Softube saturation knob on kick causes ducking on other tracks

This is something that's bugged me since I've started working with Sonar and I'm not knowledgeable enough about audio to suss out why it's happening. When I have a strong, heavy kick thumping away, if there is even so much as a little of the saturation knob applied (not even 2 notches), the kick causes a ducking effect on other tracks. The effect is more pronounced if I have it set to "keep low" but is still noticeable on "neutral" or "keep high" although to a lesser extent. 


I like the sound of it on a kick drum, but man does it have a tendency to ruin the other audio. Right now I'm working on a track with a heavy hip hop style kick, and the saturation knob is ruining the nice raspy synth bass line I have, and also causes audible ducking in a higher register synth as well. 

Can anyone explain why this happens? All fader levels are set quite low and nothing is clipping either on the tracks or the master bus.  There is of course no compression sidechaining going on either. 

In fact the more I've used the Softube saturation the more I'm driven to use the Tube module instead. 

I'm listening on ATH-M50's at the minute, too late for speakers. Volume isn't too high, and I hear it through my Grado's as well. 

When I dim the kick, it doesn't happen. 

I can't see it happening on the analyst plug. 

Yes I have tried carving out inverse EQ curves for them to see if they're just fighting for the same space, and that didn't seem to help matters. It's a definite perceived lowering of volume when the kick sounds. 

so it is possible high end definition is lost when speaker attempts the kick. try using multi band compressor solo all but bass. still hear problems? turn off compression and gain btw.

I'm with Vaultwit, a compressor further down the chain reacting to the kick could create a similar effect. Remember that the compression triggered by the bass end will be more noticeable on the higher frequencies.

Could maybe be mix balance? If the kick is too loud then im pretty sure it would introduce a ducking type effect by virtue of masking other freqs way too much. I could be wrong.. my partner always tells me i am. Or as others suggested, too much compression or limiting.

wizard71


Could maybe be mix balance? If the kick is too loud then im pretty sure it would introduce a ducking type effect by virtue of masking other freqs way too much. I could be wrong.. my partner always tells me i am. Or as others suggested, too much compression or limiting.

The kick volume is definitely in keeping with the genre of music. And the problem only occurs when I apply the saturation knob to it. If I remove the saturation and turn the kick up to compensate, I don't hear the ducking. It's not a full on kick-sidechained ducking a la Daft Punk et al, it's slight but noticeable enough to be annoying. As said before I did actually have some very light compression (2:1 w/high threshold) on the master bus, and when I turned that off it helped a little, but I can still hear it. At this point I think I'm going to ignore it for a while to reset my ears...you know how it is when you focus them on one issue for too long 

Are you listening through the VRM box or straight off the Fast Track?

If you have a multi band compressor, I was suggesting using it to just eliminate the low frequencies by soloing only the higher frequencies and see if you can hear the ducking sound. In other words, can you hear the ducking sound when you can't hear the kick?

Right click Fx Bin > Audio FX > LP 64 Multiband
On right hand side under levels to the right of the attack, release, threshold, ration and gain nobs
you will find the ALL button.
Click the ALL button.
Double click the Ratio nob/pot and the Gain nob/pot (what's the difference between a nob and a pot?). This turns off gain and compression.
In the top 1/3 of the window, there are parameters that relate to different ranges of frequencies...
Low - Low Mid - Mid - High Mid - High
Just below these are 'S' buttons for SOLO.
Click the S buttons for Low.
This effectively gives you a strong Low Pass filter.you can slide the squares to adjust the range until you can hear the Kick.
If you pull the square for the low range towards the square for the Low Mid, you push up the cut above 125.
This should help isolate the kick.
Once you isolate the kick, reverse the soloing (click the S for the other 4 bands and unclick S for the Low band).
I find soloing the low range and increasing it (by dragging the squares) until it covers to about 200 works for me to get a kick.
Now, you have excluded all but the kick... still hear ducking?
You could also do this with RMix where the square is up off the bottom and pretty wide. Can you still hear ducking? So, what I'm trying to isolate is whether the ducking is only a result of the kick playing at the same time or whether it is affecting the other ranges through some side chain/compressor or other thing