud, with lots of attack. Think Brother Ali "I like the snares loud enough to make my eyes blink from it." The thought occurred to me today that, especially in genres like hip hop and maybe pop, where the drums are loud and the vocalists tend to match a syllable to the snares, you might sidechain an expander to the snare drum and apply it to your vocal track. Or maybe Fab Pro-MB with the range in the positives (which is the same thing really). It would definitely take some tweaking to make it mostly transparent, but I think it could be worth trying out, at least as an alternative method.


Probably someone has thought of this already. I'm sure I'll have reason to try it out soon enough, so I'll report back and let you know how it sounds.



Edit: I just realized this might belong in the mixing forum. If so, my apologies to the mods and feel free to move it.

 

I've done something similar before with the C6, the side chain was set so that on loud vocal parts nothing was being affected but on quieter vocal parts a dip formed around 800hz on the instrumental.

Its very tricky and confusing to set up because its counter intuitive to sidechaining, but if done correctly it really glues the vocals to the instrumental by creating a correlation between them.

 

i am a Hip hop producer and rite and sing Hooks in my song for Rappers i like my drums Banging to But What i have noticed Maybe it is just me is that a lot of Commercial pro Produced Mixed and Mastered Songs the drums and the Music/Instruments are low Sounding to but the vocals are louder on top of corse like the new J Cole 2014 Forest Hills Drive ( i Get My Drums Loud and Punchy With a lot of compression and Brick Wall Limiting

 

In my experience, using expanders on vocals results in just weird/strange/uneven perception of the vocals. Compression (and parallel compression) is more "natural" to the ear, instead of occasionally loud syllables coming flying.

But like they say - there are no rules. Go for it. Please post an example if you succeed with the result you hear in your head.

 

Update: you were right Baxter. I couldn't make it sound good lol