Bristol_Jonesey

it's just not practical to manually lower the volume each and every time the singer says a word. That would be the same thing as automating the volume of a vocal track manually using an envelope instead of using a vocal compressor.

Well, I do both on every single vocal track I've ever recorded.

Volume automation for "coarse" leveling, Compression for "fine" leveling

I'm pretty sure this is common practice across the industry.

Ity might be time consuming but it's the one guaranteed way to get your vocals sitting nicely in the mix.

+1

EDIT: Also, sonitus delay does not allow more than 1 delay simultaneously. I forgot to mention that the main reason I like the z3ta+ delay is because you can have up to 3 delays at a time. Is there even any delay in SONAR that can do that besides z3ta+??

 
 
Insert 3 copies of it.......

BTW....Why can't you use a different delay factor for each side of the sonitus to ping pong with?

Ive found it quite awkward to duck a delay via sidechain suitably.

What I tend to do now is use this http://www.gvst.co.uk/gdelay.htm on the vocal track, set the dry knob to -Inf db, increase the Effect knob to hear just the delay, then get your delay sounding how you want, then export just the delay as a wave file, then import the wave file as an audio track, then automate the volume it to suit.

Maybe a bit long winded, but you'll have far more control over the delay this way.

I've thought this over.  I do this in my music all the time.  I never knock what anybody is saying or doing, and I am always looking to evolve my sound; but after sleeping on it:  How this is done, is by using faders and automation.  Not ducking, not sidechaining.

It is possible to achieve something close through the use of envelope following, and ducking if you have access to a gate, that allows you to flip the threshold, and can figure out the routing.

The classic way of doing this is: A.  Have you fx on a send.  B.  When you want the fx, bring up the volume of the sound.

clone the vocal track & do the ducking/delay on that, then mix in to suit

FastBikerBoy

EDIT: Also, sonitus delay does not allow more than 1 delay simultaneously. I forgot to mention that the main reason I like the z3ta+ delay is because you can have up to 3 delays at a time. Is there even any delay in SONAR that can do that besides z3ta+??

 
 
Insert 3 copies of it.......

hey karl...
that doesn't actually wind up working like a triple delay in z3ta.  each delay feeds the next so you get delays of delays.  z3 works like having multiple independent delays. what you'd need to have is 3 buses  set up each with their own delay units and send those buses to a delay mix bus.

Hi there

Thanks for that, I'm just showing my ignorance on how the z3ta delay works, it's not something I've used as an effect before.

I assumed it just delayed the delays.... something else learnt.

Thanks.

pwal


clone the vocal track & do the ducking/delay on that, then mix in to suit

Exactly - except send the output of the cloned track to a "vocal sidechain" bus with a compressor on it and insert a send on the original vocal track to the compressor's sidechain in. works like a charm.

Firstly using a compressor to be sidechained and controlling the output of a delay is a very usable technique and it can be done. Gating is definitely not the correct effect to use in this situation.

The thing about using a compressor to duck anything is that it requires you to spend some time setting the parameters of the compressor correctly and that is where people go wrong and they somehow expect it to be set perfectly and work perfectly the moment you insert the compressor. It won't work very well at first and requires some tweaking.

The Threshold and Ratio determines how far down the compressor is going to duck. Sometimes it has to be set so the compressor ducks quite a lot before it becomes effective. Attack determines how fast the ducking is going to occur once the key signal is present. Release determines the time to which the ducked signal will be returned once the key signal goes away. 

All the above posts are good for achieving what the OP wants to do but using a compressor to duck the delay is also very good too. Once you get it set up correctly it will sound very effective. It might save time later because once you do get it working nicely you don't have to worry about it much after that. A compressor is also good from the point of view that the ducked signal will be compressed something you cannot easily do other ways.

It is worth practising doing this because there are other situations where ducking can also be very effective. Ducking Reverb to maintain clarity with vocals is also another great thing to do. Also ducking the bass slightly every time a kick comes along. It improves the bass/kick clarity at that point a lot. But the settings here are quite different than the ducking delay/reverb we have been talking about so far though.