Kickstart 2 VST: Instant Pro Sidechaining by Nicky Romero and Cableguys

Sidechain compression is one of those production techniques that separates amateur mixes from professional ones. That pumping feeling when the bass ducks out of the way of the kick drum is the heartbeat of modern electronic music. Traditionally, getting this effect meant placing a compressor on your bass channel, routing the kick signal into its sidechain input, and tweaking attack, release, threshold and ratio until it grooved right. Nicky Romero Kickstart 2, built in collaboration with the plugin developers Cableguys, throws that whole complicated process out of the window and replaces it with something almost unbelievably simple.

Kickstart 2 is a volume shaping plugin that creates the sidechain ducking effect without any compressor at all. Instead of reacting to an incoming signal, it applies a precisely drawn volume curve that stays synced to your project tempo. You drop the plugin onto any track, pick one of sixteen hand crafted curves, and the volume automatically dips in perfect time with your kick drum. The result is that classic pumping sound, with the bass making room for every kick hit, exactly like a perfectly tuned sidechain compressor would deliver, but achieved in seconds rather than minutes.

The biggest reason producers reach for Kickstart 2 instead of sidechaining the manual way is speed. Setting up a real sidechain involves routing, gain staging and careful parameter tweaking, and even then you often end up fighting the compressor to get the groove sitting right. With Kickstart 2 there is no routing and no threshold to chase. The large Mix knob controls how strong the ducking effect is, so you can dial it from subtle breathing all the way to aggressive pumping with a single movement. Because the curve is drawn rather than detected, the timing is rock solid every single time, with none of the inconsistency that can come from a compressor reacting differently to each kick hit.

Version 2 added several features that take the plugin well beyond a simple one trick tool. If your kick pattern is not a straight four on the floor groove, the audio triggering mode lets Kickstart 2 listen to your actual kick drum and follow its rhythm, so it works for trap, hip hop, drum and bass and any other style with broken or syncopated beats. You can also trigger the effect through MIDI for complete custom control over the pattern. The multiband split is a favorite among mix engineers. It ducks only the low frequencies of your bass while letting the mids and highs pass through untouched, which gives you a tight locked in low end without the obvious pumping that full range ducking can cause. A visual kick view shows the kick and bass waveforms together on one display, and the movable slope lets you drag the curve to fit kicks of any length, long or short.

While Kickstart 2 was born in the world of EDM and big room house, where that pumping sidechain sound is practically a genre requirement, it has found its way into far more styles than you might expect. Hip hop producers use it to glue 808s to their kicks. Techno artists use it for subtle rhythmic movement. Pop mixers use the gentler curves to create space without anyone noticing an effect is even there. Beyond mixing duties, it is also a creative tool. Pushing the mix knob hard on pads, vocals or full loops creates dramatic rhythmic gating effects that can easily become the hook of a track.

On the technical side, Kickstart 2 is refreshingly light. It runs as VST, VST3, AU and AAX on both Windows and Mac, including native Apple Silicon support, so it slots into virtually any DAW from FL Studio and Ableton Live to Logic Pro and Pro Tools. The interface is resizable, the CPU load stays minimal even with multiple instances running, and copy protection is handled with a simple key file, so there is no dongle and no always online activation to worry about. A free demo is available so you can try it inside your own sessions before spending anything, and at around sixteen dollars it ranks among the most affordable professional plugins you can own.

If you make electronic music of any kind and you have ever struggled to get your kick and bass sitting together, Kickstart 2 is close to a must have. It feels equally at home in the toolkit of a beginner who wants instant professional results and a seasoned mixer who would rather skip tedious routing and get straight to creative decisions. For the price of a couple of coffees, it solves one of the most common mixing problems in modern production, and it does so faster than anything else out there.

What's inside

• 16 hand crafted sidechain curves designed together with Nicky Romero
• Large Mix knob for instant control over ducking strength
• MIDI triggering plus audio triggering that follows any kick pattern
• Multiband split for bass only invisible ducking
• Visual kick view with movable slope to fit kicks of any length
• Resizable interface with VST, VST3, AU and AAX formats and Apple Silicon support

Best for

EDM, house, trap and hip hop producers who want fast professional sidechaining without complex compressor routing, and mix engineers who need precise separation between kick and bass.