# Suno — Sidechaining Makes Your Music Pump

- Company: Suno (suno.com)
- Announced: 2026-10-15T15:00:00+00:00
- Category: not stated
- Coverage: not counted
- Announcement: no
- Group: routine
- Source: https://suno.com/blog/about-sidechaining
- Record: https://forck.live/items/30549-sidechaining-makes-your-music-pump
- Subject: Music / Studio

Suno's guide explains sidechaining, the technique of using one signal's level to control another, and how to set it up in Suno Studio's browser-based compressor. Sidechaining dates back to early radio and film sound, where compressors were strapped to an announcer's mic output and fed a filtered copy of the same signal to trigger gain reduction only during sibilance. That practice, known as de-essing, later gave way to ducking, which lowers background music whenever a presenter speaks and is still used in radio stations today. Sidechain compression later came to define dance music, notably the French touch sound of Roulé records, Alan Braxe and early Daft Punk in the 90s and 2000s. Suno says Studio's compressor can sidechain like legacy DAWs such as Ableton Live, Logic Pro and Pro Tools, which it calls a huge deal for a browser-based tool. The walkthrough starts with a drum loop with a pronounced kick, adds a sustaining harmonic track, then selects the drum track under Sidechain and lowers the threshold until the drums audibly change the harmonic level. Producers can then tweak attack, release and ratio, and Suno suggests combining ghost triggers with audible tracks and multiple compressors on one track.

## Evidence

Verbatim from https://suno.com/blog/about-sidechaining:

> Sidechaining is one of the buzzwords you’ll hear a lot in music production circles. It is the process of using one signal’s amplitude (or level) to affect the level of another signal. Despite its relevance in popular music production, it’s actually one of the oldest audio tricks in the book.
> 
> From humble beginnings, a production staple
> 
> Sidechaining dates back to early radio broadcasting and film sound at the beginning of the 20th century. Early compressors would be strapped to the output of an announcer's mic, and fed a secondary, high-pass-filtered version of the same signal. This 'side' chain would trigger the compressor so that it would only apply gain-reduction during moments of sibilance: those F, S and Shh sounds that tend to dominate vocal recordings. This practice is known as de-essing and there are dozens of plugins and hardware units dedicated to performing this task alone.
> 
> As radio broadcasting became mainstream, the desire to be able to automatically ride the levels of a speaking voice (the radio announcer) over background music became commonplace.

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Record: https://forck.live/items/30549-sidechaining-makes-your-music-pump
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