What is Sidechaining?
Everyone who’s into producing electronic dance music should be familiar with the concept of sidechaining - or sidechain compression - where an audio signal is used as a trigger for an effect on a second audio signal. Typically, its applied on pads or basslines. We’re ducking the bass or the pad whenever we’re playing a kick sample.
In Ableton Live we can do the following:
- Create 2 audio tracks
- Place a kick sample on the first track
- Place a bass pattern on the second track
- Drag an instance of compressor onto the second track
- Click the "open up“ arrow an select "sidechain“
- Select the audio track of your kick as input from the dropdown menu below „audio from“
- Change "ratio“ (up) and "threshold“ (down) to apply the effect on your audio