Mute/Fade out background track

Hi,

Appologies if this is something simple but I have been having a look in the manual and online and can’t see if this is possible.

I have a long background music track and a voice track with intermittant samples on it. Is it possible to get cubase to automatically mute or fade out the background track when the volume on the voice track goes over a threshold or even just whilst there is a sample on that track?

I currently have Cubase Elements 5 but I am looking at upgrading to Elements 6 or Artist 6 and so if it makes a diffeerence on which version please let me know.

Many Thanks for your help.
Kevin

There’s a few ways of doing it… I think you’ll need to familiarise yourself with Cb by doing some of the tutorials and watching some youtube vids.

If the tracks not really that long, or there’s say 20-30 samples/dialog clips then I’d probably do it manually by chopping the background track and fading the clips. Very controllable, but slightly time consuming and not too good if you move the dialogue.

A quicker version and slightly automated version of this might be to take all the dialogue/samples and dump them onto a lane below the background music - but on the same track. Then adjust the track’s ‘auto-fades’ settings to a suitable fade, say 250ms? I’m not sure how long auto-fades can be, could be a sticking point.

Other solutions would involve side-chaining and noise gates… Essentially putting a noise gate on the background track. Sending the sample track to the side-chain input of the gate. Setting the gate to duck mode, and away you go - hopefully… Not a bad solution, just a little complicated to set up.

Does this help?

Mike.

Hi Mike,

Many thanks for the reply. I should have said that the reason for this is I need to change the background track a number of times and currently I end up re-doing the chopping by hand.

The second method with the lane rather than another track sounds like a good option, by reading the manual it looks like I could then replace the samples on the background lane without changing the samples on the voice lane.

I cannot get access to cubase until tonight so I will try it then.

Many Thanks.
Kevin

Yes, you could change the background track easily on the lane. And if you’re after the side-chain method and need some more description then just ask. For my purposes I tend to shy away from side-chained automatic things, preferring to use drawn automation lines, fades, or trimmed clips. I find it’s clearer to see what’s going on and I can be more precise with the settings. But all people are different, no right or wrong way…

Mike.