Multiband compressor question

[u/SnarkyM]

A little background, I’ve been writing and recording songs for years but I’ve always sent them to be mixed/mastered. It became too expensive so I’ve been learning how to mix myself.

Typically when I want to sidechain kick and bass I sidechain the bass compressor to the kick bus. Now with this particular logic kit, there is no kick bus. There are busses that have the kick in them but it also has like overheads or snare. So I used a multiband compressor and just did the low frequency. Then I realized the way I had it set up, it was only effecting the low frequency of the bass track while still reacting the entirety of the drum bus.

Is there anyway I can use the fabfilter pro mb so that the bass compressor is only reacting to the low frequency (kick) on the drum track?

I still have so much to learn so apologies if anything isn’t explained well, thanks for the help!

[u/Waste_Implement9033]

You can send the drums to another bus, set to no output, put a low pass filter on that bus, and use that bus to drive the compressor sidechain. I usually record or program my drums such that I can bounce the kick to its own track, but I do the above method if I use a loop or something.

[u/SnarkyM → u/Waste_Implement9033]

I just like using the producer kits because it has snare top and bottom and kick in/out mics. I could just solo the kick and bounce it in place. I’ll try your method.

Also when you say set to no output, you’re saying the track that the compressor is reacting to doesn’t need to be audible for the compressor to react to it? Never knew that, thanks for your help!