Tutorial Description

This tutorial shows how to perform side chain dynamic equalizing with the Dynamics plugin product and the Stereo Parametr'EQ stereo equalizer plugin. The destination track can of course be the same track as the source track so that you perform dynamic EQ on a given audio track. The goal is to apply dynamics processing (expansion, compression, gating...) to one or several given frequency bands only.

This tutorial uses Cakewalk Sonar as a host, but you can use any other host provided it supports MIDI CC. For more information, check our other Tutorials for other hosts (the Digital Peak Meter Pro tutorials explain how to use MIDI I/O in many hosts).

Step By Step

You can use any filter (either band filter or low-shelf, or high-shelf) as a destination. The choice depends on what result you are expecting.

Conclusion

This tutorial has taught you a very simple way to apply dynamics processing to a chosen frequency band on stereo tracks. This process is applicable to mono tracks as well.

You can of course apply the processing to the mid / sides parts of the audio signal if you prefer (to do so, follow the same tutorial with the Widening Parametr'EQ equalizer. You can also activate several frequency bands at the same time (so that the frequency response is applied to a more complex spectrum): to do so, just assign the right CC number to several bands gains, as you did for the band filter 1 in this example. You can then change the way these frequency bands react to the dynamics input by changing the response curve of the MIDI input etc...

Another variation of this dynamics EQ can be achieved if you assign the dynamics output to the frequency of the filters instead of their gain (see our Wah Pedal for example): it will produce a dynamics-driven sweeping filter.