Talkback - Gates, Comps, and Sidechains

[Corey Shay]

Yeah the signal generator trick is a great one. I had the same issue for a long time and figured it out. I hate talkback buttons. I like to keep communication completely open and avoid the feelings of isolation a singer may have in an iso booth when playback stops, not knowing whether his performace sucked or not.

Make a selection on a new audio track for the length of the song. Make a full scale sine wave (preferably higher in freq) in AudioSuite Signal Generator. Bus the output of that track to an open mono bus, set to unity gain output. Create mono aux input with input set to TB mic. Output the aux input to the talent. Use a compressor that provides you with extremely high ratios and the lowest possible threshold for maximum attenuation during playback. I use the Waves C1 with threshold all the way down and ratio at 50:1. Set it to respond to the sidechain bus. Works perectly. You can also use an Aux input for a TB mic set for drummers or guitar players with same compressor settings so you can hear them speak when you stop playback. Or you could bus the output of the guitar amp into your sidechain of the compressor instead or in addition to the sinewave. That way you won't hear the TB mic when they are slamming power chords, and the amp will sound clean even when playback is stopped.

[Doug Ring]

Rob is right - highlight the section of track you want the tone to be on, then hit process on Audiosuite and it goes off and generates a tone file the length of the selection. It does it several times faster than real time too.

We use this to put line-up tones on CDs for broadcast.

[N-G-NEER]

Hi Guys, This may seem way too obvious but there are a number of very inexpensive boxes out there from Samson $99 List and even one from I think Mackie or alesis that does quite a bit for a little more money. Also out of curiosity where are you that you put tones on a CD for Radio brodcast? I haven't done that for ten years back when stations used Carts. Is this something coming back into favor? or is it just something local?

[O.G. Killa]

thank you OG for making it clear how this works, now one more question. How to allow talk back to work as a slate so you can print slate to a track when needed. Since the gate shuts off the talk back when recording...

Also how about dimming? I find if my control room monitors are not auto dimmed by a talkback, I risk feedback in the talents headphones.

You shouldn't be feeding talkback into your studio monitors. Just patch them into your headphone monitor mix.

If you do want to send talkback to monitors I'm sure you could setup a gate or maybe a compressor w/ sidechain using the same key signal as the talkback ducker. I've never tried it but it might be able to work. When the key signal isn't present it drops the level of the master fader down, when it is present the level of the master fader is unaffected. Try playing around with it and see if you can find a plugin that makes it work.

And Thanks to everyone for the tips on using audiosuite signal generator. I'll try it again, but I swear I tried making a selection on a blank audio track, and then telling the signal generator to process and it kept popping up with an error message saying "there is no audio file select...blah blah blah..." I'll try it again. The only way I could get it to work the last time I tried was to select an audio region I had already recorded. Maybe I'm doing something wrong...I'll play with it again and see what happens.

[Doug Ring]

Hi N G NEER, no, we're not still using carts, although I do remember the fuss we used to have with cue and wind tones on those puppies! The tone is for level reference like we used to put at the front of a tape. 250 nano-Webers/second if memory serves me right! But now just 8dB below PPM 6 ... so that might help you guess who I work for ...

O.G. - you have to get the sequence right. Make the selection on the track first, then open audiosuite>signal generator, dial in the values you want and hit process. Sure works in PT 5.1, can't vouch for PT6, however.

I was trying to suggest that the sig gen is accurate enough for broadcast line-up, so it's quite a bonus for us.

[O.G. Killa]

Hi N G NEER, no, we're not still using carts, although I do remember the fuss we used to have with cue and wind tones on those puppies! The tone is for level reference like we used to put at the front of a tape. 250 nano-Webers/second if memory serves me right! But now just 8dB below PPM 6 ... so that might help you guess who I work for ...

O.G. - you have to get the sequence right. Make the selection on the track first, then open audiosuite>signal generator, dial in the values you want and hit process. Sure works in PT 5.1, can't vouch for PT6, however.

I was trying to suggest that the sig gen is accurate enough for broadcast line-up, so it's quite a bonus for us.

Aahhhhhh!!!! I think that must be what I'm doing wrong. I think I'm always opening the audiosuite plugin first, then making a selection, then hitting process. I'll try making the selection first and see if it works for me. Thanks for the help!