> What started out as a rare mix technique designed to add glue between specific sounds has become, without question, the most popular audible compression technique ever, and much like extreme pitch correction, is often overused. That said, things have clearly moved on from the early days, and applied with care, the process can add life and energy to your tracks without killing the dynamics.
But what exactly do we mean by the term sidechain compression? In fact, all compression actually uses a sidechain, it’s just that it normally comes from a split of the compressor input signal itself, and this is why the compressor reacts to the input. However, if we can use an external signal of our choice to instigate the compression, then it opens up a whole world of creative opportunities as the compressor will apply the dynamics of the external signal to its own input.