How to ACTUALLY sidechain in FL Studio
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- Опубліковано 9 лют 2025
- Automation vs Fruity Limiter vs "Hybrid" Method
Plus I take a look at "Smoothing" and how it affects sidechaining.
24 hour track we made: soundcloud.com...
Patreon: / dylantallchief
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Disclaimer: The content in this video has been used for educational purposes in accordance with section 107 of US Copyright Law.
You can use my instrumentals/remakes for parodies/covers/etc (credit is appreciated), but remember, you should always have permission from the song's publisher and/or rightful owners!
Another point against sidechaining with automation (both methods) is that it can become desync'd if there lots of latency on the track getting sidechained.
So it won't sidechain in time with the rest of the track and will feel off.
If you use automation to sidechain it doesn't make you a bad producer or that you make bad music, but it's a flawed method and there are better alternatives out there imo.
🙏🙏🙏
but dylan what about the p e a k c o n t r o l l e r
Whenever I use peak controller or use fruity envelope controller to trigger sidechain using midi.... If the kicks are close than there is a clicking noise... Any way to prevent this?
the reason I use the automation method is because it visualized the volume, and control the exact sidechain shape I wanted.
@@kyklone8881 don't you get a click when the automation for the kicks are close to each other?
*sidechain 101:*
step 1: make a song without bass
step 2: make the bass
step 3: publish both songs, separately
step 4: in description, ask people to play both parts at the same time
step 5: with bass part, ask people to turn down volume at the correct times
step 6: ????
step 7: profit
@@shrestha8814 almost 6 feet
@@coilovercat LOLLL xDDD
Im cryin i cant😂😂😂
@@shrestha8814 Eight GB of RAM. This isn't something necessarily good, but it might pass, especially for lighter weight games. I am that *high* .
Step 6: double the plays
How to ACTUALLY sidechain:
play the audio and record it with microphone
Move microphone closer and further
Done 😎
big brain
BIG BRAIN
big brain
Now I'm gonna do what's called a gamer move
brain big
Producer : Spent so much time for a very advance and detailed mixing technique to make your music sounds amazingly good
Listener : I don't hear any difference, it's just literally sounds like music
Counterpoint:
Producer: hey i didnt sidechain this track so my bass and synths couldn't really be pushed as loud as other producers tracks, even after checking for phase issues
Listener: wow wtf this track isn't as loud as the other ones, skip it!!!
Its not about that detail. It just makes your workflow a lot faster.
IB it be like that sometimes
@@50CalBeats Except no one actually says that lol
@@50CalBeats Yes. That's something which definitely happen. Songs without sidechain does sound kinda wierd
Tip: instead of routing and turning the volume down on the sidechain channel right click the arrow and select sidechain instead of routing!
I agree, it's the exact same thing but I just showed it this way to kind of explain what routing is really doing
@@DylanTallchief thank you for that ☺
I was waiting for that the whole video :D
Or just shift click, by far the best way
@@DylanTallchief nice try making us think you already knew that
Fruity Peak Controller for sidechain 😎
Yeeh I better go back to Fruity Envelope...
Avicii used this method
Fruity limiter4lyf
Nah, gross beat
That's what I use. Is that bad?
All Nighter vol. 3 album is fantastic. I can't get enough of it. Every track is absolutely gorgeous
I always use the Kickstart plugin , and then i automate it on the playlist , and i turn it up or down depending of the track section. It´s easier. Nice video!
Broo thanks man thats thrue
I've never learned so much about sidechain till this video. Thank you Dylan.
Noob: volume automation
Pro: Fruity Limiter blablabla...
Me: KickStart
For real.
+1 For real kickstart is legend haha
God: peak controller
I use gross beat and limiter
I put my fingers into my ears repeatedly
Ok so let's have a deal, I'll iron your shirts and you tell me how to master my music skills.
lol its cuz his shirt has lots of wrinkles in the video right.
@@KaaiiiiOG indeed
Ha
I've used peak controller for sidechaining since 2003, and I have no intentions breaking up with it! 😂
How do you use it
Also you can do a High Pass Filter sidechain instead of volume sidechain
Use Envelope Controller instead. It gives you full control over the curve and you can use 8 curves at the same time.
@@jetlag1488 Yeah sorry I mixed things up, qi meant:
- Envelope Controller for High Pass Sidechain
- Peak Controller for proportion of volume in reverb/demay sends (for voice for example, reverb comes at the end and not during the singing)
@@GeneticKleptomaniac Or just link to band of para EQ, thats what I prefer to do when sidechaining with pcon. You can side chain low band with bass signals and with another peak controlller claps, snares or whatever you want for mids and/or high bands. just try bless
DYLAN THANK YOU SO MUCH!! Now my friends producers that doens't listen to me will finally do things right
I just come closer and further from my microphone while screaming aaaaaaaaaa
Beautiful So then it sounds like aaaaaAAAA aaaaAaaaaa AAAAA aaaaaAAAAAAAA
This was so good, Dylan. Had been routing all my snyths to a mixer track with a fruity balance on it, but the hybrid sidechain gives a much faster workflow.
Mark Donald if you’ve been doing that for 8 years you’ve really been doing a lot of work for no reason. Look up bus-routing in fl studio. That should help you out
Mark Donald that’s probably because this aspect of production is more workflow oriented and not melodic or sound-design related.
I love Sidechain with LFO Tool. I really recommend that.
Every time I watch one of your vids I learn something new, I appreciate these
I use automation for sidechaining then grouping the kick with the automation clip so they move together when copying so you don't have to select both. Also, I like using automation because I don't just use them for sidechaining but also volume automation. I like having both features.
Edit: NEVER use the fader for sidechaining or any automation. It has smoothing. Like Dylan said, you can't adjust your fader anymore. Use Fruity Balance because it doesn't have smoothing. Shout out to SeamlessR! Thank you for teaching me this!
How to sidechain 101
Shake your head in time with the audio so it creates a ducking effect
Works like a charm
Put a Peak Controller on the bass
Put a Stereo enhancer on the thing u wanna sidechain.
Link volume knob to Peak controller(peak)
Fine tune the amount of sidechain with the peak controller with
a visual representation of the curve.
Easy :D
yup agree
What does the stereo enhancer do in this sidechain method?
@@Photik just to control the volume. A fruity balance would be just fine
Still don't get it after 9 years experience.
every time the kick goes boom it uses the signal to make the melody go low
Dude you made my latest track possible. I had a huge drum pattern I needed to sidechain, and being able to program it in MIDI made it SO MUCH MORE STREAMLINED. MAD props to you.
My technique is to put the kick and the side chain tracks to one channel with the limiter, I would increase the volume of the kick really high and set a ceiling. So whenever the kick plays the limiter has to decrease the volume of the other things to let the kick in. This is a technique that Fox Stevenson uses as well.
RGX this is a popular method in hiphop and trap music
@@elmeriputkonen4875 I didnt knew that. Because it would usually sidechain much enough for dubstep, future bass and house
@Mark Donald nice
Great tutorial and great way of explaining. I didn't have a clue until now. Subscribed!
How to ACTUALLY side chain:
Put your speakers in a soundproof room and stand outside of the room, opening and closing the door when side chain needs to be applied.
LOL
Thank you so much for this information. Out of all the DAWs tutorials I've seen you're clearly the best!
You fancy man with your quick buttons
lol
Many years ago I've used a pair of Peak Controller + "Link to controller..." to create a sidechain. Link your kick/snare part to Fruity Peak Controller, tweak the Tension knob (TNS in Peak section) and disable Mute switch. Then right-click on "sidechained" part in Mixer and choose the "Link to controller..." item in menu. Then in "Remote control settings" window in "Internal controller" choose your Peak-controlled source - "Peak controller () - Peak" (for example your Kick channel) and edit the "Mapping formula": 0.8-Input usually will do.
Here's your sidechain.
remember the guys in the nineties(probably earlier but last time I saw it) with those chains on their wallets and it hanging by their waist? those dudes had it sidechaining down
launching automation clips with midi is genius, cant believe ive never thought of this.
Why is no one talking about the peak controller? Imo far easier to set up and pretty much the same results
Yeah that's how I do it. Peak controller on the kick channel, linked to Fruity Balance volume on the bass track. Done
Linking to a channel and right clicking to sidechain it is much easier than using the peak controller for me
Used to use peak controller method but once I found out about the other method I switched over
hivesaurus WOAH WOAH WOAH plz tell me how to use the Peak Controller cuz that shit baffles me
@@apexshinbi638same here...we can do a lot of things with it..but dont know
I was today years old when I learned automation clips can be triggered like literally any other channel. It makes sense, but I just never considered it. Pretty good workflow!
as an ableton user, finding out how inconvenient it is to sidechain in fl studio was like culture shock. like damn you live like this?
there are types of people that use built in sidechain but i think most of them use kickstart or other sidechain plugins
It's not that bad. Literally takes like 10-20 seconds from scratch, but I also just have a template already setup for side chaining kick and snare in the mixer.
Bro, people are making it way more complicated than it needs to be.
STEP 1. Route kick (or whatever signal) into thing you want to sidechain
STEP 2. Select sidechain in fruity limiter, adjust knobs to taste
Profit
Most of us use kickstart so its easy af
Teal Tactics exactly
Dude this was so helpful, learned something new, keep it up
I definitely like sidechaining with Fruity Balance and automation clips the most. Yes, it's slightly more difficult to work with, but I like the customizability. If I need a different curve for different parts of the song, I can just make the clip unique and change the shape, instead of having to setup 4 different limiters. I can also use it to make wobbles in fills.
Also, you can avoid latency if you route everything to one sidechain bus. If you need to cut out the sub, then just switch HQ in the Parametric EQ2 off and it won't add any additional latency.
In the end, it all comes to personal preference. Some people use macros, some people do individual automation for everything, some people have presets, some people make everything from scratch.
Wohoah... That's a deep analysis!
whenever i do use volume automation, i use balance because it's so old it doesnt have smoothing.
Dstroya what that supposed to mean idk
@@Gumboyaya the reason fruity balance doesn't have smoothing is because it is so old, the look of the plugin was updated to be vectored like the other vanilla fl plugins but the code was not updated to support smoothing
@Mark Donald Maybe, it's possible but, word has it Moses used fruity balance to part the red sea. Wouldn't doubt if they just vectored it and said fuck it.
playing automation clips with midi notes is definetly a 200 iq move, never would ve thought of that
I learned the way of doing this kind of sidechaining technique from Asher Postman long time ago
This video saved 500 hours of my life. Thank you.
How to ACTUALLY sidechain:
Sing what you want the sidechain to sound like with your mouth and then cry over how you can't replicate it for an hour and a half in FL Studio
Form is 🔥
It should probably be said that volume automation, even when it mimicks the effect of sidechain compression to achieve pumping, isn't sidechaining and I think more people need to be made aware of this
I say this as it can be confusing when you're introduced to other effects of actual sidechaining that aren't sidechain compression, such as an internal sidechain EQ for compressors (since reacting to bass frequencies can be problematic for mix bus compression) etc
Another example would be running a gate plugin, and running short trigger samples into its sidechain to get a clean, reliable gate that doesn't trigger on the wrong hits
It's probably too late to stop people calling pumping a sidechain but knowing that a secondary input into something is *actually* a sidechain is very useful going forward
Thank you for this detailed comment
The midi automation method was so genius! Thx Dylan
MIDI trigger a Fruity Envelope instead of an automation curve!
If you remove the "sustain / loop end" from the envelope it'll always play to the end making it the perfect tool for volume ducking.
So mad that Dylan didn't tell me that's a thing I can do! xD
guess I gotta make my own video then if that is still so much of a secret
I thought I was the only one that did this lol, I saw it in a demo project and imo its the best way
ALWAYS ORGANIZE YOUR PLAYLIST, PEOPLE. Also, if you're lazy, just download a sidechain plugin like Kickstart. It limits your ability to be more specific with your sidechaining but if you just make non-intricate music with 4/4 kicks, you're gonna be just fine. Adapt your workflow to the music you make. If you make simple beats or simple music, don't use advanced methods. Work smarter, notn harder.
Just follow Officer Kenny and don’t sidechain your 808s
W
H
Y
?
dylan: "if you are sidechaining"
me: "I AM THE SIDECHAIN"
I'll try this method, I was using fruity peak controler. It's clean, but what you showed seems nice as well.
Thank you for click baiting me into this! The hybrid method I will certainly try out! (Obviously, I've been always utilizing Fruity Balance.)
Didn‘t know we needed a 15min tutorial on sidechaining, but yet there it is. Love ya Dylan 🙌
proper sidechaining video would be well over 40 minutes :D
but now-a-days nobody cares about proper advanced techniques tbh
just a tip; using the "layer" to group your stuff under one midi input can be super helpful.
Was scrolling down for this waaay too long
Dude, peak controller on the kick and link it to an EQ bass/ sub-bass frequency knob on the bass
I actually needed this so bad
2 words: Fruity Balance
Pros of automating the Fruity Balance volume:
Not every song consist of only a kick, if you want ducking on both kick and snare, you can have 2 different automation clips with different shapes.
The mixer fader is intact.
Less fighting with the compressor and more producing. xd
Also, the automation clips shouldn't start at 0% and go up, they should have a very quick curve from max to 0% at the start.
nice method bro, didn;t know this yet
FORM represent :)
I was looking for exactly this !! The ghost way is perfect for when you are using a drum loop. Thanks so much!
*Silently laughs in Nicky Romero*
Okay, so if you REALLY want to use Automation, there is now automation delay compensation in FL. Fruity Peak Controller also works as an alternative to a compressor, but if you want complete control over your sound, balance midi automation is good. You can also use Serum FX and a MIDI out as the trigger. That ones fun to use as well
How does it compensate the latency when you use plugins that introduce latency?, I have seen cases that latency is not compensated correctly
and the sidechain occurs later than you expect.
That's a daw problem, if you are absolutely sure it's not a user problem.
Auto compensation should be part of the kernel and if that has a problem then whatever method you use will just work around it, and what you should do is change daw altogether.
Or plugins if it appears only in a specific plugin
You can also draw a volume envelope in Love Philter and have it loop in order to simulate a sidechain effect. Pretty handy for shaping sidechains :)
@Mark Donald Then don't use it for those situations?
Its so much easier to automate parameters in Reason :)
EYY! FINALLY another person who uses Reason besides me! :D
You're a great teacher 🙏🏽 Sidechaining has always been a confusing concept in FL for me but this was great
So when I use fruity balance to sidechain a distortion comes in. Is this a problem that more people experience or is it only me?
I had noo idea about the hybrid thing, really neat. Thanks!
people actually do that? lmfao i just SIDECHAIN the mixer track. That’s automation not sidechaining smh
This video helped me so much bro, thank you ♥️♥️♥️
why does nobody put their drums in a drum pattern lol?
Speaking just for myself here: I'm mostly a visual learner and find it a great help to be able to see the waveforms, exactly how long things last relative to the grid, etc.
Automation clip : can be played by midi.
My brain : blown.
How to ACTUALLY sidechain:
just do the same thing within the fruity balance plugin
done.
ive been using fl for years, and i legit didnt know you could trigger automation with midi until just now. thanks!
I wish I wasn't so dyslexic. My brain just has an issue remembering what routes to what.
I hate that I have to relearn this crap every time.
@Mark Donald See i have no idea what you're refering to here.
I'm talking about side chaining. My brain has a hard time remembering what links up to what, and which one do I put the limiter on. Kinda like how some people get left and right confused. I catch myself checking vids like this way more times than i should need to and i always dread the task when it comes to side chaining the bass.
for the ghost kick method: you can use layers to play both samples without having to copy the kick pattern
That’s why you use ableton so none of this happens
no they just don''t know how to sidechain.. it's not the DAW it the person using the DAW
Thanks so much for the tip, That will make things much easier for me.
The best way to sidechain:
buy ableton live
That was some fucking sick drum and bass!
dude, I actually sidechain with grossbeat kkkk
There are a few more ways to sidechain:
1. On the kick's channel, add a Peak Controller and set it up so it goes down every time the kick hits. Now you can link any parameter you want to that controllers "peak" output. For that right click on basically any control -> link to controller -> the name of the peak controller effect (I recomend giving it the name "kick sidechain" or something.
2. At the same time as the kick, play an instance of Envelope controller. There you can define up to eight envelopes for the sidechain (for example different curves for different channels) and even control base and environment values to vary your sidechain if you want to. As before, link any knob to the controllers articulators. I prefer this technique since it gives you most control. Basically the hybrid method but with multiple envelopes.
3. In a pattern, right clock a know you want to sidechain -> edit events. It's crude but gets the job done. (Quick and dirty - I wouldn't do that)
you'd think after watching this three times I'd know how to do this by heart... but here I am again!
I use fruity envelope controller triggered by midi note and controlling the post knob in maximus (I make sure to disable all compressors), this way you can see the effect sidechain has on maximus' built in graph, also you can control the smoothing on maximus with the attack/release knob. This method is the best imo.
5 years of beat-making and I didn't know you could play automation clips in midi
I just route the sounds to a sidechain track and sidechain. Also if you are annoyed by the volume always down just right click and do "Init like from start" or something. But great video and good points
Always learn something new from this guy!
All producer friends ask me, where have I learned to Sidechain like a PRO. Dylan Tallchief, thanks for all the TUT, My UA-cam Channel Is blowing up!
this video was SO helpful, Thank you!!
im starting out with this beatmaking stuff and the ghost kick method really helped
for sidechaining, Id dock a mixer channel beside master audio, put in Fruity balance, create an automation by right-clicking volume in the plugin, and route whatever sound i want to be sidechained to that mixer channel
it sorta works
you point out the right thing of fl's disadvantages
Legend : use record button , and move the volume button with cursor very fast ,slide down and up every part of drum kick
Thank god I switched to Ableton live and thank you and your awesome friends for the live enhancement suite.
I usually set up 7 inserts: Synths In, Low, Low Mid, Mid, High Mid, High, and Synths Out. Then I take Synths In off the master, and left click route to every insert EXCEPT Synths Out. Then Low, Low Mid, and so on are routed to Synths Out. I then put fruity convolver on everything Low through High, pick the linear phase EQ preset on all of them (takes away the convolution reverb effect, leaving a great EQ for this) and just have low go from 0 to around 180 Hz, Low Mid go from 180 to like 450 and it goes on like that. I saved presets for each section of frequencies to save time too. With this method, you can place a limiter on the lower inserts and make kick sidechains, without the high stuff getting cut or place a snare sidechain on the mids the possibilities are endless. You can now mess with faders as a way of equalizing all the synths in your song, and tweak the stereo separation of each section easily as well. Probably best not to do while composing though. More of a giant puzzle near the end
If you set up one channel to be your sidechain volume, and then route the output from that to a second channel instead of the master, you can use that second channel as your mix volume slider. Make them both the same color, sit them right next to each other and consider them a pair.
That song is wild oh my gosh
I used to use a ghost kick but I actually switched to fruity balance and it works so much better for the kind of music I make ^^
He’s speaking to my very soul,
That's a really helpful method, I did just buy *Duck* for sidechaining but I'll make sure to save this tutorial just in case.
Make a separate sidechain mixer track and detach it from master, send a copy of any channel you want to trigger the compressor, use a limiter on every channel you want to be sidechained. That's basically a summary of the 1st method in the video, hassle-free, super clean and handy especially if you want to trigger the compressor with more than one input source (kick, snare, percs whatever).
Nice, I also use the fruity envelope controller, love philter method 😊
good tutorial, The hybrid method thing was new information to me