If you’ve got music playing under your video, you’ll want to learn how to do this.
Ever hear a video where you can’t understand the person talking because of distracting music?
There is a solution for that and it doesn’t require sophisticated audio engineering skills.
It’s called Ducking. And no, that wasn’t my phone auto-correcting a different word.
Audio Ducking is simply one track decreasing in volume when another starts.
In this video from Video Branding DIY, you’ll learn:
- Opening up Dynamics
- Setting up sidechaining
- Having the audio track listen to the narration track
- Understanding Compressor Threshold and Ratio
- Additional compressor settings
The sidechaining is very useful so that you don’t have to manually keyframe the audio throughout the track.
Is this something you’re using in your videos? Let me know in the comments below!

Gedaly is the Managing Editor of DVresolve.com. He is a professional editor, having cut national commercials for major companies, and does color & VFX for indie films at Mask & Feather. He’s also a filmmaker, writing and directing shorts & features. Gedaly is the co-founder of Working.Actor and former marketing strategist for large brands.