
JBL Blogs
What is ducking and
how can it help you sound better live?
Ever been at an event and noticed that when the emcee starts speaking, the background music instantly drops, then it pops right back up again as soon as that person finishes talking? This isn’t some frenzied mixing engineer frantically pushing faders up and down; this is ducking in action.
Ducking chains can be created manually with signal processors, or for automatic, foolproof results, take advantage of the one-touch ducking feature built into JBL EON700 Series, JBL IRX Series and EON ONE Compact portable P.A.s and select Soundcraft mixers including the Notepad series and the Ui24R. It’s a powerful function that takes the guesswork out of configuring signal chains and lets you keep your focus where it belongs—on your performance.
Ducking isn’t limited to live sound; in the studio, ducking is used when recording narrations, voiceovers, translations, podcasts, YouTube videos, and other productions that benefit from lowering background music under speech. It’s even used (or more accurately, misused) creatively in EDM and pop music production to trigger volume “pumping” and other special effects. (Great examples of pumping include Eric Prydz’ “Call on Me” and Daft Punk’s “One More Time.”) A ducker can also be inserted in a reverb or delay line to manipulate those effects.
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