in most cases is sidechain just for the kick to cut through?

what are the other most common reasons to sidechain?

thanks

 

it's not only about the kick cutting through, but also adding groove and cleaning up the mix. it's very common to sidechain the vocals to other elements (make space for the vocals - especially ducking vocal ambience when dry vocals play) or more generally sidechain conflicting elements to give each element its own place in the mix. With non bass sidechaining it's common to go multiband, or with special plugins (trackspacer / soothe)..

 

No it's not solely dedicated to kick/bass sidechaning. You can use it to let vocals shine in, or a pad. Or whatever, just go wild experimenting with different sound sources within your mix. Try snare/pad.

 

Had to make an account just to reply:

You can sidechain any effect you want but will learn that certain sidechains are necessary when mixing and mastering such as the kick/bass sidechain.

I myself am going to experiment with a snare/pad sidechain just to see how it sounds and i think it boils down to exactly what genre you are making to which whether your beats need a kick/bass sidechain or another combo of sidechaining.

In most cases, sure, its specifically for the kick to cut through but there are also kick/pads combinations you could try to make certain sound effects that could help you open your mind a bit more when making beats.

 

I figured if OP asked about Kick/Bass sidechain then he's making something electronic and bass heavy so in those genres snare/pad(keys) sounds good too.

But you can side chain anything you want to anything else, you're right in that you only need to sidechain if it benefits your style.

You don't always even need sidechain, or even compression for that matter. You always need to use it when it's needed, the trick is figuring out when and where that is. Also welcome to the forum, I hope you enjoy your stay.

 

Sidechain is basically a control technique, before there were plugins that could automatically do a lot of things, people would, for example, sidechain the Delay effect with the Voice track (so everytime the voice would be singing it wouldn't get very muddy), De-ess with a sidechain (de-essing is just sidechain for the most part). It's a pretty straightforward way to dynamically control elements in the mix, so you can find many uses to it.

 

Last edited: Nov 29, 2021

aside from kick / bass, my favorite use lately has been main vocals / background harmonies. it creates a nice little nook for the main vocals to settle into, tucks the corners of the BGVs in and adds a nice lil harmonic halo around the main voice

 

...and don't forget to adjust the release for the tempo or groove that you are applying the side chaining to, you'll be glad that you did. So that I don't need to write out a detailed explaination of this technique I did a very quick search and found this. YDMV (your DAW may vary).

 

This Wiki article should explain all Dynamic range compression.