I’m doing some new sidechain setups and I’m trying to remember what other function Compressor’s exposed Sidechain dropdown does. Forgive me, I must be overlooking something incredibly basic here.
This screenshot is from the mixer, where I basically have Bus 1 set to sidechain Bus 2, so any sounds playing through Bus 1 make the music in Bus 2 softer.
I’ve got it working with the usual right-click and assign Modulation, as shown in the right “Sidechain: Gain”.
So since I have this… (1) what value does the left one add, and (2) how do I assign it to trigger on a mix bus?
The two inputs visible in that screenshot do two different things.
The “Sidechain” property of the Compressor effect allows you to link the compressor effect to a sidechain elsewhere in your project, and use the signal at that sidechain’s position to control the amount of compression applied to the signal at the compressor effect’s location.
The “inputs” property of the sidechain modulator allows you to link the modulator to a sidechain elsewhere in your project, and use the signal at that sidechain’s position to control the amount of adjustment the modulator applies to the modulated property. In this case, you’re modulating the gain property of the compressor effect.
To put it another way, the compressor effect in your screenshot isn’t compressing the signal, as its threshold is too high; and the modulator isn’t compressing the signal as it’s not a compressor, it’s just twiddling the gain knob of the compressor effect.
You should remove the sidechain modulator, then turn down the Threshold property to whatever value you want the signal at the sidechain effect’s location to be above when the compressor effect should compress the signal at its location.
If you want the compressor effect to compress the signal at its location based on the signal at the location of a sidechain effect at a specific location elsewhere in the project, use the compressor effect’s “Sidechain” property to link the compressor effect to that sidechain effect.
@joseph I’m so glad I asked you for help and you took the time to give me such a patient, thoughtful answer that I hope enlightens others as well.
I was trying to figure out why I couldn’t get this working in flipping back and forth between FMOD and my compressors in other environments, and turns out — d’oh! — I completely overlooked the Threshold knob. With fresh ears, I went through what you wrote, step-by-step, and it was as simple as reducing the Threshold.
Thanks also for differentiating re: sidechain modulation.
