MAutoVolume

[alexis1]

Melda youtube:

Hi - Around 7:00 they show how when the backing track is routed to the side chain, the vocal level changes when the fader on the backing track is adjusted.

I can approximate that, but only somewhat. For example, when the backing track fader is at negative infinity, there is still vocal getting through. And the relative volumes between the backing track and the vocals seem to be much less tied together than in the youtube.

I got the impression from the youtube that the two would change in tandem, and that moving the fader on the backing track was just about like moving the master fader up and down, but that's not what I saw.

Can you explain what the potential uses of that are? Am I doing something wrong?

Thanks -

[MeldaProduction]

Hi,

can you record your own video showing what is happening and what you think is wrong?
You said the vocal is still going through - of course, the plugin performs gain limited by the "Range" parameter, so it will never "kill" the track (unless the gate is on), it will only adjust its level. Try this:
1) Create a track from say MOscillator and automate/modulate its volume from silence to 0dB continously.
2) Use any other track with MAutoVolume and send the MOscillator to the sidechain.

It should easy to make the plugin continously follow the oscillator volume, within the range limits of course.

[alexis1]

Hi - thanks for your reply!

A video is something that I've not done, so before my having to get to that stage, maybe I can figure out what I'm doing wrong another way.

I will go back and see where I am with the gate.

To confirm, adjustng the the "music" fader did make the "voice" track go up/down in volume .

Two specific questions please, if I may! :
-- Is the idea that changing the music fader will be indistinguishable sonically from adjusting the master fader, regarding the apparent balance between the two tracks?


-- Are there any other settings important to changefrom the default one that opens when MAutoVolume is started, besides gate,to make it work like in the video?

It is a *very* cool effect, but with my limited experience I'm having a hard time seeing how to use it. Any suggestions please? For example, I see what you mean now about the range determining how the two tracks interact. But does that limit using it to the very early stages of a mix, to avoid re-flattening out a vocal whose dynamics have already been perfected?

Thank you for your help!

[MeldaProduction]

Very well. To the questions:

-- Is the idea that changing the music fader will be indistinguishable sonically from adjusting the master fader, regarding the apparent balance between the two tracks?

No! It should be better! For me, adjusting faders manually is a no-go, I absolutely admire the people having the patience of doing that . The idea is to avoid doing that and do it better. It's like with everything done manually vs. automatically - the computers are just way faster than you are, so it can be much more accurate.
Think of it way - a compressor is also just a level processor, so you can do it manually as well, but you probably won't will you .


-- Are there any other settings important to change from the default one that opens when MAutoVolume is started, besides gate,to make it work like in the video?

Not really, the question doesn't make much sense as it works as always - you may need to change something to make it fit your audio material, but besides that, it should work just by "adding it to the effect chain".

I'm sure people are using it many ways, but for me, I simply put it as one of the first items to all tracks with constant level - vocals (with high speed), bass (with low speed) for example. I don't really use the sidechain for background until necessary, I just always hope it will work without it well enough . And I usually just adjust speed and sensitivity, unless it just doesn't work well enough. Lazy person I am...

[alexis1]

Hi - Dumb Question ... The video says the Range controls how much it lowers the loudest part/increases the softest part.

But I don't understand ... unless it's looked at the whole vocal, how will it know what the loudest part will wind up being?

For example ... the first 10 seconds have an RMS of -28 dB ... then the next 10 seconds has an RMS of -18 dB.

Ideally (in my mind!) a the plug-in would smooth it out so the first 10 seconds and last 10 seconds sound about the same volume ... very ignorantly speaking, it would increase the first section by 5 dB, and decrease the second section by 5dB, so both would be at -23 dB.

But ... since the plug-in can't possibly know that the second section is so much louder, it will be busy trying to make the first section sound smooth, then BAMM it is surprised by the 2nd section.

So I'm not quite sure ... what is the best way to apply MAutoVolume in situations like that?

Thanks -

[MeldaProduction]

Hmmm, I'm a little lost here, perhaps you should send me the audio . Anyway Range controls the limits. It's needed, because the plugin could otherwise perform a huge gain, the limit is +48dB after all. So this is like a failsafe .
And about the plugin being busy - if you feel like there some short "spikes" in the beginning of the sections, then it means you can either increase speed, so make the plugin react faster, but you can also use look-ahead + hold, that would make the plugin react ahead of time (in exchange for latency of course, but that should be compensated by the host).

[alexis1]

No, no, sorry, this question is not about a problem. It is just to ask whether MAutovolume can *in one pass* level a vocal that has low volume for 10 seconds, followed by high volume for 10 seconds.

When I use it, the low volume part gets nice and levelled, as does the high volume part, but the two parts remain at significantly different levels.

I have no problem adjusting the clip gains at that time to bring them together, but I was just wondering if there were MAutovolume settings that could be made to avoid that.

Sorry for the confusion!

[MeldaProduction]

Aaaaha, then you probably need to increase sensitivity. If sensitivity is 100% then if the required gain is within "range", it should be exactly same loud (note that doesn't mean it will have the same peak level).

[alexis1]

OK, I will try that. Was wondering what the difference would be between Range = X at Sensitivity = 100%, vs. Range = 2X at Sensitivity = 50%!

Only 3 days left on my demo, gotta hurry!

[MeldaProduction]

Yep . And sure, hurry up!!!

[Saddle]

Although my demo expired, one odd characteristic that I noticed was that the automation seemed to always bring up the lower part of the audio to achieve a leveling effect, rather than bring down the peaks. So when I tried to level out a bass line, the tails of the bass notes with all the fret noise came up too high. I tried driving the input farther so that the gain reduction meter in MAutoVolume was going negative, but the resulting automation was still that of raising low volume areas rather than dropping peaks.

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks

[MeldaProduction]

Do you mean automation write&read? I'll repeat it again and will add it to the docs with more exclamation marks - do NOT use that. It's an idiotic feature done just because Waves has it in their plugin, so as always we try to have "everything", but it has low accuracy, hence lower audio quality etc. If you need that for any reason, automation the output gain for example, but rather just leave the audio engine do the job without the automation.

[Saddle]

I didn't realize that. Thanks for the clarification. It will change my approach to using the plug-in completely! Maybe it will come around on the sale again soon and I'll grab it.

[MeldaProduction]

Hehe my pleasure