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7. Cleaning up send effects with sidechain compression in Cubase

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Reverb and delay effects sound great, but they can also clog up a mix and prevent your beats from having as much impact as they should. Let’s see how we can use sidechain compression to alleviate this problem in Cubase. Load Pluck.wav and Kick.wav onto separate audio tracks. 2

Right-click the track to add an effect, or navigate to the Inserts effects rack. Set the effect to REVerance from the Reverb folder. Click the Browse slot at the top of REVerance’s interface to bring up the list of available presets, and select Far Away. 3

Click the Pluck track, then click Sends in the Inspector. Click the triangle in the first slot and a list of possible destinations will appear. Select FX4, then click the power button to activate the routing. This reverb sounds impressive, but it gets in the way of the kick. (Audio: Reverb.wav) 4

Click on the FX track, and add a Compressor from the Dynamics menu to the Inserts strip. Click the Activate Side-Chain button at the top centre of the interface, then select the Kick track and bring up its Sends strip. 5

Click the triangle on the first slot in the strip and this time select Side-Chains»FX 1» Ins. 2 – Compressor. Click the power button to activate the routing. Now the kick drum is feeding the sidechain on the reverb send, and the kick punches through the mix more. (Audio: Sidechain reverb.wav) 6

The reverb’s lows are still detracting from the kick a little, so let’s subdue them with some EQ. On the FX track’s insert chain, add StudioEQ from the EQ folder, then click Band 1’s power button, turn its Gain down to -20dB and set its Freq(uency) to 560Hz. This gives us a much cleaner sound. (Audio: EQed reverb.wav)