Is keying disabled in Pro Tools Intro? Pls Help

[PP87]

Hi, i am an absolute newb in Pro Tools. I started using Intro because i have an extremely sibilant voice and i saw an old school technique of isolating the sibilant frequencies with EQ and then keying them to a Compressor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0et...roduceLikeAPro

Unfortunately, i can not key the Compressor to the EQ bus, the key input pull down menu works fine, but "bus" is grayed out and unclickable.

Can someone PLS what am i missing? Thank you for your answers.

[Darryl Ramm]

Hi Welcome to DUC.

Compressor side-chaining works fine on Pro Tools Intro.

That video link is broken.

Unfortunately we have no idea exactly what you are doing.

What exact compressor plugin?

What exact button is greyed out?

Let me guess you are using say the Avid Dyn3 Compressor/Limiter. (even if not try that, and look at the UI there and read along...) The grey key icon in the upper portion of the plugin window is not a button, it just is a label for the side chain aka key input pulldown menu. The actual button is over on the middle right side of the plugin in the "SIDE-CHAIN" box. Works like a charm in Intro.

You can read how a plugin works, they are very well documented in older doc sets. e.g. see https://resources.avid.com/SupportFi...ide_2018.1.pdf

You can try the Avid Dyn3 De-Esser. There are also no-end of fancier third party compressors and EQs that may work better/be easier to use. There are several very capable de-essing plugins. Softube Weiss Deess and Izotope RX De-Ess come to mind but I really have little experience with them.

But my main suggestion here would be.... put down the plugin.... Lots of sibilance when getting started is not unusual and often can be greatly reduced by improved mic technique, trying different mics, maybe work with a vocal coach or experienced vocal recordist to get you going. Maybe you've tried all that, I have no idea. But I would avoid the temptation of reaching for plugins to solve problems that should be solved earlier.

[Ben Jenssen]

Also, make sure that it's not the monitoring that's causing the sibilance problem. Too bright monitors. Headphones monitoring can often give the wrong impression of things.

Try a simple experiment; play back a snippet of the voice on a few different systems; car stereo, ear buds, etc.

It happens all the time; people have too bright listening, turn down the treble in the mix or use de-essers, and end up with dull, dark mixes, and wonder what's wrong.

[PP87]

Originally Posted by Ben Jenssen

Also, make sure that it's not the monitoring that's causing the sibilance problem. Too bright monitors. Headphones monitoring can often give the wrong impression of things.

Try a simple experiment; play back a snippet of the voice on a few different systems; car stereo, ear buds, etc.

It happens all the time; people have too bright listening, turn down the treble in the mix or use de-essers, and end up with dull, dark mixes, and wonder what's wrong.

Thank you for your answer, i have experimented and played the edited audio on different devices. Unfortunately thats not the case.

[PP87]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

Hi Welcome to DUC.

Compressor side-chaining works fine on Pro Tools Intro.

That video link is broken.

Unfortunately we have no idea exactly what you are doing.

What exact compressor plugin?

What exact button is greyed out?

Let me guess you are using say the Avid Dyn3 Compressor/Limiter. (even if not try that, and look at the UI there and read along...) The grey key icon in the upper portion of the plugin window is not a button, it just is a label for the side chain aka key input pulldown menu. The actual button is over on the middle right side of the plugin in the "SIDE-CHAIN" box. Works like a charm in Intro.

You can read how a plugin works, they are very well documented in older doc sets. e.g. see https://resources.avid.com/SupportFi...ide_2018.1.pdf

You can try the Avid Dyn3 De-Esser. There are also no-end of fancier third party compressors and EQs that may work better/be easier to use. There are several very capable de-essing plugins. Softube Weiss Deess and Izotope RX De-Ess come to mind but I really have little experience with them.

But my main suggestion here would be.... put down the plugin.... Lots of sibilance when getting started is not unusual and often can be greatly reduced by improved mic technique, trying different mics, maybe work with a vocal coach or experienced vocal recordist to get you going. Maybe you've tried all that, I have no idea. But I would avoid the temptation of reaching for plugins to solve problems that should be solved earlier.

Thank you, i edited the question and the video link.

Im doing 100% step by step what he is doing with the same plugins, but when i try to bus the compressor like he did the key input pull down menu drops down, but "bus" is grayed out and unclickable.

I have bettered my mic techniques, tried out a lot of mics and deessers including those two. The issue i have with deessers is that the sibilance is so harsh when i apply enough deessing it starts to sound unnatural. Im not a singer and vocal coaching would not be a good time investment, although i have already thought about that out of frustration.

This technique looks like an interesting alternative to manual gain reduction of the sibilance and also in my very humble opinion if it works good like advertised it should also have some interesting other applications.

[albee1952]

Some other options to try:
1-use 2 pop filters back to back
2-use elastic bands and afix a pencil to the mic so it runs up the middle of the mic
3-angle the mic 10-15 degrees(so you are not singing straight into it)
4-separate the Sss bits and use Clip Gain to lower them(if Intro has Clip Gain)
5-Melodyne(even the least expensive version) in version 5 shows sibilance in a way that makes it very easy to identify, separate and lower in level(plus, its one of the absolute best tools for tuning vocals). Well worth watching some tutorials

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by PP87

Thank you, i edited the question and the video link.

Im doing 100% step by step what he is doing with the same plugins, but when i try to bus the compressor like he did the key input pull down menu drops down, but "bus" is grayed out and unclickable.

I have bettered my mic techniques, tried out a lot of mics and deessers including those two. The issue i have with deessers is that the sibilance is so harsh when i apply enough deessing it starts to sound unnatural. Im not a singer and vocal coaching would not be a good time investment, although i have already thought about that out of frustration.

This technique looks like an interesting alternative to manual gain reduction of the sibilance and also in my very humble opinion if it works good like advertised it should also have some interesting other applications.

I'm not sure what is going on here. The obvious reason that busses should not show up as options in a pulldown menu in Pro Tools is they don't exist in your session. And if that's the case you should be having other problems, and should have noticed that you can't output your sidechain signal to the bus anyhow.

If busses are not showing up at all go to Setup>IO>Bus and click the default button.

Why don't you start with the basic Dynamics III compressor/limiter that is included with Intro. Ev everybody here has that and can help you get started. Read the documentation that I already gave you a link to. Start off using the internal side-chain, get that working, then work out how to key off a bus signal. If things are not working as documented then take screenshots and post them online on a photo sharing site and give links here. e.g. it's not clear when you say bus is greyed out wether the pulldown is grey or the busses show up but are greyed out... screenshots would make clear exactly what you are seeing.

Do this in a trivial test session. You need just two audio tracks--or one audio track and a send and aux input track to route EQ sidechain signal back to the compressor plugin.Many of us would use a send off the audio track and feed that to a bus and then use that to sidechain the compressor. Do whatever is easiest for you to follow, but use Pro Tools to check you have signals going where you expect, especially that your notch filter is filtering the frequencies you want and then that signal is present on the bus you think it should be and the compressor is taking the sidechain from that bus.

Again I would be sure to take a hard look at technique/tracking. Have somebody review what you are doing. Pay a professional to track your voice/show what is possible. A front on condenser mic causes lots of folks problems.

[PP87]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

I'm not sure what is going on here. The obvious reason that busses should not show up as options in a pulldown menu in Pro Tools is they don't exist in your session. And if that's the case you should be having other problems, and should have noticed that you can't output your sidechain signal to the bus anyhow.

If busses are not showing up at all go to Setup>IO>Bus and click the default button.

Why don't you start with the basic Dynamics III compressor/limiter that is included with Intro. Ev everybody here has that and can help you get started. Read the documentation that I already gave you a link to. Start off using the internal side-chain, get that working, then work out how to key off a bus signal. If things are not working as documented then take screenshots and post them online on a photo sharing site and give links here. e.g. it's not clear when you say bus is greyed out wether the pulldown is grey or the busses show up but are greyed out... screenshots would make clear exactly what you are seeing.

Do this in a trivial test session. You need just two audio tracks--or one audio track and a send and aux input track to route EQ sidechain signal back to the compressor plugin.Many of us would use a send off the audio track and feed that to a bus and then use that to sidechain the compressor. Do whatever is easiest for you to follow, but use Pro Tools to check you have signals going where you expect, especially that your notch filter is filtering the frequencies you want and then that signal is present on the bus you think it should be and the compressor is taking the sidechain from that bus.

Again I would be sure to take a hard look at technique/tracking. Have somebody review what you are doing. Pay a professional to track your voice/show what is possible. A front on condenser mic causes lots of folks problems.

Thank you very much for the info and usuful tips, i appreciate it. As you said keying is working absolutely fine, i wasnt setting the buses correctly, this is why the compressor plugin was not allowing keying to a bus. As next i will try sidechaining with Dyn3 and an aux as you proposed. Have a nice day!

[DontLetMeDrown]

Sidechaining sends can only be mono, so if the busses in your session are all stereo-only, they'll be greyed out. You can go to setup I/O to add mono subgroups to them, then you'll be able to use them to sidechain.

[PP87]

Originally Posted by DontLetMeDrown

Sidechaining sends can only be mono, so if the busses in your session are all stereo-only, they'll be greyed out. You can go to setup I/O to add mono subgroups to them, then you'll be able to use them to sidechain.

Yep exactly, that was the problem.