Audio Ducking in X8

[mwsing]

I have received the special offer to purchase VideoStudio X8. However, having looked at the list of changes, the only one that I think would interest me is the Audio Ducking. I always do extensive editing on my projects, adding a voice-over to many tracks but leaving some with the original sound. I then add a music track. The most laborious task is always to balance the audio on the three tracks. Has anyone experimented with X8 to see how this feature actually works? If it only reduces the sound of the audio on the original track then this would not address the problem of the time-consuming balancing that I have to do.

[asik1]

Audio Ducking can be used only on the sound tracks. So unless you split your original audio to a sound track, Audio Ducking will not apply to it.

[Terfyn]

Audio ducking (similar concept to side-chaining) is used to automatically lower the volume of one track so that you can hear another track better. For example, if you have a video project that includes music and voiceover, you can use audio ducking to automatically decrease the music volume when the narrator is speaking. You can adjust the threshold that triggers “ducking” and you can adjust by how much the volume of the background track will drop. from the user manual.

You need to split the audio from the video for it to work on that audio track. It needs to be the lowest audio track and, when "Audio Ducking" is applied, it will respond to any audio in the tracks above. Logically you cannot Audio Duck more than one track.

I have just finished a video with original sound, voiceover and music. the AD was applied to the Music track and I balanced the voiceover with the original sound where needed.

[mwsing]

Thanks Terfyn. I have just watched Gripps intro to V8 and have gone back to your response. Can you please clarify for me: you say that you can apply audio ducking to only two tracks and the sound on the upper track is automatically adjusted. However, the voice overview track is always shown above the music tracks, so how do you put your music track ABOVE the voiceover so that the music track is the one that is "Audio-ducked"!? Thinking about the mechanics of doing it, I assume that you would have to do it separately for each voiceover clip that you have added - is this correct or is there a way that it can perform the audio duckling for the whole voiceover/music track?

[asik1]

Thanks Terfyn. I have just watched Gripps intro to V8 and have gone back to your response. Can you please clarify for me: you say that you can apply audio ducking to only two tracks and the sound on the upper track is automatically adjusted. However, the voice overview track is always shown above the music tracks, so how do you put your music track ABOVE the voiceover so that the music track is the one that is "Audio-ducked"!? Thinking about the mechanics of doing it, I assume that you would have to do it separately for each voiceover clip that you have added - is this correct or is there a way that it can perform the audio duckling for the whole voiceover/music track?

No, you apply Audio Duckling to the track you want to subdued based on the track above it.
So you place your music below the voice over. (but if it's your mother in-low you can do the opposite )

[mwsing]

Thanks.That's odd, because in the review he splits the audio track from the video track and it then comes above the voiceover track. He then applies audio ducking and it is the voiceover track that is adjusted, i.e. the track ABOVE the voiceover track. Perhaps you can apply the duckling to either track and it adjusts the other?

But you didn't tell me whether I had to apply it to each different piece of music, which are in separate clips, or whether you can do it for the whole music track.

I guess I need to take the plunge and upgrade to V8 when adding the music track to my newest project, so that I can experiment.

[Terfyn]

Looking at Gripps, I think I was wrong. You apply Ducking to the one track you want to reduce volume and it will react to the other audio tracks. I think the idea of the lowest track came from the Voiceover track being above the music tracks and the most used application comes from reducing the music volume when the voiceover starts.

I have requested control over the rate of the volume reduction on the "ducked" track. Sometimes it takes too long to quieten before the voiceover can be heard.

[mwsing]

Thanks

[mwsing]

Further to our discussion on this topic - I am adding a music track to my current project and, contrary to advice received, I find that when I apply audio ducking, not only does the music track volume reduce when the voiceover comes in, but it also reduces when the audio on the original clips comes in, even though I have not separated the video and audio tracks. This is fantastic and has reduced the time taken to balance the sound enormously. However, I am having to do more than I expected because the ducking doesn't come into effect until the sound reaches the designated level and then takes a little time to reduce. This means that I usually have to do a manual adjustment or the first few words are lost. Does anyone know if there is a way around this?