The model: one curve, many targets
A ducking is named and project-wide. It carries the trigger track, the drawn shape, and its settings — authored once — and then appears as an amount row on every other track. Each target dials in its own amount, so a single kick can pump the bass, the pads, and a reverb return by a different amount each.- The ducking is named after its trigger track and lives on that track.
- A track can’t duck itself, so its own row never appears.
- One trigger can carry several distinct styles —
Kick,Kick 2, … — each a separate ducking with its own curve and range. The quickest way to a second style is Duplicate: a lows-only duck for the bass and a full pump for a pad, both from the same kick, and each track picks the one it wants.
Create a ducking
Press⌥D (Add Ducking…) and choose a trigger track from the list. Any track with clips — sample or instrument — is a valid trigger; a track with nothing to trigger from is not offered.
You can also add one from the Inspector’s empty-area right-click menu (Add Ducking ▸ trigger track) or the Command Palette. If a duckable track is selected when you create the ducking, it is applied to that track at a default amount right away, so you hear it immediately.
The Ducking section only appears on a track once at least one ducking can apply to it. The very first ducking in a project therefore comes from
⌥D, the empty-area menu, or the palette — not from the section header, which doesn’t exist yet.The amount row
Open the Ducking section in the Inspector. One row appears per ducking whose trigger is a different track; rows are idle until they carry an amount. Drag the row’s slider above 0 to apply the ducking here. Drag it back to 0 to remove it from this track — the ducking itself, and its use on every other track, is untouched.
Right-click a row for:
- Trigger: Notes / Clip Starts or Clip Starts Only — the retrigger mode (see below).
- Edit Shape… — same as clicking the name.
- Rename… — renames the ducking everywhere it’s used.
- Duplicate — a copy of this ducking (curve, trigger, length, lookahead, range) on the same trigger, applied to no track yet.
- Go to Trigger Track — selects the source in the sidebar.
- Remove from This Track — same as dragging the amount to 0.
- Delete Ducking (All Tracks) — removes the ducking from every track. The label spells out the scope so it isn’t confused with the per-track removal above.
The shape editor
Clicking a row’s name opens the shape editor for the shared ducking — the curve, trigger, length, lookahead, range, and name. The header’s duplicate button copies the ducking and moves the editor to the copy. Reachable identically from any track’s row, and any edit is felt on every track the ducking is applied to.- Draw the shape by hand over the material it acts on. The trigger track’s and the target track’s waveforms sit behind the curve, folded so every hit lands in the same place — what you draw is exactly what you hear against.
- A live oscilloscope shows the actual post-effects audio playing under the curve, so you can shape the duck against the real signal, not a static picture.
Spacestarts and stops playback without leaving the editor.
Trigger modes
Length
The Shape control sets the length of one duck cycle, from1/4 beat up to several bars. It is beat-based, so the duck stays musical across tempo changes; the engine bakes the shape to samples at the current tempo. Changing the length keeps existing points anchored to the trigger event rather than rescaling the whole curve.
Lookahead
Lookahead is a zero-latency pre-duck: how far before the trigger event the shape starts. With it off, the shape begins at the event; with a positive value, the curve to the left of the trigger line ramps down into the hit — so the transient is never caught mid-slope. Classic hosts can only do this by adding plugin latency. Because Gridshift’s triggers are known from the timeline, it simply fires the schedule early — no latency is added.Range
Range decides which part of the target’s sound the duck acts on.
With Lows or Highs, a strip next to the Range menu shows the trigger sound’s spectrum with the ducked side shaded, so you can see where the kick sits. Drag on the strip to move the cutoff, from 30 Hz to 16 kHz (a new range starts at 120 Hz for Lows and 2.5 kHz for Highs). While you drag, every track this ducking is applied to plays only the part the ducking acts on — you hear the cutoff land. Releasing commits one undo step.
The range belongs to the ducking, together with its curve. For a different range on another track, duplicate the ducking and change the copy.
Between ducks, a ranged ducking leaves the signal exactly as it was — not even the phase changes. It adds no latency, and a bounce renders it identically.
The preset library
Every editor offers a library of reusable curves:
The ◀ ▶ buttons step through the library against the playing material, each step a single undo, so you can audition curves without stopping. Save Current Shape as Preset… adds your own curve to the library — saved presets sync via iCloud and join the same list.
A preset carries only the curve, length, and lookahead. Applying one overwrites exactly those — the trigger source, the targets, their amounts, the trigger mode, and the range are left untouched. So one saved curve can be dropped onto any duck.
What can trigger, what can be ducked
Because groups, returns, and the master are all valid targets, one trigger can duck a whole submix or a shared effect return, not just individual tracks.
Ducking vs. plugin sidechain
Both make one track respond to another, but they sit in different places:
Reach for built-in Ducking when you want a clean, drawn volume duck with no plugin in the path; reach for plugin sidechain when you want a compressor, gate, or filter to react to the source.
Bounce & Flatten
Ducking is part of the mix, so it renders identically in a bounce — live and offline share the same baked shape. Flatten Track (⌥F) prints a track’s instrument and effects to audio but leaves the mixer live, so any ducking on the flattened track keeps working exactly as before.