Reason 13 sidechaining – Quickstart for dummies (me)

For those of us still learning Reason, there’s a new feature in version 13 that makes sidechaining significantly easier to manage.

Sidechaining is a technique in music production where one sound affects the volume of another sound. It’s commonly used to make the kick drum more prominent in a mix by temporarily lowering the volume of the bass line whenever the kick drum hits. This could previously be done with the compressor in Reason, but in version 13, they’ve added a tool to simplify the process.

However, in many guides and tutorials on YouTube, they often avoid using Redrum as an example. Being quite new to the field, I found it rather tricky to get sidechaining right with this device. Another issue with Redrum is that if you want to apply sidechain to a single channel (and not the entire unit), the sound from the channel you send for sidechaining disappears.

This page provides a quick walkthrough on how to get started with it most efficiently.

Please note that the terminology can be somewhat vague or even incorrect. For example, terms like ”One to many” and ”Many to one” are used for spider-splitter/merger.

See ”self instructions” below!

Presentation

Method 1 (sidechaining for one single instrument):

1. Create Sidechain Tool: Add the sidechain tool to the instrument you want to sidechain.
2. Connect the Controlling Instrument: Connect the controlling instrument (from the ”parallel” output) to the ”sidechain input” on the instrument you want to sidechain.
3. Change Audio Pump Setting: Change ”audio pump” to ”trigger” or ”sidechain” so it listens to signals from the drum machine (depending on how you need the sidechain device to act).
4. Adjust the Sound: Fine-tune the settings to give the drums more space and clarity in the mix!

Method 2 (multiple instrument):

1. Add Sidechain Tool: Add the sidechain tool to all the instruments you want to sidechain.
2. Create Spider Splitter: Create a spider splitter for the instrument you want to control the rest of the instruments.
3. Connect Controlling Instrument: Connect the controlling instrument to the ”one to many” plug (the right spider input) on the spider tool.
4. Connect Outputs: Connect each output to the sidechain tool input for all instruments you need sidechaining for.
5. Change Audio Pump Setting: Change ”audio pump” to ”trigger” or ”sidechain” so it listens to signals from the drum machine (depending on how you need the sidechain device to act).
6. Adjust the Sound: Fine-tune the settings to give the drums more space and clarity in the mix!

Method 3 (redrum, ”I want the bassdrum only sidechain”, advanced stuff-kind-of)

By linking a single channel from a redrum device directly to the sidechain input, will make the output sound ”muted” for that channel since there is only one way to send that sound. This makes sure that we will keep hearing it, even if it is isolated to the sidechain device.

1. Create Sidechain Tool: Add the sidechain tool for the instrument(s) you need to sidechain.
2. Create First Spider Splitter: Create a spider splitter for the controlling instrument. This will send signals to several output devices.
3. Create Second Spider Splitter: Create a second spider splitter for the controlling instrument, which can link the main audio output of the Redrum device.
4. Link Main Audio Output: Link the main audio output to the second spider splitter input (left side).
5. Link Redrum Channel: Link the Redrum channel to the first spider splitter, left side (”many to one”).
6. Connect First Spider to Sidechain: Link the first spider splitter channel to the sidechain input.
7. Link Splitters Together: Make sure the first spider splitter channel is linked to the second splitter (this will send the isolated channel back to the second splitter).
8. Link Second Splitter to Redrum: Link the second splitter back to the Redrum master input. The Redrum device will now output both the first bass drum channel and the rest of them, while the bass drum channel is also broadcasted to the sidechain input.
9. Adjust Audio: Use the last steps for adjusting audio from the other examples to fine-tune the sound, giving the drums more space to be heard!

Having more than three instruments that needs sidechaining? Create a series of spiders, that connects to each other.

Other methdods?

There is another methods to sidechain, using the audio compressor as an output device to sidechains, since Redrum wasn’t able to sidechain in Reason 12. This method is no longer required in Reason 13.