Most commonly associated with the kick-driven, audible pumping effect that’s become popular in club music, sidechain compression can be a very useful tool that adds energy and space to individual sounds, submixes and mixes while keeping things punchy. It can be used in many different ways and so we’ll be splitting the topic across more than one tutorial.
From a technical perspective, sidechain compression typically means the use of an external input to control the compressor, and this can be a sound that’s part of the mix or a specially created key. Sidechaining has its roots in analogue processing and a small number of hardware compressors that incorporate an external sidechain input.
