Perfect kick & sub sidechaining tip with LFO Tool!

Just incase you haven’t used the volume slider inversely on LFO Tool before there is a way to use it so your kick and sub won’t ever fight.

  1. First you need to load up LFO Tool on your kick. The first thing I do whilst playing the kick is use the nodes to find and let through the punchy part (and only the punchy part) of the kick. Then leave that node there as this ensures anything you do after it will not affect the punch of your kick

  2. Next, using more nodes shape the rest of the kick to how you want it to sound in the track. Enough punch and weight and to the desired length (I’ve cut mine off after an 8th as LFO Tool is running at a quarter note rate)

  3. Next, once you’re happy with the kick, copy that exact instance of LFO Tool over to your sub and slide the volume slider all the way to the left. Now you have an envelope of the exact inverse of your kick ducking the sub so the two never get in the way of each other and you have a solid low end to your track.

  4. Just for the purpose of this I have used a sustained sine sub peaking and sustaining at -10 where both the kick and sub fader are set. The kick also peaks at -10 and if you look at the master output, it’s -10 too with them both playing at the same time. If you don’t like the feel of that constant low end for whatever reason though, simply adjust the curve on the Subs LFO Tool envelope until you find something you like.

https://soundcloud.com/martin-waite-130034763/lfo-tool-sidechaining/s-IVNbM

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Nice tip - thanks!

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You’re welcome :slight_smile: