I have a mixer group for general fire sounds (burning loops), and for fire reignitions (whooshes as fires start up). A sidechain on the latter goes into a compressor on the former, to duck the fire loops when a new fire starts up. This works as expected in FMOD Studio 2.02.20, including when I test both events in a sandbox. Turning the level of the sidechain down to 0 means nothing goes into the compressor’s sidechain input. However, in game, this doesn’t work, and I’ve had to resort to using gain plugins before and after the sidechain to turn the group down and back up again, in order to set the correct sidechain level.
The level of a sidechain is the amount of grain applied to the signal it sends. In a decibel scale, 0 dB represents no gain, positive decibels represents an increase in volvume, and negative decibels represents a reduction in volume. Setting it to 0 dB therefore means the signal is sent to the compressor at full strength, without being altered. If you want the sidechain effect to send a silent signal to the compressor, you should instead set the sidechain effect’s level to -oo dB.
Sorry - I can’t believe I explained that so badly. I didn’t mean I set the level to 0dB, but I turned the level knob all the way down to the minimum setting,to -oo dB. Even with the level knob down to minimum, the signal still goes through it to the linked compressor’s side chain input.
In the screenshot I attached, I have added gain plugins before and after the sidechain so that the signal sent through it is reduced by 20dB, and then the level is raised again afterwards so there is no change to the output of the group. Setting the side chain level itself to -20dB does nothing - the level sent is always as if the knob is at 0dB.
That definitely sounds strange. Are you able to upload a copy of your project to your profile page, so that we can inspect it in detail? Being able to see the project will make it easier for us to identify possible causes for this behavior.
Well this is embarrassing - now it works after opening the project again. Perhaps it just needed to be saved and closed for all the different routing changes I’d made to the mixer to work properly, but more likely I just made a mistake. I could have sworn though that I haven’t changed anything since then, and it definitely wasn’t working properly before. Oh well.
Sorry! I’ll keep an eye on it though, in case it happens (I mess up) again
