Ducking

Built-in Ducking lowers a track’s output whenever another track plays — the classic “kick pumps the bass” move, without a plugin. The dip is applied after the clipper and limiter and is always downward, so it never adds gain or colours the source. Because the trigger comes from the source track’s clip starts and MIDI note-ons — not from analysing its audio — a duck is a pure timeline function. Live playback and a bounce produce the identical gain curve, with no detection delay and no added latency.

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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 curves — Kick, Kick 2, … — each a separate ducking, disambiguated by name.

This mirrors Returns & Sends: an idle row per ducking on every track, drag the amount above 0 to apply it here.

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Creating 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.

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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 the ⓘ button.
• Rename… — renames the ducking everywhere it’s used.
• 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.

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The shape editor

The ⓘ button opens the shape editor for the shared ducking — the curve, trigger, length, lookahead, and name. 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.
• Space starts and stops playback without leaving the editor.

The vertical axis is the gain multiplier: the top is unity (no duck), the bottom is fully ducked. A target’s amount scales the whole shape between those extremes.

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Trigger modes

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Length

The Shape control sets the length of one duck cycle, from 1/16 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.