Sidechain compression with Buzz, take 2
Kibibu helpfully pointed out that Fuzzpilz Oppressor is a much easier sidechain machine than BG Sidechain Dynamics. He is right, so here’s a revised tutorial. If you still want to use BG Sidechain, that tutorial is still available.
If you don’t have Oppressor 3, you need to get it from Fuzzpilz’s site. Our scenario is the same as last time: we have a kick drum and a bass line; we want the bass line volume to duck in time with the kick drum.
1. Add an Oppressor 3 machine to your song. Run both your kick and bass through it.
2. Right-click the dropp machine and pick “Manage Inputs.”
4. Click on “kick” and press the “Level” button. Then click on “bass” and press the “Signal” button.
5. Start playing your tracks. Open up dropp and adjust the compressor settings to get the sound you want.
6. Finally, route your kick in to Master so you can hear it as well.
There you go. Just one machine, and no need to fiddle with the gate if you’re not going to use it. On the other hand, Oppressor has more complicated parameters than BG Sidechain, and you might prefer BG’s sound. It’s nice to have both options.
Want to know a secret? I mostly use neither; I use Slim Slow Slider Sidechain VST. Don’t tell anyone, or I might lose my secret Buzz decoder ring.