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Sidechaining and bouncing

22. The common dance trick is to create a mix group containing practically everything but the kick drum, then compress that group with a sidechain compressor, using the kick drum as the sidechain input. This causes the music to 'pump' in time with the beat. You can do this subtly, or in an obvious, over-the-top fashion. Other similar applications include 'ducking' the bass guitar with the kick drum to tighten up the bottom-end, and using the vocal to duck the rhythm guitars or keyboards a little so they stand out in the right places.

23. Sidechaining isn't just for compression. You can use a synth note or drum sound to trigger a sidechain-equipped gate and create chopping patterns. This is great for giving your track a Mylo-style edited feel, chopping up a string pattern for excitement or just generally playing around - try putting the gate on a variety of signals.

24. Make sure you don't push your output signal into the red when you're bouncing your finished mix, unless you specifically want to. If you do, it will probably cause unpleasant distortion and also cause your signal to be squashed, reducing the dynamic range and making things harder for any subsequent mastering that might be done.

25. You can use a sidechain-equipped gate to pull the timing of layered parts together, for instance, backing vocals. For example, if you have two parts that aren't completely tight together, run them both to a bus, insert a gate and then use the better timed version to trigger the sidechain of a gate, so that the gate only opens when it plays, making the two sound in time.

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