SQ5 Ducking Mode Sidechain

[MityVeeParticipant]

Hi there!

Am I missing something? Have been searching Forums, Manual and Signalflow chart… Found nothing on that topic.
Is it really that if I have a channel ducked by sidechain there is no option to have the sidechain follow channel mute of the source channel?
Or choose “eg. post mute/ post fade” sidechain as source..?
The problem is, the Channel having the ducker inserted always gets ducked according to the source’s input level even though the source channel is muted.
I know the QU Series has sidechain options? The SQ does not??
For my opinion there are not many cases where this behaviour makes much sense.

If, for example, I have a presenter mic ducking the music channel, the music will still pump up and down even though the presenter is off air.

running V 1.5.2.

Thanks for any advice!

[Dave MeadowcroftParticipant]

I’ve just tested this and can confirm you’re correct, side chains are definitely pre mute.
I can’t find a way to alter this either! I’m surprised I hadn’t spotted this before to be honest so thanks for pointing it out before it caught me out.

Keith – any suggestions, or can this be looked at for a future update?

[MarkPAmanParticipant]

If you have one spare, you could send the presenter’s mic to a mix & use that as the side chain feed.

Like Dave, I’d not noticed this before, so it’s useful to know, thanks.

More choice in how side chains are sourced would probably be a good thing.

[MityVeeParticipant]

Yes, there are some ways ways of workaround but having to blow a mix or group for each channel being ducked is just not practical.
I did a broadcast last weekend with a presenter ducking two incoming feeds, ducking another input differently, mixed all this into a “Floor audio”
which was then interpreted into 6 languages with each interpreter ducking their corresponding floor audio.
So a hell lot of ducking going on, which wouldn’t have been possible if the presenters did not switch themselves on and off when not interpreting.
I will suggest this topic in the feature suggestions. If this board provides ducking this is a key element missing.
…or is this being planned upon.. – Keith..?

Thanks.

[KeithJ A&HModerator]

@MityVee –
Please do add this to the feature suggestions and we will look into it if the general consensus is that it can’t be used as-is.
As you say there are workarounds – in many speech+music applications where a ducker would be used there are multiple voices so a mix has to be used to create the single ducker side chain source anyway.
What you describe here obviously couldn’t use that solution, but would also be considered quite an extreme case!
Cheers,
Keith.

[MityVeeParticipant]

Thanks, Keith.
It is true this might be considered an extreme case though in my opinion a “per channel ducking” is also a quite common thing.
I think coming from the Qu- Series i was rather surprised not having this feature implemented in the SQ system that I perceive superior to the Qu.

Cheers.

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