Sidechain Compression

What is sidechain compression?

A mixing technique where you tell the compressor to listen to a different input.

How does sidechain compression work?

• Place a compressor on our underscore.

• Tell the compressor side chain to listen to the voice-over.

• Adjust the threshold, ratio, attack and release.

Now the compressor will only turn down the underscore when the voice-over is speaking.

What is dialogue?

• Dialogue includes any speech in a form of media that comes from a character or person on screen.

• Dialogue can be recorded on location during filming or overdubbed post filming.

What is overdubbing?

Recording a track over a previously recorded track.

Why might you need to overdub dialogue?

• The dialogue captured on location has too much background noise.

• You are using a different voice actor from the one in the footage.

• You are overdubbing or ‘dubbing’ the dialogue in different languages.

What is the problem when recording dialogue that is not in the same location as the footage is from?

• One problem with recording dialogue is that you will not be in the same location as the footage is from.

• This means that the recordings can often sound out of place as the acoustic space is completely different.

• You will also most likely not want to get too close to a microphone, otherwise the proximity effect will be too much and not match other dialogue.

How could we solve the issue of recording in a different location?

• Record ‘room tone’ on location.

• A room tone recording is a long recording of the natural sound of a space.

• This recording can be used to fill in silences between dialogue overdubbing.