Sonic Academy SideKick

Fix Your Kick-Bass Clash for Free

If your kick disappears when the bass comes in — or your bass vanishes when the kick hits — you don’t need new samples. You need sidechain ducking. Sonic Academy SideKick is a free volume shaper and spectral ducking plugin built exactly for this: carve space for the kick with a drawable envelope, or let spectral ducking surgically remove only the clashing frequencies.

Draw It Like You Hear It

SideKick’s whole idea: instead of tweaking compressor knobs and hoping, you draw the ducking envelope with your mouse. See the pump, shape the pump, hear the pump. Triggered by your kick through the sidechain input, it gives you that pumping, breathing low end that makes dance music move — dialled in visually in seconds.

Why Spectral Ducking Beats Normal Ducking

A normal sidechain compressor turns the entire bass down on every kick hit — including frequencies that weren’t clashing at all. That’s why over-ducked mixes sound thin and weak. SideKick’s spectral mode analyses both signals and only ducks the overlapping frequencies. The kick cuts through, the bass stays fat. It’s the kind of difference you hear instantly on big speakers.

Built for Real Sessions

This isn’t a toy freebie: ring modulation for creative rhythmic effects, delta monitoring to hear exactly what’s being ducked, Mid/Side processing to protect your stereo width, a sidechain trigger filter for tight detection, waveform displays, and more than 100 presets covering house, techno, drum & bass, trap and beyond. AU, VST3 and AAX on Mac — please note this version is Mac only.

Free in our free plugins section. License key and downloads delivered by email after checkout.

(Specifications: drawable sidechain-triggered envelope; spectral ducking; ring modulation; delta monitoring; Mid/Side; trigger filter; waveform displays; 100+ presets; AU/VST3/AAX; macOS only.)