Audio
January 12, 2025
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In this episode, we walk you through how to simplify your audio mixing workflow by using the auto-ducking feature on the Mackie DLZ mixer/recorder consoles. Auto-ducking is a great way to refine and upgrade your dialogue and music mixes in live streams, podcasts, and more!
If you’d like to learn how to make great dialogue audio for your film and video projects, please have a look at my courses including processing dialogue audio in Adobe Audition and DaVinci Resolve/Fairlight, recording sound, how to use the Zoom F4, F6, F8, and F8n, and how to get the most from the Sound Devices MixPre series of recorders. Our latest courses cover Sound for Live Streaming with the ATEM Mini and an Intro to Izotope RX. See our school website for more info!
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Gear used or mentioned in this episode (the links below are Amazon.com, B&H Photo, Sweetwater, or other affiliate links. As an affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases):
Mackie DLZ Creator XS adaptive digital mixer (the little one) — B&H, Sweetwater, Amazon
Mackie DLZ Creator adaptive digital mixer (the big one) — B&H, Sweetwater, Amazon
The outro music for this episode is from Musicbed - “Dynamo” by Virgil Arles. Take your films to the next level with music from Musicbed. Sign up for a free account to listen for yourself.
Copyright 2024, Curtis Judd
Behind the scenes setting up for a livestream: here's how to set up audio ducking on the Mackie DLZ Creator and DLZ Creator XS. Ducking automatically fades background music down when you're talking on channel one, then fades it back up when you stop.
To set it up, go into an empty pad and switch it to Control mode, then choose the pad behavior: Toggle (press once to turn the control on, press again to turn it off) or Hold (must hold the pad the entire time the control is active). For ducking, Toggle makes the most sense. Select "ducking" as the control mode and give the pad a name (like "Duck") so it's easy to identify later.
With ducking off, talking over music does nothing to the music level. Turn it on, and the music now fades down automatically whenever you talk on channel one specifically, then fades back up a few seconds after you stop talking. That's the whole setup. Get out there, make some great streams and podcasts, and we'll talk to you again soon.
