I'm getting closer! Thanks for your help Ze MigL... I've done what you said and I can visibly see the compressor's gain reductions going up and down with each kick and I think my untrained ear can hear a slight dip in the bass when the kick hits (maybe its psychological!?)... I can certainly hear big differences when I bypass the compressor. I notice that the more kick I send through the send, the more compressed the bassline is, i assume this is because the signal is stronger through the side chain, is that right? however, how do I record all this back into cubase? At the moment I'm going straight from the compressor into audio input 2 on my soundcard to monitor in cubase, but when I record it only records the bassline, no kick. Thanks again ZeMIgL, you're a legend!