Is ducking/sidechaining used in whatever beats you make?
I don't actually even know how much this technique is used in all difference genres.
Sometimes.
When it needs it.
What are those times for me;
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musically; maybe I want my track so have 'pumping' feel, not in the EDM way, but to make it feel like my kick drum is smashing tf out of everything.
-
loudness; To create a bit of headroom to stop my kick and bass note 'summing' (two sounds hitting at the same time; in this example, when a kick of -6db peak hits with a bass of -8 peak hits, they might 'sum' to a -2db or whatever, sidechaining may enable me to keep that 'summed' peak lower, which could give me more ability in making the overall track louder.
to be honest I don't hear enough of a difference in the sound to think I need it all the time
Now there's two things to this
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maybe your ears are still developing; in Hip-Hop, typically you wont want as pronounced a sidechain as in EDM. It's a lot subtler, and so this may not be immediately 'noticeable'. For example, on 2G's track, I probably wouldn't have even paid attention or immediately noticed a sidechain, until I knew to listen to it. There's a lot of subtlety in mix-engineering. The more advanced you get the more intricate those subtleties become. It will all come with time and practise.
- maybe your ears are there, but
the track doesn't need it; sometimes, a track just doesn't need something. More than that, it may even sound better
with the kick and bass summing together. Something to be always aware of, is not falling into the common trap of thinking '
I have to do this'. This thinking is very common when you start out, and can be hard to shake, especially reading all these advice or YouTube tutorials saying 'you must do xyz' --- what happens is you aimlessly go into a mix just 'highpassing cause you're supposed to' or 'have to compress my drums', but maybe you don't have to. And if you don't have to, then you're likely doing harm to your mix.
* The most important thing in learning to mix, is to
LISTEN and ask yourself 'what does this sound need'. Then you can look for answers and solutions to that.
* Getting relatively 'okay' mix is fairly easy, and it's pretty damn attainable without applying any processing; without EQing, without compressing etc. (When you're producing 'in the box', using samples and VSTs etc). The main thing is about setting the levels (volumes) of each sound and getting a good 'static mix'. This would be a good thing to focus on getting a decent handle on to start.
When you hear people whose mixes sound absolutely WEIRD and bad, then it's usually because they've done loads of random compression and EQing 'just because', 'cause honestly, to make a mix as bad as some i hear, you need to actively be doing that. You couldn't achieve that stuff just using your faders (as in mix would not sound that bad if just using faders. at worst would be 'your levels are off')
