Ableton Forum

hi,

i'm trying to use the sonalksis compressor to sidechain
it doesnt have a simple option like the albeton compressor so i have to route the audio to it

the only way i seem to get it going is if i use the send to on my kick channel, it causes the compressor to pump but i cant hear my kick! also i'm using batter so the kick is a seperate channel from that too

any advice would be greatly appreciated!

There might be an easier way to do this, but one option would be:

turn up the send level to full on an empty send on the kick channel
send the audio from the return channel to the channel you have the sidechain compressor on.

That way you get to hear your original kick channel, but it also drives the sidechain.

that did the trick nicely, thanks!

turns out it didnt affect it for some reason despite the return track recognising the compressor in the little drop down bit

is there another way to do this?

tbh, I always set up a separate track as my sidechain source and mute it, keeping my actual kick free of any extraneous routing and audible.

The 'SC' track could be a duplicate of your kick track, though I guess not advisable CPU wise with battery, or just a basic Impulse with a sample in it.

This has the advantage that I can keep the compressor pumping if I want to even if the actual kick has stopped playing. Nice on reverb tails and the like. It also means I can control the pump of the compressor independent of the actual kick sample being triggered, which is sometimes a benefit if your actualy kick has characterstics that make it difficult to use as a sidechain source.

Works for me anyway.

btw, another popular method for better control is top ditch the sidechain altogether and just use a volume envelope on the tracks you want to duck. nice control, very precise and no fiddling with attacks and releases.

thanks,

it's not a 4x4 beat and i'm still tweaking the drums, however think i will just bounce down the kick and have it on mute

Did you have the track with the SC compressor set to monitor on?

Bouncing/resampling the kick and having on a seperate track sending audio to the SC comp'd track would make more sense as it'll still drive the comp when the drum is not present in the track at any point.