Mixing guide
Sidechain for Lofi House
Lofi house lives on a four-on-the-floor kick and a warm bassline – and both want the same low end. Here is how to give each its space without the obvious pump.
Why kick and bass clash
Lofi house runs on a four-on-the-floor kick and a warm, rounded bassline. Both put most of their energy into the lowest octaves of the mix. When they play at the same moment, they add up: the low end gets boomy, the kick loses its punch and the bass turns into a blur.
Turning the bass down overall is not the answer; it just makes the track thin between the kicks. What you want is for the bass to step aside only while the kick is sounding.
Two ways to duck
Volume ducking is the classic approach: a compressor with a sidechain input, or a volume shaper triggered by the kick, turns the whole bass down on every hit. You hear it as a rhythmic pump. In many house styles that pump is part of the groove – if you want it, use it on purpose.
Spectral ducking splits the signal into frequency bands and turns down only the bands where the kick sits on top of the bass. The upper harmonics of the bass keep playing, so the bassline stays audible and the effect is much harder to hear as an effect. That suits the soft, rounded side of lofi house.
Volume ducking the whole bass drops on every kick
Spectral ducking only the bands that clash step aside
DELTA the slice spectral ducking removes
Step by step with Easy Sidechain
- Route the kick. Put Easy Sidechain on the bass track and send the kick to the plugin’s sidechain input. The sidechain lamp shows whether the trigger arrives – a missing route is the most common reason sidechaining “does nothing”.
- Pick a starting point. Load the factory preset Kick / Bass, or play the busiest part of the track and let LEARN suggest a setting: gentle, medium or strong.
- Listen to what is removed. Switch on DELTA to hear only the part of the bass that is being taken out. If you hear the body of the bass rather than the overlap with the kick, back off.
- Compare at matched loudness. Toggle the plugin on and off and judge the low end, not the volume. The kick should get clearer while the bassline still feels continuous.
Beyond kick and bass
The same idea works elsewhere in a lofi house mix: a snare can open up the mids of a chord stack, a vocal can push pads aside just where they compete, and an 808 can duck against a kick with a long tail. Easy Sidechain ships presets for these pairings, and its clean-up presets also work on a single track without any sidechain input.
Common mistakes
- No signal on the sidechain. Check the routing first: depending on your DAW you select the kick as sidechain source in the plugin header or route a send from the kick to the sidechain input.
- Too much ducking. If the bass disappears under every kick, the groove loses its weight. Start subtle and increase only until the kick reads clearly.
- Ducking everything against the kick. Sidechain the parts that actually compete with it. Pads and keys in the mids rarely need it.
- Judging louder as better. A version that is a little louder always sounds “better” at first. Match levels before you decide.
Check the master
Spotify and YouTube turn loud tracks down to about −14 LUFS by default. Aim for roughly −14 to −11 LUFS integrated and a true peak of −1 dBTP or lower – a free meter such as Youlean Loudness Meter 2 shows both. More tools for every step are on our lofi plugins page.
Our plugin
Easy Sidechain
€39 · 7-day free trial
Spectral sidechain ducking: your kick hits and the bass makes room, but only in the frequencies the kick needs. The rest of the bass keeps its body – no pumping, no hole in the low end.
- Compares both signals in 40 frequency bands and lowers your track only where the trigger sits on top of it
- LEARN suggests a starting point: gentle, medium or strong
- DELTA lets you hear only what is being removed
- 20 factory presets for kick and bass, 808s, vocals and pads
- Windows and macOS · VST3 and Audio Unit · one licence for three computers