I have no idea what it is. Well I have an idea but not a very good one. Can someone explain to me in layman's terms what sidechaining is?

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Sidechaining is when you use the output level of a signal to alter something on another signal.

For example, you could use a clap to trigger a compressor on a pad, so when the clap goes off, it triggers the gain reduction on the pad.

Another way to find out about sidechaining, would to be to use the search function......

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Ok so when one element does something, it triggers something else? Okay, that sounds simple enough. Thanks.

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Often it's used to set the level of one element of the song according to the level of the kick, i.e. when the kick hits, then the other element decreases in volume temporarily.

This particular type of sidechaining is overused to a ludicrous extent, which is why you see thousands of mediocre prog and trance tracks with most of their elements pumping in and out along with the kick. This is done partly as a way to copy the top-selling stuff and partly as a way to get everything stupidly loud. If you don't want your tracks to sound like part of a cliched trend akin to the heavy gated snares and ultra-reverbed vocals of 1980s rock, it would be best to use this technique sparingly.

I limit sidechain to white noise sweeps and pads in the background , and a JBJ says some tunes take it to ridiculous levels.It seems some songs sidechain the master bus and it sounds awful.

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In a few words, sidechain compression is an invisible hand on volume control of the selected tracks. Say you have a lead which has to come infront of a relatively noisy pad, and even after you EQ them, you'd still want some audible difference in their levels, there's your sidechain at its best.
Of course the sheep like oompa-oompa-oompa kick/bass relationship is the most clear sidechain demonstration, but there's a lot more ways to put sidechain to good use.

This video will answer all your questions about compression and sidechaining. It cleared it all up for me: http://downloads.ableton.com/movies...idechaining.mov

Its when a Pad stops playing whenever the Kick gets in.

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plur.

Jivebojingles and acton actually made good comments IMO. Its very overused and can be technically defined as modulating some parameter using the amplitude of a signal.

So you might modulate the time of a reverb based on the amplitude of a certain sound. Or a specific frequency of a certain sound.

Its fairly powerful stuff, the usual application is for ducking a certain signal using the output of another signal.

noicuc, don't speak until you actually know what you're talking about.

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