Old 09-04-2018, 01:29 AM   #1
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Default What's your favorite ducker?

What's your favorite ducker or ducking technique?
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Old 09-04-2018, 09:33 AM   #2
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ReaComp per SideChain or volume automation. There is no magic on my side.
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Old 09-04-2018, 11:12 AM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Eliseat View Post
ReaComp per SideChain
Ok, how do you set your range? wet/dry?
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Old 09-05-2018, 03:29 AM   #4
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I use various compressors and SC. However, I have most recently been favouring Sound Toys Tremolator. it is a bit fiddly but it sounds amazing.

https://www.soundtoys.com/product/tremolator/
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Old 09-05-2018, 06:17 AM   #5
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Originally Posted by G-Sun View Post
Ok, how do you set your range? wet/dry?
I mostly use a self made presets for kick ducking as a starting point. 0.6 attack, 35 release, 3 ratio, 1.8 knee, 0 RMS as i remember right. But i use it only because of laziness and change it every time until it fits the groove or pumping effect.

Several times i had to duck music with speech, but i don't remember how i set up the compressor. It's not so difficult to find a good setting if you are familiar with compression. And i don't think there are other tools needed.

And for total control (not in live situations) the good old volume automation is the best way to make room for incoming audio.

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Old 09-05-2018, 06:40 AM   #6
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Just seem to miss a range-button on ReaComp,
and ReaGate is not that intuitive to set up.

No fancy needed here, just looking for a simple one with for easy setting range.
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Old 09-05-2018, 07:23 AM   #7
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Parameter modulation comes to mind. Isn't there the possibility to set a range for incoming audio? You could modulate the volume knob with an incoming audio this way.

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Old 09-05-2018, 07:58 AM   #8
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Originally Posted by Eliseat View Post
Parameter modulation comes to mind. Isn't there the possibility to set a range for incoming audio? You could modulate the volume knob with an incoming audio this way.

Yes, but not my preferred way. Lot of fiddling and then it's all hidden, not so obvious to see later.
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Old 09-05-2018, 08:23 AM   #9
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What kind of ducking are you trying to accomplish? Have any details as to what you are trying to solve?
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Old 09-05-2018, 08:52 AM   #10
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Reacomp for sure here.

Kickstart for songs with 4/4 patterns that are strict to the grid.
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Old 09-05-2018, 11:55 AM   #11
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Originally Posted by karbomusic View Post
What kind of ducking are you trying to accomplish? Have any details as to what you are trying to solve?
Typically ducking some mid-heavy instruments with vocal in sidechain, 1-3db.

Maybe I should just get confident wit ReaGate and wet/dry/mix.
Would be nice to have accurate metering though (can'd do that with wet/dry)
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Old 09-05-2018, 12:49 PM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by G-Sun View Post
Typically ducking some mid-heavy instruments with vocal in sidechain, 1-3db.

Maybe I should just get confident wit ReaGate and wet/dry/mix.
Would be nice to have accurate metering though (can'd do that with wet/dry)
Thanks, I may not fully up to speed on some of the needs. I'll rephrase a bit to see if it helps me understand... Let's say I have a piano banging out chords during a verse and I want it to duck behind the vocal automatically as the singer sings.

In that scenario, it's just a matter of placing ReaComp on the piano track, sending the vocal to it's sidechain then just setting the compression/threshold to duck a dB or few. That should do the job simply and elegantly minus something I'm missing. I just used this in a recent project because the keyboard track was important between vocal phrases but interfered when the singer was actually singing due to the midrange of both stepping on each other.
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Old 09-05-2018, 01:23 PM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by karbomusic View Post
Thanks, I may not fully up to speed on some of the needs. I'll rephrase a bit to see if it helps me understand... Let's say I have a piano banging out chords during a verse and I want it to duck behind the vocal automatically as the singer sings.

In that scenario, it's just a matter of placing ReaComp on the piano track, sending the vocal to it's sidechain then just setting the compression/threshold to duck a dB or few. That should do the job simply and elegantly minus something I'm missing. I just used this in a recent project because the keyboard track was important between vocal phrases but interfered when the singer was actually singing due to the midrange of both stepping on each other.
No. You don't want to duck the piano only when the vocal is loudest. You want it with a threshold far lower, but then 1-3db.
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Old 09-05-2018, 01:32 PM   #14
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Quote:
Originally Posted by G-Sun View Post
No. You don't want to duck the piano only when the vocal is loudest. You want it with a threshold far lower, but then 1-3db.
At the end of the day you want the keyboard reduced by something when the vocal is something (whatever that is) ?? so I'm not sure how you are running into some unique need everyone else isn't but I tried my best based on the tiny amount of info you are providing.
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Old 09-06-2018, 12:03 AM   #15
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Originally Posted by karbomusic View Post
At the end of the day you want the keyboard reduced by something when the vocal is something (whatever that is) ?? so I'm not sure how you are running into some unique need everyone else isn't but I tried my best based on the tiny amount of info you are providing.
Sure, the concept of ducking is most known from radio,
where the music is ducked by the voice-over.
When the music is playing, the host want to say something,
and instead of lowering the music-volume, he has this ducker set up to do the same, not muting the music completely, but with a set amount, like 3-12db.

I'll start using Klanghelm DC8C for this, as it has the range-button.

Doing an FR: https://forum.cockos.com/showthread....74#post2031374
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Old 09-06-2018, 05:22 AM   #16
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So your intention is to have the ducking taking place the whole time but depending from the sc signal level? Lets say from -20db to -12 db sc signal you want a 0 - 3 db reduction?

I guess this has potential but it would be to complicated for me. (Not sure if i even could hear something like that.) So instead i would try to make room with an eq and using a traditional side chain compressor. Besides that: there are useful compressors out there to solve your problem. Fabfilter pro-c for example has a range button and side chain input, but i don't own it my self. You could test if it fits your taste.

Btw: I have no idea how you could use the reagate the way you described. I know there is a reverse gate (ducking) button but it did not work the way i would expect.

Anyway. I hope you find something. Good luck!
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Old 09-06-2018, 05:42 AM   #17
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Quote:
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So your intention is to have the ducking taking place the whole time but depending from the sc signal level? Lets say from -20db to -12 db sc signal you want a 0 - 3 db reduction?
Yes, typical.
This is not only vocal/background usage,
but also reverb/delay-ducking.

I could also get more confident with the wet/dry amount on ReaComp and Reagate, but, for now, I'll use DC8C then.
A little overkill, but should work fine
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Old 09-14-2018, 12:22 PM   #18
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Quote:
Originally Posted by G-Sun View Post
Sure, the concept of ducking is most known from radio,
where the music is ducked by the voice-over.
When the music is playing, the host want to say something,
and instead of lowering the music-volume, he has this ducker set up to do the same, not muting the music completely, but with a set amount, like 3-12db.

I'll start using Klanghelm DC8C for this, as it has the range-button.

Doing an FR: https://forum.cockos.com/showthread....74#post2031374
Yes, all the time wherever there's narration and underscoring. Not so much to make an automatically correct level change but to make the mix so much easier and faster, either when there's constant narration and random underscoring or constant music bed/ambience and in and out narration. Since an assumption for a particular project might be that this bed is going to always need to subtly drop by a few db every time the narrator appears in order to keep the overall level constant when it does. And for it to raise back up during their long pauses is usually manually done anyway. I usually find a setting that gets it in the ball park and automate tweaks from there.
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Old 09-15-2018, 12:49 PM   #19
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If you want a very versatile and flexible compressor that has a side chain input and a range control for its gain reduction, try the included JS plugin NP1136.
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Old 09-15-2018, 01:29 PM   #20
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Quote:
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If you want a very versatile and flexible compressor that has a side chain input and a range control for its gain reduction, try the included JS plugin NP1136.
Nice one.
Release only 100ms??
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Old 09-15-2018, 01:59 PM   #21
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I'm not sure if release 100 is 100ms or not.
There's a different value at the bottom.
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Old 09-15-2018, 03:37 PM   #22
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You'd probably like TrackSpacer, it does this in 32 bands
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Old 09-15-2018, 03:42 PM   #23
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Quote:
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I'm not sure if release 100 is 100ms or not.
There's a different value at the bottom.
Right, I forgot about the indicator at the bottom. I'd been setting attack and release by ear until now.

I just gave it a test, and the release time is up to 1500ms (you can really hear how long the release time is, being over 1 second, so it was pretty obvious). The release time in ms is displayed in the indicator at the bottom. The numeric field beside the slider is relative. It's a bit unfortunate that the numeric field beside each control is relative, but it works well regardless as long as you remember to check the indicator at the bottom of the plugin. I looked at the code and I'm unsure how to change it such that the numeric fields display absolute numbers in microseconds (attack) and milliseconds (release).

More info about the plugin (which also confirms the release time being up to 1500ms):

http://sites.google.com/site/neolit1...136_manual.pdf
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Old 09-16-2018, 02:22 AM   #24
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JamesPeters View Post
Right, I forgot about the indicator at the bottom. I'd been setting attack and release by ear until now.

I just gave it a test, and the release time is up to 1500ms (you can really hear how long the release time is, being over 1 second, so it was pretty obvious). The release time in ms is displayed in the indicator at the bottom. The numeric field beside the slider is relative. It's a bit unfortunate that the numeric field beside each control is relative, but it works well regardless as long as you remember to check the indicator at the bottom of the plugin. I looked at the code and I'm unsure how to change it such that the numeric fields display absolute numbers in microseconds (attack) and milliseconds (release).

More info about the plugin (which also confirms the release time being up to 1500ms):

http://sites.google.com/site/neolit1...136_manual.pdf
Thanks!
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Old 09-19-2018, 10:05 PM   #25
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Oh also TDR Nova has an external sidechain switch at the top, its a four band compressor if you enable them in the bottom section.
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Old 09-20-2018, 12:20 AM   #26
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Oh also TDR Nova has an external sidechain switch at the top, its a four band compressor if you enable them in the bottom section.
Nova is so easy to use. I bought C6 on sale and I'm still wondering why I even bothered.
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Old 10-03-2018, 01:43 AM   #27
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I keep going back to the FabFilter C2 for most volume ducking tasks but have been getting excellent results with dynamic equalisers and s/c filtering..
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Old 10-03-2018, 09:41 AM   #28
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Originally Posted by Eliseat View Post
Parameter modulation comes to mind. Isn't there the possibility to set a range for incoming audio? You could modulate the volume knob with an incoming audio this way.

This is what I usually use for track ducking. Works fine.
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Old 10-03-2018, 04:24 PM   #29
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Quote:
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Parameter modulation comes to mind. Isn't there the possibility to set a range for incoming audio? You could modulate the volume knob with an incoming audio this way.

One thing wth parameter modulation is that I find it difficult or impossible to sometimes get the response to be exactly as I want. Using the audio of a narrative track, for example, to dictate the wet/dry of an eq. Trying to get the narration to trigger it to dry while the room tone between gets the eq (generally a dumping of frequencies in a noisy area that would affect the voice too much and isn't necessary to be on it) I have yet to be satisfied with as much as I could hone in on the response I needed using ReaEQ and PM. Using a dynamic eq such as toneboosters it's quick and easy to get it exactly where I want it. A dedicated ducker is my preference for this reason.
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Old 10-04-2018, 06:08 AM   #30
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I had and have still the topic as G-Sun. And I wonder why so much comps come with no range control, even new ones.
cause i dont like klanghelm, for some reasons, i use stillwell bombardier, just for this task. it has a range control.
i wish ReaComp would get one. Dont know what the both are programming these days, (sure in know cause i read the forum) but why waste time in tiny micro things, improve the Rea plugins like often requested in some forums here
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Old 10-04-2018, 09:55 AM   #31
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Something I think a lot of people overlook is that you can use other plugins to condition the signal on the way to the sidechain. The classic example is to highpass it to make a compressor into a de-esser, but there's a lot more you can do.

In this case, putting a limiter on the sidechain before it reaches your compressor basically means the compressor will only ever get to a certain amount of gain reduction no matter how loud the original control signal was. The range then is the difference between compressor threshold and the limit you set on the control signal.

I get the idea that the OP is looking more for something like a triggered envelope where when the voice is happening, the music is turned down by a specific amount that is not actually dependent on the level of the voice itself. Like anytime there's a voice, the music should drop 9db or whatever. I'd almost call this "dimming" rather than "ducking", but I don't care to argue semantics.

To do that via sidechaining I think I'd first add a gate to the control signal and then a hard limiter or even clipper with a limit just above wherever the gate is set so that it's pretty much either off or as loud as it will ever get. Adjust gain of that signal against the threshold of the compressor until you get what you want.

I think it probably wants some lookahead/precomp, so that the attack fade happens just before the voice starts, though that might mean that the release fade starts before the voice is done. One could use JS Time Adjustment with a negative delay mixed 50/50 with the dry sidechain. Now we've got three plugs just conditioning the sidechain signal to make the one compressor do what we want, and for some reason there's suddenly tape on the bridge of our glasses and a pocket protector has spontaneously manifested in our shirt pocket.

It wouldn't take much to build a JS plug that could do this kind of on/off dimming thing without all that fuss, but I haven't had time to mess with it.
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Old 10-04-2018, 11:02 AM   #32
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Now we've got three plugs just conditioning the sidechain signal to make the one compressor do what we want,
As you say, 3 plugs for a task I can do with just one knop, a gain range.If there is any ;-)
I think most people know about sidechaining and parameter modulation.
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Old 10-04-2018, 11:38 AM   #33
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I think most people know about sidechaining and parameter modulation.
I think "most people" have to ask how to even make the sidechain connection at all and wouldnt know where to start to add plugins to the sidechain signal.
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Old 11-01-2018, 01:38 PM   #34
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Nova is so easy to use. I bought C6 on sale and I'm still wondering why I even bothered.
I read the reviews and bought it. It's not very intuitive at all. I went back to Nova, even though the frequency animation looks a bit slow to follow. Way more intuitive.
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