FabFilter

I had a question about the sidechain filtering on the Pro-C. When its on Internal I can select what frequencies of the signal I want to compress, which is of course great for sweeping the low end out of the compressor when compressing drums or bass.

But when you're in external mode and you are feeding an external source in to trigger the compressor (i.e. a kick drum), does the filter then effect the frequencies of the external trigger?

If so, what are the advantages of this? I always under the impression when you were in external mode and you were using the pro-c to duck sounds on the kick drum you could use the filter to select what frequency range was being ducked - so for a vocal you could just duck the low frequencies leaving the mids & highs unaffected by the sidechain compressor.

Hi Jonny,

The sidechain EQ section in Pro-C 2 filters the trigger signal before the compressor starts to analyze it. This lets you select on which frequencies in the trigger signal you want the compressor to react.

You're saying "I can select what frequencies of the signal I want to compress" but that's not exactly how it works. The compressor always changes the gain of the entire input signal. You only change the frequencies that the compressor reacts on.

With external side chaining, it works just the same, but on the external trigger signal of course. Hope this helps!

Cheers,

Thanks for your reply.

I'm assuming this is the same for Pro-C 1? I've not upgraded yet.

So for example, I have a vocal I wanted to duck on the kick drum to create head room but I don't want to duck the high frequencies of the vocal so much as I don't want audible pumping on the air of the vocal, I could feed an external trigger into Pro C and sweep the high band of the eq down to say 400Hz - so the compressor is only reacting on the lower frequencies. Is this right?

Hi Jonny,

The kind of process you're trying to do can be achieved by a Multi-band compressor (such as the Pro-MB)

The Pro-C is a single band compressor.
The filter inside is only there to change the way the compressor reacts to the signal.

For Example
If I want to compress, lets say, the entire Drum Buss, but I don't want the Kick to pump up my compression, I can use the hpf in the side-chain and then the compressor will not "notice" the Kick, or at least soften it a bit.

It works the same way in external mode, but of-course, the process will now be affected by the side-chain send.

You can still use it as a ducker, but for the entire signal. If you want to do more surgical acts, like what you're trying to do, you should use a Multi-band.

Hope this helps,

Cheers

Ok many thanks for your help, appreciate it!