Stereo and Mono Sidechain Compressors for Tracktion

Adding the Sidechain Compressor in Tracktion

The first thing to do is to open up Tracktion and open your project.

Tracktion uses the term “filter” to refer to a plug-in, be it native to Tracktion, or a 3rd party plug-in such as a VST plug-in.

To add the plug-in to your tracks, simply drag the icon labelled “new filter...” located just above the filter section, and drop it where you want the new filter to be placed. The figure below shows a filter being added to track one.

Top Right of Tracktion Screen

Notice that the area in front of the volume/pan filter is glowing red; this is how you can tell where the filter will be placed. If there is no illu- mination, then you are not currently over a valid target area.

Once the “new filter” icon has been dropped, a list of available filters will appear, as if by mag- ic. Choose the filter you wish to add to the track from this list. The Sidechain Compressors and other plug-ins are available in the "Mackie Plugins" folder of this drop down menu.

Setting up a new Rack Filter

The Sidechain Compressors have an extra input (the Key Input), and you must use the Rack Filters feature of Tracktion to make this work. This is really exciting and wonderful, so we hope you will bear with us here.

Right-click on the filter you just added, and select "wrap this filter in a new rack filter" from the drop down menu.

The rack filter

section will appear, with the Sidechain Compressor in place and its inputs, key input, midi, and output lines shown connected.

The filter is now shown as a Stereo Sidechain Comp Wrapper.

The next pages show some examples, with steps showing how to set up the Key Input and Main Input(s) to the Sidechain Compressor.

8

User’s Guide