Generally, a fast attack will work well for this technique, while the release depends on what you’re trying to achieve. You’ll want to adjust the compressor’s parameters to taste depending on how much you want to duck the bass every time the kick plays. Now, set the key (sidechain) input on the compressor to the Kick Sidechain bus.ĭone correctly, the compressor should be receiving its input signal from the kick drum, while compressing only the bass track. Route the output of the kick track to the input of the Kick Sidechain. In Pro Tools, create a mono aux input, call it something obvious like “Kick Sidechain,” and choose an unused bus as its input. Depending on your DAW, you may have to create an auxiliary bus to do this. Next, you’ll need to set the sidechain input on the compressor. In this case, you’ll put the compressor on the bass track. This will depend on what you’re trying to achieve, but for now we’ll stick to the kick drum/bass technique for the sake of simplicity. The next step is to add the compressor the channel you want to compress.

Of course, other DAWs like Ableton, FL Studio, and Cubase also come with stock compressors featuring a sidechain. The stock Pro Tools and Logic Pro X compressors earlier both include a sidechain input. You’ll first need a compressor that supports sidechaining. It varies from plugin to plugin, but the idea is the same. It’s very useful for creating space in a mix by ducking other elements, or to add rhythm and excitement to a track. For instance, if you place a compressor on the bass guitar and “sidechain” or “key” its input to the kick drum, the compressor will only work on the bass each time the kick drum hits. Sidechain compression is an intermediate level mixing technique that allows you to set an alternate input signal source from the track on which the compressor is inserted.

Best logic pro plugins for sidechaining