I have a song* which is basically a vocal and backup with a piano, bass and light drum instrumentation.
 
Now there is no real need to use MAutoVolume but I wanted to play with it as I've had it for a while now. When used, as is, as a "volume leveler" all is well (I simply adjusted the output gain and played with the sensitivity) and although the singer is very professional and doesn't really need it, the slight bit of leveling helped me balance the lead and backup as if they were one voice which is what I am trying to do. So I liked that!
 
So just to play with it further and get to know it, I activated the sidechain and, using sends from the piano track, bass track and drum bus, gave it a try to see what would happen. The first thing I noticed is the vocals disappeared and I had to adjust the output gain the full +24dB to get them back close to where they should be.
 
Why is this? Did I do something wrong?
 
Now I have no intention of using the sidechain on this song as it is not warranted. The background music stays very constant and level so there is not a need. I just wanted to play with it.
 
* Hopefully I will post this song in the song sections later this week if all goes well with initial mixing. This is really my first production since being given about one year to live which was up Easter 2014. During this time, the most I could do was study at Groove 3, read the forums, etc. But I picked up guitar again 3 weeks ago, wrote my 1st song in years and am loving the feeling once again. I've come to really appreciate the experience and knowledge on the forums so I'm going to try and feed on that whenever I can :)

Did you enable ducking next to the enable button in the side chain section?

No I did not.
 
I have version 8.06 and I am running 8.53. The MAutovolume is instantiated on the lead vocal with sends to it from the bass and piano tracks and the drum bus. Under advanced, the Noise Gate button is also lit but I found little effect here on or off. Remember, this song has very little dynamics, basically a quiet prayer to the Lord.
 
I will try that now.

scook
Did you enable ducking next to the enable button in the side chain section?

OK that alleviates the issue somewhat, by clicking the ducking button on and off, the singers voice comes in (On) and goes out (Off).
 
But...
 
I don't want ducking such as what I would do in Film dialogue. That is, I don't want the volume to stay level while the input signal is attenuated, I want the lead singer's volume to increase / decrease with the song so it stays on top.
 
I also have HoRNet AutoGainPro and tried it out on the song earlier. It seemed to keep the singer's voice on top but, again, there are so little dynamics in this song, I'll need another song which is more aggressive to really try it out. Also, the HoRNet plugin was, at first, a little too complex for me. I'll have to work on it...but that is another matter.

Ducking is not what you want. Try adjusting the background sensitivity and gain in the side-chain section before adjusting the output gain. I don't have 8.5 available anymore to test but I doubt that is the problem.

scook
Try adjusting the background sensitivity and gain in the side-chain section before adjusting the output gain.

I probably gave that a go if memory serves me (and it often does not anymore) , but, to be sure, I will revisit it again this afternoon and see. I probably need a more dynamic song to really test this out and I will begin mixing another song next week which will fit the bill.
 
As it now stands, I like using it as a leveler. As I mentioned, I have it on the backup vocals as well so I can put the two together (each are comps from three takes recorded 6 months apart so there is some volume disrepancies) and really get them to blend nicely and I haven't treated them at all at this early stage so I am hopeful for the outcome.
 
Since I have the two tracks nicely edited into individual clips / phrases, manual volume automation would be my usual next step, but this worked nicely for 5 minutes of effort. I notice from a previous thread, bitflipper talked about using the sensitivity knob to decrease some of the transient gain / attenuation so I'll also keep that in mind as I play with this a little more today.
 
Thanks for your usual prompt and knowledgeable help Scook!