Mixer peaks include sidechain routing

[adamd1008]

Hi,

I'm trying to balance my mix in REAPER, but I'm noticing that the peak value on the mixer is including channels 3-4 which are used for sidechain compression. This can peak and is often higher than channels 1-2 as it's the pre-fade volume of another track.

(See reaper_mixer1.png for a tiny illustration due to forum image size limit.)

I'm hoping for the peak to tell me only the volume of channels 1-2, as this is the actual L/R output of the track.

Please can someone explain how I can do this?

[foxAsteria]

You're using sidechain compression on the master? Send everything you need to sidechain to a buss instead. You can use the SWS cue buss generator to do this easily. Then you only need 2 channels on the master. Alternatively, try some meter plugins to do your metering with.

Oh, and welcome to the forums!

[adamd1008]

Originally Posted by foxAsteria

You're using sidechain compression on the master? Send everything you need to sidechain to a buss instead. You can use the SWS cue buss generator to do this easily. Then you only need 2 channels on the master. Alternatively, try some meter plugins to do your metering with.

Oh, and welcome to the forums!

Hi, thanks for the warm welcome!

In this case I'm doing the usual EDM thing: sending the kick and snare to channels 3/4 of the other loud tracks which I want to duck, and add a compressor to those tracks. I set the plug-in pin connector to use channels 3/4 for the auxiliary input channels and set the compressor to use 3/4 for the detector input. I don't do it on the master, this is on individual tracks.

I'll try out what you suggested, thanks.

[nofish]

Rightclick somewhere in an empty space in the track control panel of the track you're doing the sidechaining to get a context menu pop up -> disable "Multichannel track metering".

It only shows channel 1+2 then.

[adamd1008]

Originally Posted by nofish

Rightclick somewhere in an empty space in the track control panel of the track you're doing the sidechaining to get a context menu pop up -> disable "Multichannel track metering".

It only shows channel 1+2 then.

Thanks, this seems to be what I was looking for!

[nofish]

You're welcome.

By the way, if you need to do this often, there's also an action which makes it a bit quicker.

https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=97846
(post #3)