how do i get the kick to muffle the rest of the song?

[jordex]

you know in a lot of dance songs there'll be pads and then as soon as the bass comes in the pads cut out on every hit

i was wondering if there is an easy way to do this, rather than editing the levels of the pads manually on every bass drum hit

[zircon]

This is called "sidechaining". The method with which you accomplish this depends on your sequencer and the plugins that you have.

The basic concept is this - you have two signals. The kick, and then everything else (which could just be a single pad, for example, or the entire mix.) The sidechain input is the kick. The sidechaining compressor takes that input, and when it detects a signal, it will compress the OTHER signal being fed into it. Thus, when your kick hits, the pad gets compressed. Rhythmic kicks = rhythmic compression.

[Yoozer]

And in case you want to know how to do it, just type "reason sidechain" or "ableton sidechain" or "cubase sidechain" in Google and read. It's become such an awfully tired question that by now pretty much everyone's found an answer for it.

[Lunahorum]

I am going to give you an general example and hopefully you can figure out your specific case.

Overview of process - read zircon's post above

How to do it in FL

Route pads to mixer track 3

Route kick to mixer track 2

Insert vst effect Peak Controller into mixer track 2

Uncheck mute.

As of now, nothing should have changed soundwise.

Insert a compressor or volume vst into track 3. I will use a volume knob (fruity balance).

Right click on the volume knob then click link to controller. Select the peak controller you previously made. Now you can screw around with the peak controller tension, LFO, and what have you to achieve the desired result.

Alternatively you could use a vst that supported sidechaining. either way works.

Have any more questions post them

[Zephyr]

I've fooled around with this a little, I love how easy it is in FL, (if you want you can avoid adding a gain effect and just use the mixer insert's volume slider) I also love that you can not only add an LFO to the signal, or even reverse the effect altogether, you can also set the tension of the effect and even set how much it affects it, a base value, decay level, or very easily have it modulate any parameter that you can tweak. I had some fun using sidechaining with EQUO, I had it so that every kick, the morph knob would jump, causing my bass guitar to get a sudden bass boost. I've also hooked it up to things like filter cutoff, and I've tried hooking it up to multiple channels at once, (having it turn down gain on some, and turn it up on others). You could also use it like a mod envelope of sorts, tweaking things automatically as the modulating sound changes volume.

Sidechaining is pretty powerful, you just need to be a little creative with it.

[jordex]

wow this is perfect

thank you!