Nicky Romero/Cableguys Kickstart 2 €14

If you want pumping sidechain effects, a dedicated plugin is a must and this one's just had a tasty update

Designed by Nicky Romero and developed in collaboration with Cableguys, Kickstart 2 (AU, VST, VST3, AAX) is the latest version of this excellent ducking effect. The plugin helps you create sidechain compression effects and is quicker and more precise than setting up a compressor. It's great for creating space for your kick drum, but is also ideal for adding movement to all manner of sounds, and is not limited to electronic music.

At the heart of this concept is a tempo synced gain curve with a choice of 16 shapes and overall ducking strength (Mix). The curves are broadly grouped by tasks, including typical sidechaining, kick trimming, sub bass sidechaining and so on, and can be modified to some degree (see Editing Curves). The processed signal waveform is visible via a background oscilloscope and this updates to reflect the current envelope settings.

The core process offers four sync lengths (1, 14,12 and 1/1), and is joined by MIDI triggering, and new for Kickstart 2, external audio sidechaining. These three modes (Sync, MIDI and Audio) are selected in the top bar. Further new features include Band split (20Hz to 5.12kHz) for frequency selective processing and also the rather handy kick view. This adds the sidechain input signal to the oscilloscope view, so you can visualise them together.

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