PUMPIT

Three trigger modes, ten curves, and multiband ducking — free.

Free

Pumpit is a free sidechain volume shaper by Remi Blaze that fires a precise, pre-drawn envelope curve on every kick hit, MIDI note, or tempo division — no compressor hunting, no gain-reduction variance, just a consistent pump every time. Three trigger modes, ten curve shapes, a 32-point custom editor, multiband ducking, and a 5ms lookahead that ensures the duck is always perfectly timed to your transient.

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AU AUv3 VST3 CLAP Standalone macOS

WHAT IT DOES

  • Three trigger modes — Auto fires a tempo-synced envelope on a 1/1, 1/2, 1/4, or 1/8 division; Sidechain detects transients from your kick or any sidechain input; MIDI fires the envelope on a specific note-on event so you can sequence the duck pattern exactly in your piano roll.
  • Ten curve shapes + custom editor — Choose from Smooth, Punchy, Hard, Slow, Long Tail, Half Sine, Log, Exponential, Linear, or draw your own duck shape with 32 drag-editable control points using a Catmull-Rom spline editor.
  • Multiband ducking — An adjustable crossover splits the signal so only the low band ducks while the high band passes through untouched — bass and sub pump while the top end and high-frequency transients stay at full level.
  • 5ms lookahead — The main audio path is delayed 5ms while the sidechain runs undelayed, so the gain reduction is applied before the transient hits your speakers. Pumpit reports this latency to your DAW for automatic PDC compensation.
  • Stereo offset — Delays the right channel envelope up to 20ms behind the left, creating Haas-effect width on the duck itself so the pump has spatial movement rather than a flat mono volume dip.

WHY PUMPIT?

Sidechain compression is the defining sound of tech house, house, and electronic music — the way the bass and pads breathe around the kick is what creates groove at a physical level. A sidechain compressor works, but it reacts to the kick's level, so any variation in the kick's velocity or the mix's headroom changes the pump amount. Pumpit fires a fixed envelope curve instead. The kick triggers the duck, but the curve shape is always exactly what you drew — Punchy, Hard, Long Tail, or your own 32-point spline. The pump is consistent on every hit, on every track, at any tempo.

The three trigger modes give Pumpit range beyond a standard sidechain tool. Auto mode means you don't even need a sidechain input — it locks to the DAW tempo and fires at the rate you set, perfect for situations where routing a sidechain bus is inconvenient. MIDI mode lets you sequence the duck pattern as MIDI notes so you can create off-grid, polyrhythmic, or syncopated pumps that no compressor could produce. And the multiband crossover means you can duck the low end without touching the highs — something that's particularly useful on a full mix bus where the high-frequency transient energy needs to stay sharp.

Remi Blaze built Pumpit to be the sidechain tool that every producer needs and that should always be free. Tech house and deep house producers will use it on basses, pads, and full mix buses for 4/4 pump. Experimental and leftfield producers will reach for the Custom curve editor and MIDI mode to create envelope shapes that don't follow the standard decay arc. DJs playing live will use the Stereo Offset and Auto mode to add movement to a mix. At zero cost with no registration required, it's the first free tool in the suite and the one that gets shared everywhere.

HOW TO USE PUMPIT

How to set up sidechain pumping for a tech house track

  1. Load Pumpit on the bass, pad, or mix bus you want to duck.
  2. In your DAW, route the kick drum track as the sidechain input to Pumpit. Enable SC Listen briefly to confirm Pumpit is hearing the kick — you'll hear the HP-filtered kick in the output.
  3. Set Trigger Mode to Sidechain. Select the Punchy curve — it ducks fast with a cubic tail that sounds natural at 4/4 tempos. Set Amount to 75–90%.
  4. Set Hold to 15–20% to sustain the full duck before the release curve starts, widening the groove feel.
  5. Use the Offset knob to nudge the envelope phase if the pump feels early or late relative to the kick. Enable Auto Gain for a volume-neutral comparison with bypass.
Pro tip: Load the Tech House Standard preset as a starting point — it's tuned for exactly this workflow. Adjust Amount and Hold from there rather than starting from scratch.

How to use multiband ducking on a full mix bus

  1. Load Pumpit on your mix bus or the last insert before your limiter.
  2. Set Trigger Mode to Auto, Rate to 1/4, and select the Smooth curve for a gentle, musical pump on the mix.
  3. Enable Multiband. Set the Crossover to 200–300 Hz — below this, the low band ducks; above it, the high band passes through.
  4. Set Amount to 40–60%. The sub and bass pump around the kick while the hi-hats, snare transients, and high-frequency energy stay at full level.
  5. Use the Mix knob to blend the ducked signal against the dry signal if you want a subtler effect — 60–70% Mix gives you groove without the pump being the dominant character of the mix.
Pro tip: The multiband crossover uses a phase-coherent dry path — the low and high bands sum correctly at all Mix values without comb filtering. You can automate the Crossover frequency in your DAW and it sweeps cleanly with a 50ms smooth.

How to create a syncopated pump pattern with MIDI mode

  1. Load Pumpit on a bass, synth pad, or drum bus. Set Trigger Mode to MIDI.
  2. In Pumpit's settings, set the note filter to a specific MIDI note — for example, C1. Any note-on event on C1 fires one full envelope cycle.
  3. In your DAW's MIDI/piano roll, draw a pattern of C1 notes at the positions where you want the duck to fire — offbeats, syncopated hits, or a different grid than the kick.
  4. Select the Long Tail or Custom curve for a slow, lingering duck that sounds groove-based rather than mechanical.
  5. Enable Retrigger if you want overlapping MIDI notes to restart the envelope — useful for rapid stutter effects. Disable it for a one-shot per hit that completes regardless of note overlap.
Pro tip: Automate which MIDI note Pumpit listens to across sections. Use C1 for the verse pattern and C2 for the drop pattern, draw two different sequences, and let Pumpit follow whichever note is active — effectively giving you different pump patterns per section from one plugin instance.

RECOMMENDED SETTINGS

Scenario Settings Result
Tech house sidechain pump Sidechain mode, Punchy curve, Amount 80%, Hold 15%, Rate 1/4 Tight, consistent groove with cubic tail
Deep house slow groove Auto mode, Smooth curve, Amount 50%, Rate 1/4, Mix 70% Gentle breathing motion behind the kick
Bass-only duck Multiband on, Crossover 250 Hz, Amount 90%, Punchy curve Sub ducks hard while top end stays full
Pad ducker Sidechain mode, Long Tail curve, Amount 60%, Hold 0%, Mix 80% Slow, smooth release that feels musical under pads
Eighth note chop Auto mode, Hard curve, Amount 100%, Rate 1/8 Rhythmic volume chop at double-time feel

TECH SPECS

  • FormatsAU, AUv3, VST3, CLAP, Standalone
  • PlatformmacOS 11.0+, Apple Silicon + Intel (Universal Binary)
  • Latency5ms fixed lookahead; reported to host for automatic PDC compensation
  • CPULight — volume envelope processing with no oversampling
  • OversamplingNone
  • Presets11 factory presets
  • MIDIAccepts MIDI input for MIDI trigger mode (AU type: Music Effect)
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