Taking it further, you can move on to the envelope and noise gate to further refine the way the compressor works.Īs a side note, you may want to learn what all of the parameters do on a compressor/limiter. Next, you'll need to raise the ratio to anything higher than 1.5. To set up the sidechain to make a pumping sound, lower the threshold to anywhere below -30dB. Then, depending on the mixer track of the sound you are using to trigger the compressor, select it on the sidechain input option. You can either use 'sidechain to this track', which will keep the sound audible or 'sidechain to this track only' which will silence the triggering sound but will still activate the compressor whenever it is present.

Then, go over to the mixer track of the source you want to use to trigger the compressor and route it over to the track you want to duck in volume.ĭepending on whether or not you want the triggering sound to be heard, such as using a Ghost Kick, you can take two approaches to this.Ī Ghost Kick is just a kick drum that is not sent to the master (i.e. Go to the mixer track of the sound you want to lower in volume and apply a compressor onto that. The first way is by using a compressor and is the most versatile way to sidechain sounds with different lengths, not to mention it's automated. Now, let's get into 3 of the many ways you can be applying sidechain compression throughout your mix. This can be as short as a kick drum or as long as a phrase in your vocals, but really, there's no limit to this. What it does is it will compress one sound whenever another one is present. What is Sidechaining / Sidechain Compression?įirst of all, sidechaining is more professionally known as sidechain compression as its true way of doing this is through a compressor. If you're wondering what sidechaining is and how to use this mixing technique on drums, vocals, and other sounds, this tutorial will show you why using sidechain compression can clear up your mix and even create a pumping sound.

With sidechain compression, you can make your leading elements stand out while ducking the volume of other sounds that are played at the same time.

Learn how to sidechain in FL Studio 20 with this sidechaining tutorial.

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