Hi,
I’ve just used Retrologue 2 in sidechain mode for the first time over the last two days. So far I’m not impressed, but I’m willing to work with it a little more. Primarily, the problem seems to be that the signal level through the device is heavily attenuated. Do you notice that?
I’m pretty sure there’s no routing errors in my set-up and my other plug-ins used in sidechain mode seem to operate correctly.
To get the LFO’s to respond, per the documentation, which is very thin on details and may itself contain errors, you need to use the routing Matrix and under Osc as your destination, use “audio input.” (see screen shot)
So far, I’m not impressed with this aspect of Retro2. I really like the instrument, but the sidechain concept is, so far, not as good as I’d hoped. It sounds like the original sound is being put though a cheap pre-amp. I’ve gotten some interesting sounds by switching off the Oscillators and just using the LFOs with distortion on sustained sounds. So far, I’ve not found anything really impressive when a drum loop is sent to it.
Remember that you have to play or playback midi notes on the R2 Track in order to hear the side chain input signal. With distortion and effects and some other routings I was able to create some potentially usable sounds. However, the net result was not something that couldn’t have been created in other ways, and, I think, more effective ways. Maybe I just need to work more with it. It probably can create some unique sounds.
The Primary issue, as I mentioned, is that the signal entering the sidechain input sounds very weak and attenuated. I’ve tried routing signal to R2 as a Send and directly routing a track to the sidechain input. Unless I really boost the input and add lots of distortion, there’s just not much output there. Even if I slam the input with the source track. So, for me, this is, so far, a disappointing feature of an otherwise great instrument.
I’d like to hear what other users think of about R2’s Sidechain features.
Thanks.