I find the Fast / Medium / Slow hold and release times on the Qu ducking to be to limiting, and even the “slow” hold time for me is nowhere near long enough. It only seems to be between 0.5 to 0.75 seconds.
My problem is that at sports events, I want to have the music automatically ducked while commentators are doing interviews in different zones around the venue, and the “slow” hold time is not long enough to prevent the music coming back on in between the commentator finishing their question and an athlete starting their answer.
Here is a way to get around this on the Qu without resorting to outboard equipment – but it involves sacrificing an FX unit and a Mix send for each batch of ducking – so it is limited to 4 ducking groups on the Qu. You would probably already be using the mix send for the ducking anyhow if you have more than one microphone to trigger the ducking:
Example Setup – for a single music source being ducked by a group of microphones:
• Background music coming in through Stereo 3.
• The controlling microphone(s) for the ducking also use a post-fade send to Mix 1.
• Stereo 3 is ducked using Mix 1 as the trigger input.
Mix 1 has an FX inserted into the channel, with the FX selected as the 2tap delay. You must have one tap set to be less than the “slow” hold time of the Qu-32’s ducking setup. You effectively double the hold time by using a single slapback added into the Mix 1. Adjust the feedback control on the FX to extend this doubling of the hold time out a long way – I can get 20 seconds no problem, but use of the feedback setting on the FX is also related to the ducking threshold you have set in the ducking controls. I find that about 6 seconds is the most I really need.
How it works is by using the FX to repeat the trigger input to the ducking before the hold time expires, thus keeping the hold “open”.
Photos of sample 2tap delay and ducking settings attached.
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