sidechaining

can some one please explain side chaining 2 me and how i would go about doin it in say cubase sx etc

This has been covered many times in this forum...
Basically u use one sound 2 make another duck!

so for instance u can have a kick drum make a bassline dropback it volume a little everytime u have a kick drum... if donne right u get sort a groove/ pumping feeling in yer Bassline and also u can get a more punchy/ "transparent" kick that wil cut thru the mix like a charm while at the same time having a loud bass without one cuting of fighting with the other for sonic space!

Z

in addition to using one instrument to trigger the compressor of another, you can run a mix through the compressor, and stick an eq in the sidechain, allowing you to compress the whole mix based on the frequency content. for example, buy cutting the bass on the sidechain eq, you make the compressor respond more strongly to high end transients, but respond less strongly to low end transients. good for keeping the high end from jumping out every time the bass drops out, which can happen when you use too much compression.

Or you could use multiband compression

true enough. i've been playing with the demo of the Waves Linear Phase Multi-band compressor from the Masters Bundle, and i have to admit, it does that job better than my hardware compressors.