Sonic Academy SideKick

Description

Pro-Level Sidechain, Zero Euros

Clean low end is what makes a mix sound expensive — and it’s mostly just good sidechain ducking. Sonic Academy SideKick gives you two ways to get it, free: classic volume shaping with a drawable envelope, and spectral ducking that only touches the frequencies fighting your kick. Either way, the kick punches and the bass stays huge.

The Envelope Is the Interface

SideKick’s drawable envelope is the whole workflow. Trigger it from your kick via sidechain, then draw exactly how deep and how long each duck lasts. Long smooth swells, tight pumping, rhythmic chops — if you can draw it, you can hear it. No threshold, no ratio, no guessing.

Surgical Mode: Spectral Ducking

When volume shaping is too blunt, switch to spectral ducking. SideKick compares the kick and the bass in real time and attenuates only the frequency bands where they collide. Nothing else moves. The result keeps all the weight of your bass while the kick sits perfectly on top — the polished low end you hear on released records.

Creative Muscle Included

Don’t sleep on the extras: ring modulation mode for textured rhythmic effects, delta monitoring to audition exactly what’s being removed, Mid/Side processing for stereo-safe ducking, a trigger filter to clean up sidechain detection, waveform displays, and 100+ genre-ready presets. AU, VST3 and AAX on macOS (Mac only).

Free download from our free plugins section. Your license key and download links arrive by email after checkout.