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The woodwinds are often underestimated and in many epic music compositions they are practically absent. I obviously voted for them because they are very important to me and perhaps the most difficult to manage.

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I agree completely Elia, woodwinds are very underestimated and they can be so beautiful! =)

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I love Woodwinds, if you hear my tracks you know why :smiley:

well for the vote, i am for mastering. In special i’d be interested in sidechaining, not how it works, but how to use it on specific instruments. Every tutorial is about the kickdrum and the bass line. i’d be very useful to see if ducking some strings for some brass give a WOW effect


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I love woodwinds and yes side chaining is super powerful. All tutorials are the cliche EDM kick + pad or bass pumping. You can do so much in moderation to increase clarity without that pumping effect! :smiley:

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What is sidechaining? If I may


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Side chaining comes in a few different forms. Here are the most common types.

In a compressor you may have a side chain function. It’s a little box in one of the corners. When you open it up you’ll see all of the audio/midi/bus channels for the project. You can assign one of those channels by clicking on it one drop down menus to act like a reference. So when the sound in the piece is played then the compressor starts to work. When the sound isn’t present then the compressor stops working. This Means you can put a compressor on channel that you’ll like the sound to duck (get quieter) when the side chained instrument is playing. This has a lot of benefits
 one example would be a compressor on a low synth or bass part. If you sidechained a kick to that compressor and turned up the “ratio” and “knee” with a fast attack then the synth would be compressed and get quieter when the kick was playing. This would give more clarity to the kick drum in a pop song, while also adding another rhythmic element as it effects the synth.

Another form of sidechaining would be a more manual approach. If you send a version of your track to a bus and put an effect on it then you can blend that effected sound into your original sound. This is very useful for adding depth to a sound without destroying your original signal. It gives you much more control over a sound and also lets you change your sound over time by automating then bud level as needed. A good example of this would be sending your drums to a seperate bus and distorting them and compressing them until they’re nearly unusable. Then you can pull the fader down and add a tiny bit of that signal to your original drums. This can help your drums feel fuller and also push through the mix a bit easier. This is also known as parallel processing, essentially your doing a similar thing to the side chain but you do it manually.

Both very useful techniques that help in certain situations.

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Thank you Geoffrey!

Seems complex but useful
 I’ll look into it :slight_smile:

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It’s easier than it sounds haha.