5 Minutes To A Better Mix II: Sidechain Compression - Part 19 of 31

Are your guitars (or anything) fighting your lead vocal? It’s a common problem, one that can be remedied with things like EQ and volume automation. But if that’s not enough, sometimes you can setup a compressor to turn down the guitars only when the vocal is singing.

The Magic Of Sidechaining

With a sidechain and a key input, you can tell a compressor to “look” to another track for when to flip on or off. In this example we want the vocal to dictate when a compressor should turn down some guitars. It’s simple, it’s powerful, it’s helpful. Let’s take a look.