Soft Rotary Controls assignments (v1.6.0) for Compressor / Ducking Mode

SQ SQ General Discussions
1

Maybe i am missing something. Is there a way to assign the following Parameters for a compressor in Ducking Mode to one of the soft rotaries:

  • Hold (time)
  • ducking threshold
  • ducking depth

also it seems that if i assign the sidechain of the ducking comp to a Mono Aux Bus, it seems the resulting signal for the sidechain is pre-fader post-mute.

So how could the signal level of that sidechain be controlled? There is no level control on the compressor screen and there is no way to assign the sidechain post-fader so the only way to influence sidechain effect seems to be the threshold control for the ducker, but that would not work with standard compressor mode (since that has no ducking threshold). Is that right or am i missing something?

2

Thank you for your question, I have never used Ducker Mode before :slight_smile: .
I have assumed that you are ducking an input channel

I have my own question for you: Why must you use a bus to side chain rather than one input?

I saw you had no replies at time of posting so I thought I’d give it a go anyway. I have Mixpad 1.5.1 installed on my PC only I’m afraid. I can only really check there for now. It does not seem as though the soft keys or rotaries were designed to control the compressor settings (I guess because the compressors have their own dedicated controls). I get that you want to deal with depth and hold whereas the default controls have IN/OUT and threshold only. Sorry

On another note - regarding the side-chain; I would offer the following

The side chain key will represent whatever is in the Mono Aux Bus according to the tap off point. All tap points are before the Mute on the block diagram. I believe that you can set the IP Direct outs not to follow Mutes but you cannot teach a side chain key to ignore mutes. If the aux master is muted you will get no signal to key from for the compressor. [just like if there is no kick drum then the compressor on the bass channel does not activate etc.)

To begin with:
rather dial in the threshold than try to control the signal level for the sidechain, then
choose whether you want the aux itself to be pre/post fader (Aux Snd menu under Routing), then choose the tap off point that you want for the Mono Aux itself (also Aux Snd menu under Routing) and you’ll need to live with whatever signal the compressor sees.

Alternatively; use the stock compressor; side chain to the mono aux and use a low threshold and a very high ratio (limiting the output)

I really hope this is helpful and not just giving you what you already know.

Cheers

3

Well, the current use is a little special setup for a party, may look a little odd but works well.

What we basically have is some Kind of “DJ Work” delivering (sometimes) different music to several audience zones (think of dancefloors and chillout areas in a bigger room complex) .

The Base setup is a little tricky but fine to use:

The “DJ” has some Player Software on Notebooks which are fed to SQ via USB or Stereo Inputs. I configured a Post Fader Stereo Aux Bus for each Zone and a DCA Group conataining all Zone Masters. So the DCA Group controls overall “Master” loudness, the Bus Master Faders control loudness of each individual Zone, the Bus Channel faders control which signal gets to which zone (with scenes assigned to soft buttons for fast switching for several situations) and the faders of the main level to control the level of each Input over all used zones.

That way for example we can start the party with some decent background music from Player one to all Zones, then switch the dancefloors to louder dance music while keeping the chillout areas on the background music and broadcast moderation messages to the whole location (“Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bar will open in 5 Minutes” and such things).

The Ducker is used for two scenarios.

The first Scneario is that the DJ (using the talkback function of the desk) could give short statements within the music on the main dancefloor (to fire up the audience mood or declare short dancing breaks and such things). That works perfectly using a Ganging Group of not too deep Duckers with short hold and release Times on the Stereo Inputs sidechained from the DJ Mic which also gets a compressor to power up the voice a little bit. That way the Music seems to never stop and the Speaker keeps audible.

The second Scenario are Party Games with a moderation team. Here we have 2 or 3 Moderators (or maybe candidates) with Headset Mics. There is loud Music through the game and that must be ducked hard when the Moderation oder Candidates talk. Mainly for Moderation the hold time of the Ducker must be much longer (1-2 seconds) so they can do Explanations without the Music coming up in short breaks. Since there are several Moderators I routed their Mics to another Mono Bus which is used only as a sidechain for the ducker so the Music is ducked when anyone of them (or even the DJ which might act as some kind of “referee”) speaks. The Mod Mics also get noise Gates and switches on the Body Packs to keep out as much unwanted noise as possible from the ducking.

The main difference between the two ducker use cases is hold time (150ms for Dancing vs 1500-2000ms for gamemode) and maybe ducking threshold and/or sidechain level. So it would be handy to have these parameters on soft rotaries. Then the DJ could adjust them fast if necessary without having to navigate to the compressor screen.

Yes, that could be switched using scenes, too, but much less flexible.

4

If your seperate stereo inputs can be unique to each zone then you might consider ducking the input rather than the output aux mix

5

I always duck the inputs, there is no sense in ducking outputs since the ducking signal would then duck itself, too, which makes no sense.

The Bus is needed to allow several Inputs to duck (_Not_ being ducked). Since there can be only one sidechain source for the ducker there has to be used some bus for that.

If you thought of ducking several signals instead: the right tool to achieve that is a ganging group. Both tasks can be combined, of course.

Example: think of a Show with 3 Moderators on Stage, a big Audience Hall with loud Dancefloor Music in Moderation Breaks and a separate Chillout Room with silent Background Music, where you want to have the moderation also in the Chillout Room.

So you have 5 Inputs: Moderation 1,2,3, Dance Music, Chill MusicAnd 2 Stereo Outputs: Dancefloor, Chillout Area.

To make Moderation more clear you want Duckers in both Music Input Channels that reduce Music Level on both Outpus by 12 dB when any of the Moderators speaks.

My Solution for this would be:

  1. create two Post Fader Stereo Aux Mixes for the Outputs. Thus, you can control Signal Levels on Main Mix for both and individually for each one on the Mix Faders. The Main MIx Output is not really needed here, since it would combine both music signals it makes no sense to use it for anything. Tha Main Mix Layer is simply used as the “Control Central” for all the signals.

  2. Mix the Moderation MIcs to both Output Mixes so Moderation is audible in both areas. Maybe with different levels.

  3. MIx the Dancefloor Music Input to the Dancefloor and the Chillout Music to the Chillout Area. Adjust the Maximum Level on the Mix Layer.

  4. create an additional Mono Mix and mix all Moderation Mics to that. There are arguments for pre and for post fader mixing here, i used pre Fader.

  5. Create a Ganging Group that couples compressor settings for both Music Channels.

  6. set Music Channel Compressors to Ducking Mode, activate the Sidechain and set the Mono MIx mentioned in 4) as the sidechain source.

Adjust Depth, Attack, Hold, Release and Threshold values for the Ducker to achieve reasonable results.

  1. If you also need some Level Control for both Zones you can do that with a DCA Group.

Of course, you cann add additional Zones to such a setup, for example one for Streaming, or having Moderation also backstage or outdoor. SQ is a nearly perfect platform for such a task. Despite the fact that it is currently not possible to assign some of the relevant ducker parameters (hold, threshold, depth, release) to rotaries which would make it a little more handy. Maybe that could be done by a future firmware release since other compressor parameters are already assignable.

It may be possible to combine that with AMM to have podium discussions with automatically ducked background music, but i never tried to figure out that because i had no need.

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