Possible to Link Volume Boost and Cut?

[clbraddock]

Is there any way to link two volume controls so that boosting one results in an equal cut in the other?

I’m wanting to boost volume going into an outboard insert while simultaneously making an equal cut following the insert return. Basically to drive the outboard hardware without actually increasing volume.

I know I could do this manually with a plugin before the insert and another plugin after the insert, but was curious if there was a single knob way to do this?

[tope d]

Hi. Have you tried grouping the tracks ?

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by clbraddock

Is there any way to link two volume controls so that boosting one results in an equal cut in the other?

I’m wanting to boost volume going into an outboard insert while simultaneously making an equal cut following the insert return. Basically to drive the outboard hardware without actually increasing volume.

I know I could do this manually with a plugin before the insert and another plugin after the insert, but was curious if there was a single knob way to do this?

Not without using some third party software or programming.

But more importantly, any outboard device that sounds different as it is being driven harder is not likely to have linear gain behavior, and to do this automatically you are going to need to know the gain transfer function of the device. Why would you not want to have explicit manual control of this, and adjust things by listening to what sounds best? Many hardware devices have input and/or output level gain/attenuators which you might also adjust as a part of this overall gain staging as you listen to what sounds best.

You can control the level too/from hardware inserts many ways, depending on what you are doing/the signal flow, clip gain, trim plugins or using a send to the hardware insert on an aux input, which you are maybe already doing if bussing stuff to a hardware insert. And if bussing stuff as you change the mix elsewhere you may be changing the levels going into the hardware device... so again its up to the mixing engineer to do their job and manage this.