I have mastered quite a few albums and from my experiences I have found if the mix is nicely balanced across the spectrum then in many cases you don't need to do this and in fact a single full range compressor can work very well. And with no side chain filtering taking place either. I often use the API2500 for this job or some of the Tokyo Dawn Labs compressors as well. Even when I was using outboard hardware compressors such as the Smart C2 I never had to side chain either. It really all comes back to making that mix well balanced. And don't forget that compressor over a mix need not be working too hard either. Like 1.5:1 ratio with 2 to 3 dB's of GR. So under these circumstances using the side chain is also not really necessary. I have sat in with some top mastering engineers and they did not side chain things either.
In situations where I had difficult mixes to compress, I found the multiband to be a bit of a saviour here. You can set it too to not be doing much across the spectrum e.g. low ratio and low amounts of GR but when a band comes along that is excessive for whatever reason then it trips the compressor harder and keeps things in line. Both the Cakewalk and Studio One multibands are excellent although in some ways I find setting the Cakewalk one a little easier. The Studio One GUI is almost a little too complicated but once you know it then it does work well too.