At some points in your game, certain audio signals need to be brought to prominence. Ducking allows you to do this by automatically lowering the volume of objects passing through one or more busses, depending on the signal of another bus. For example, while characters are speaking, background music is lowered. When the characters stop speaking, background music is restored.
In the timeline that follows, when the current bus plays a sound, other busses fade out, according to the Fade Out and Volume parameters. When the sound from the current bus ends, the Recovery time elapses, followed by the Fade In.
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![[Note]](/images/2022.1.12_8435/?source=Help&id=note.png) | Note |
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An alternative to auto-ducking is side-chaining with the Meter Effect plug-in. This method changes the level of the target bus dynamically, according to the level of the source bus. This offers more control than auto-ducking, where the ducked bus is lowered by a predetermined amount anytime there is sound on the current bus, regardless of the level of that sound. For more information, see Using Side-chaining and Meter. |
To duck a bus:
Load a bus into the Property Editor. This is the current bus. It causes other busses to have their volume lowered, or ducked. Ducking is not available for Auxiliary Busses.
In the Auto-ducking tab, click Insert.
In the Project Explorer - Browser that opens, select the bus to be ducked when the current bus receives a signal. A bus can't duck itself or its direct parent.
Click OK to add the selected bus to the pane.
Set the properties for the bus:
Volume: Amount by which the volume of the ducked bus is reduced when the current bus receives a signal.
Fade Out: Time to fade out from the original volume to the ducked volume.
Fade In: Time to fade back to the original volume.
Curve: Curve shape used to define the fade-out and fade-in.
Set the collective properties for all busses in the pane:
Recovery time: Amount of time you want to pass from the termination of the current bus signal to the beginning of the fade-in for the signals that were ducked.
Maximum ducking volume: Maximum amount by which the volume of the busses listed in the pane can be lowered by the current bus.
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