Volume ducking issue on synth pads

[Helioex]

Hi all, this is my first post on this forum and I was wondering if somebody could assist. I am currently trying to record a track with synth pads and my problem is a kind of 'ducking' effect which affects the pad volume, almost like an unwanted sidechain compression that doesn't seem tied to the rhythm of the kick drum. At the moment I can't work out what the problem is. I've tried lowering the kick drum in the mix which seems to have corrected the problem a tiny bit, however the ducking/beating effect is still there and lowering the kick any more will make it too quiet. I'm not working with a particularly complex mix - just pads, kick, snare, a bit of percussion, some snips and a few scattered notes of melody. Does anyone have any idea what might be causing the problem? For context, I produce all my stuff on hardware (synths into Roland SP404, which I then run into Studio One for recording). The ducking effect shows up when I then attempt to master the recording in Audacity.

Thanks in advance for any help that's offered!

[PurpleSunray]

Welcome to KVR

So if you play that pad on solo, there is no ducking? But this only comes when playing with other channels?
Or it is ok on the mix and the ducking comes from

when I then attempt to master the recording in Audacity.

?
If last one, what do you do to master it?
(mastering usually involves compression, so what you hear is most likely not "something like a comporession" but is eactly that compresison)

[Googly Smythe]

Just wondering why you are mastering in Audacity instead of your DAW? I'm sure you will get better results in Studio One.
Also, if the pumping turns up when mastering you'll probably need to fix the mix.

[Helioex]

Many thanks for both of these responses - they are much appreciated.

When I solo-play the sample pad there is no ducking effect. Everything seems ok when I sequence the track into Studio One... my practice up til now has been to export the mixdown into Audacity, then apply a limiter and then boost the volume so it is equal to that of my other beats. This is probably a very primitive way of doing things, and thus far I have been able to get some pretty good results - sometimes! At best it seems a hit-and-miss way of doing things, so in search of something more consistent maybe I'll look at doing this directly in Studio One instead.

Googly Smythe also mentions fixing the mix... what kind of faults in the mix could be causing the problem? I know this is a very general question but if anyone has any ideas whereabouts I might start looking I'd be grateful.

Many thanks in advance!

[thecontrolcentre]

Sounds like you're over-compressing your master, which leads me to ask why you are "mastering" your tracks in the first place. Are you compiling an album?

[PurpleSunray]

my practice up til now has been to export the mixdown into Audacity, then apply a limiter and then boost the volume so it is equal to that of my other beats. This is probably a very primitive way of doing things, and thus far I have been able to get some pretty good results - sometimes!

If the mix sound good, then this is the problem.
What kind of limiter is this? Brick-wall or any "soft-clipping" thing?

What a brickwall limiter does: pull the level of signal up for certain amount and then remove anything that clips (>0db). Now think of a big fat 100Hz sine wave that is you bass or kick, that now goes above a 0db bcause of pull-up. Brick-wall triggers, which smashes the round apex of that sinewave, which allso caries the higher frequencies, into flat cap, that has high frequencies a start end (=> distortion), but no frequencies in between (=> ducking)
(yes I know.. this is a very simplistic view on a limiter, it's just to show why there is usually a comporessor before the limiter. comporessor makes it loud, limiter pulls it to 0db peak).

[Helioex]

[quote="PurpleSunray"] Brick-wall triggers, which smashes the round apex of that sinewave, which allso caries the higher frequencies, into flat cap, that has high frequencies a start end (=> distortion), but no frequencies in between (=> ducking) [quote]

This sounds realistic - the 'flat cap' is a pretty accurate description of what my waveform looks like once I've applied the limiter (which I now suspect is of the Brick-wall variety). What are my alternatives when it comes to limiters? From what you're saying it sounds like I might help myself by compressing the mix first, then apply a 'softer' limiter to the one which I'm using now (and by using Studio One to master instead of Audacity). Does that seem reasonable?

thecontrolcentre - I'm just dipping my toe in the water with mastering really. I'm hoping to start compiling a beat tape within the next six to twelve months, and I'm just experimenting ahead to get a handle on the skills I'll need to even out the dynamics between tracks.

Many thanks once again!

[PurpleSunray]

This is now about the holy grail of mastering .. whole different story

There is no "this is how to do it", but everyone has it own tricks and techniques.
My "quickly master to -9db rms" chain is like (all FabFilter plugins):
Pro-C (comporessor), Pro-Q (EQ), Pro-L (limiter)

I usuall start by pulling gain up in limiter so that it peaks 0db, but not much above.
Then I setup the compressor to reach the RMS i want (usually arround -10 to -9db for my genre).
The EQ is there because single-band compression often emphasizes the higher frequencies. i.e. after compression, hihats sound more present compared to bass then before compression. The EQ is there to fix that.
So limiter in my chain is only there to bring everything up to 0db and remove peaks that go above (such a loud crashes, synth shots & or other stuff you missed to fix on the mix). "Loudness" comes from the compressor mainly.

If want to spend more time on mastering than 5min to tune 3 knobs, I use a multi-band comporessor as well as some saturation on the chain (FabFilter Saturn in most cases).

[Helioex]

"Loudness" comes from the compressor mainly.

Thanks for this - it gives me a few ideas on how to proceed. Overall I'm trying to go for a lo-fi sound with some calculated sloppiness around the edges. Many of my favourite producers who are successful in creating this kind of sound seem to be other SP404 user who work mainly in-the-box, which appeals to me somewhat as I like to take the physical hardware approach as far as I can before resorting to DAWs and suchlike. Given my style I've become ok at eliminating obnoxious volume peaks during the sampling/mixing process... if this is the primary job of the limiter I might not need one after all, especially if it's that which is causing the ducking. I could then look into using a compressor (either on the SP404 or in Studio One) to even out the volume between beats (my main concern isn't loudness for its own sake, but more achieving continuity between beats).

Much appreciated!

[PurpleSunray]

"Loudness" comes from the compressor mainly.

Thanks for this - it gives me a few ideas on how to proceed. Overall I'm trying to go for a lo-fi sound with some calculated sloppiness around the edges. Many of my favourite producers who are successful in creating this kind of sound seem to be other SP404 user who work mainly in-the-box, which appeals to me somewhat as I like to take the physical hardware approach as far as I can before resorting to DAWs and suchlike. Given my style I've become ok at eliminating obnoxious volume peaks during the sampling/mixing process... if this is the primary job of the limiter I might not need one after all, especially if it's that which is causing the ducking. I could then look into using a compressor (either on the SP404 or in Studio One) to even out the volume between beats (my main concern isn't loudness for its own sake, but more achieving continuity between beats).

Much appreciated!

That's why there is no "this is how to master the right way"
There are so many different aproaches to this, that can sound very different at the end.
I'm mainly doing nightime-psytrance and this genre is all about compression. You want loud, banging, hard hitting sounds. f**k dynamics, this needs to blow the floor
The track that comes out from mix already has so much compression on each individual channel that there no big peaks / dynamics on the track. So I could pretty much use a limiter only - dynamics are already reduced that much by default style of genre, so that there is not much for the limiter to brickwall-remove.
On a genre where dynamics are important (i.e. recoding of a classical orchestra) this might look completly different - there you first might want to comporess the track to a level where limiter is not idle on flute solo, but brickwalls when contrabass starts to play.

[Helioex]

I'm mainly doing nightime-psytrance and this genre is all about compression. You want loud, banging, hard hitting sounds. f**k dynamics, this needs to blow the floor

Well, I'm a punk rocker at heart, so I have the same kind of no-holds-barred approach. Essentially I'm looking for a way to translate some of the wildness into my beats.

The more I think about this the more it makes sense. I only started playing with the limiter a few weeks ago, which is when the ducking problem first raised its head. The stuff I'd made until then sounded fine.

[PurpleSunray]

Well, I'm a punk rocker at heart, so I have the same kind of no-holds-barred approach. Essentially I'm looking for a way to translate some of the wildness into my beats.

Compress on each individual channel.
Speaking on my genre: the difference between a thin, pathetic FM-shredder-lead-sound that hardly find its way through the bassline ... and a FM shredder-lead-sound that phsyically crawls your back then playing on a 100kW line-array is ->>> compression.
Take that thin, pathetic synth, add a comporession with threadshold to minimal and 2:1 comporession and it will sound more present. Do 4:1 and that lead will actually become a lead. Do 10:1 and fine-tune-EQ to create goosebumps

[thecontrolcentre]

Compressing your beats will give them more "punch" if done properly, or you can completely destroy them (in a good way). That makes more sense to me than overcompressing the master. Try some bit crushing and/or distortion on your beats too ...

I used to process a lot of stuff in the computer, then load those wavs into my SP505 for live jams & gigs.

[Helioex]

Great - thanks for the suggestions. The only slight hump I can foresee is the issue of not having separate channels per se, but sequencing the beat on the sp404 then dumping it into a single mixdown channel. I could try compressing each element separately using the sp404's onboard effects and compare the results to an entire mixdown compress in Studio One...

[Helioex]

Right, I've just tried a quick ten-minute fix by applying a compressor to the mixdown channel. The ducking problem is SOLVED (or at least solved enough to give me something to work outwards from). The beat has a lot more oomph behind it too. Thanks again to those who made suggestions!