Mother Ducker

Has anybody gotten good results with it? I gave up using it awhile ago but came back to it as I really like the sound of ducking main samples to the kick

I’ve tried both stand alone and controller mode and get just random results. No matter the settings it’s very unstable. Just random increases in gain reduction/inconsistent ducking.

Anybody else experiencing this?

I've only used it a couple times, but tried to again last weekend on a DnB track and hated it heh. Even with the release set to its shortest time, the thing was still pulling my whole bass track down in a weird way and was not reacting like I thought it would. Would be nice if it a had a filter on the input too. Luckily the track I was working on, the drum loop was chopped up as it should be, but if you use a full drum loop, the whole loop is going to duck it when all you really want is the kick drum doing it. Without a filter on it, you've just gotta hope your kick is on its own pad/track so you can put the input only on that one drum.

It's a piece of shit but some people think its the ducks nuts. I personally never use it, probably wont ever use it. There's a zillion ways to make crap pulse with out sodomizing it with sidechain compression.

Ultros wrote:sodomizing it with sidechain compression.

That describes exactly what my track sounded like after putting it on the bass and kick drum haha.

I am not a sidechain lover but sometimes I use it with kick as source and bass as target.
It works fine for me.
Switch off AUTO.
Find the right threshold and ratio, adjust
attack/release and gain manually.

Straker wrote:It works fine for me.
Switch off AUTO.

Same here. It gets things going for the time being, but for final mixes I deactivate it prior to bouncing and redo that ducking properly in my DAW.

That ducking technique... especially the way early 10's dance producers were tying the pads to the kick drum... my senses just get so disoriented (and not in a good way) especially when I listened through headphones. I'm glad it's not as overused this way anymore. But yeah, to answer your question, I haven't gotten good results with it. I did play with it a little to see if it does the whole disorienting pulsating thing, and it did, but I haven't done anything with it past that.

brisket wrote:That ducking technique... especially the way early 10's dance producers were tying the pads to the kick drum... my senses just get so disoriented (and not in a good way) especially when I listened through headphones. I'm glad it's not as overused this way anymore. But yeah, to answer your question, I haven't gotten good results with it. I did play with it a little to see if it does the whole disorienting pulsating thing, and it did, but I haven't done anything with it past that.

Well, you have to edit parameters to make it work properly to your wish.
If it's just for pumping heavily, you have Air pumper.
Motherducker works fine to balance overlapping sounds (kick-bass, keyboards-voice and so on).
As I said before, switching Auto off is first thing to do.
Then an attack not too short and a release not too short.
Then you balance the level with gain.
For me it works fine this way.

Yea I believe you have to tweak it to How much your Kick is Pumpin along side a Heavy Bass Line. I know a lot of people think its a One-Stop Preset or something lol. If you think as soon as you load it, it'll work flawlessly....Then Yes it'll be a Piece of $hit lol. Once you Learn it...to use it properly, You'll see its value....As with all the Other Plug-Ins

I don't know what the hell you guys are talking about - Mother Ducker sounds fine and works fine on my MPC and Force.

They Want an Easy Button

EnochLight wrote:I don't know what the hell you guys are talking about - Mother Ducker sounds fine and works fine on my MPC and Force.

Yeah for me too.
All Fx actually work fine on my Mpc.
And motherducker makes its job properly.

I don’t want an easy button. I’m not just loading it up and not adjusting parameters. It’s a legit question. As I said, no matter the settings I get inconsistent results. The gain reduction is sporadic and will randomly increase despite the incoming signal.

This isn’t a bash akai post or a **** fest. I’m having difficulty getting the results I want out of it and asking other users if they have similar problems so that maybe I can get a solution.

J.O.BEATS wrote:I don’t want an easy button. I’m not just loading it up and not adjusting parameters. It’s a legit question. As I said, no matter the settings I get inconsistent results. The gain reduction is sporadic and will randomly increase despite the incoming signal.

This isn’t a bash akai post or a **** fest. I’m having difficulty getting the results I want out of it and asking other users if they have similar problems so that maybe I can get a solution.

Did you switch off AUTO and edit parameters manually?
Try also to increase attack.
I don't know, I don't understand what you mean with irregularities, I never had such problems.
I never use it as a heavy pumper though.
For that, remember you also have Air pumper which is quite good as all Air fx.