Ducking Effects

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I don't know any more where I read this but ducking effects seems to be a thing worth trying.
It's just: I don't have a clue how it's done. I thought about noise gates in the effect-channels but that leads to nothing (at least in my mind).
Do expensive tools just have a nice "duck"-button?
I've just got n-track and some cheap or free plug-ins... can I duck?


(... all my little ducklins...)
 
QUACK QUACK

If you cant find what you need to know about ducking here let me know i have a couple of other good spots that might be useful to you http://www.studiocovers.com/articles.htm


Give me a fish and i'll eat today, Teach me to fish and i'll eat forever
 
:confused: how do I have to ask my question to get any response?

soundboy: thanks for the links - some nice tips but I didn't find anything about ducking.
 
I have yet to see any Ducking FX. I thought I remembered someone somewhere saying something...

Queue
 
You need a device like a compressor with a sidechain.

Tom
 
Six,

Would you please explain what you mean by ducking effects.

twist
 
From: http://www.sospubs.co.uk/sos/1996_articles/apr96/compression.html

DUCKING YOUR RESPONSIBILITY
In addition to their more conventional applications, compressors may also be used to enable one signal to control the level of another. This is known as ducking, and is frequently used to allow the level of background music to be controlled by the level of a voice-over. When the voice-over comes in, the level of the background music drops, but whenever there is a pause in the speech, the background music is restored to its former level, at a rate set by the compressor's release control.

To try ducking, you'll need a compressor with a side chain access socket. This allows an external signal to control the compressor action rather than the compressor's input signal. When an external signal is patched in to the side chain, its dynamics will control the gain reduction of whatever signal is passing through the compressor at the time. Let's assume that a piece of background music is being played through the normal compressor input, but that the side chain input is being fed with a voice signal from a mixer send or direct channel output. The diagram in this box shows how this is set up in practice. When the voice exceeds the threshold set by the user, the compressor will apply gain reduction to the music signal, and when the voice pauses, the gain will return to normal at whatever rate is set by the release control.

Ducking is often used in broadcast, to allow DJs to interrupt and spoil perfectly good pieces of music. Exactly how much the music will be turned down depends on both the threshold and ratio settings, and some experimentation will be necessary. The attack time should normally be set fairly fast, but the release time should be long enough to stop the music surging back in too abruptly. A release time of a second or so is a good starting point.

Even though ducking is possible with a compressor as described, it is even easier to achieve using a gate equipped with a dedicated ducking facility, such as the Drawmer DS201. If you have one of these gates, then I suggest you take the easy way out and use it. The technique is not confined to radio voiceovers: it can also be used creatively when mixing music. Perhaps the most useful application is to force backing instruments such as rhythm guitars or pad keyboard parts to drop in level by a dB or two when vocals are present, or when someone is taking a solo. When mixing, a change in level of as little as 1dB can make all the difference between a solo sitting properly in the mix, and either getting swamped or being over-loud.

Ducking can also be used in a similar way to push down the level of effects such as reverb or delay, so that they only come up to their full level during pauses or breaks. This is a useful technique to prevent mixes becoming messy or cluttered.
 
ok then... sounds like a lot of work ;). but hey - who said mixing was easy?

thank you guys for your replies!
i have to check out my compressor and gate plug ins now.
 
my gate- and compressor-plugins don't seem to be able to do such things... so I would have to do it manually.

there's still a question I have: you normally duck effects to avoid the mix getting blurry. so the effects - let's say of the vocal track - come in when the vocals pause.
but there's the opposite too, right? there's a vocal line with big reverb and delays but when it pauses the effects are cut off. no delays and such things anymore... somehow to hide the effects. ever noticed?
 
With automation, you can simulate "ducking" effects quite easily by only turning up the send to the effect right before the part where you want to hear th effect. The reverse is true if you want to end the effect at a certain time, just turn down the send. You could even just mute the effect send at the appropriate times.

I do the above things even WITHOUT automation. I do it manually. While this is not quite as reliable (I DO make mistakes here and there...:)) it works just as well.

On analog mixers with mute automation, if I have enough channels, I will send the track I want the effect on to it's normal channel as well as an additional channel, and use the extra channel as just an effects send. This way, every time the channel is turned off, no send to the effects, but when it is on, it will send to the effect. The trick is to not route this extra channel to the master buss. Only use it for mute automation to effects.

Plenty of ways to create ducking effects if one just thinks about it a bit.

Good luck.

Ed
 
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