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fort_1201
Participant
January 13, 2025
Question

Why does sidechain compression disappear when exporting individual tracks in Adobe Audition?

  • January 13, 2025
  • 2 replies
  • 317 views

Hey everyone,

I’m on a project in Premiere Pro with vocals and background music. To create a ducking effect where the background music lowers under the vocals, I’m using a sidechain-capable VST plugin to have more flexibiltiy over the effect compared to the built-in ducking feature from Premiere. Since Premiere doesn’t support sidechaining, I linked the project to Audition.

Here’s the setup in Audition:

  • The plugin is added to the background music track.
  • The plugin’s sidechain input is enabled.
  • The vocal track is sent as the sidechain trigger.

Everything works perfectly during playback in Audition, and if I export the full mix, the sidechain effect is included, no problems there.

The issue comes when exporting individual tracks.
If I export just the music track (which has the sidechain effect applied), the sidechain effect is completely missing. Other effects like saturation or EQ are included just fine, but anything that depends on a sidechain trigger doesn’t render in individual exports.  

If I export the individual Stems as well, the Side-chain effect completely disseperas ( Quite intriguing why even though within the session, when I solo the track, I can hear the effect of the side chain)

 

I tried workarounds, like lowering the vocal track volume and exporting the entire mix to isolate the music track, but that’s not ideal when I want properly exported stems.

So why does Audition ignore the sidechain effect when exporting individual tracks (BOUNCING INDIVIDUAL TRACKS OR EXPORTING STEMS : SAME ISSUE)? Is there a proper way to ensure sidechain processing is included during track exports, or is this just how Audition handles sidechaining?

It shouldn’t be this way unless it’s a bug. Any idea what the issue might be?

    2 replies

    R
    RoyceJennings
    Participating Frequently
    September 29, 2025

    Thank you, why??  I'm beating my head against a wall trying to figure out how to ONLY export the ducked track so I can maintain individual tracks without having to mix them down into one flattened file, why is this so hard?  And why is the freeze track symbol (Pre-render lightning bolt) disabled on my ducked track?  As soon as side-chain is created, it's grayed out.  It's like they've prevented any possible way to export side-chain affected tracks by themselves.  Literally the only thing I can think of would be to record desktop audio while playing the track solo... for an hour-long file.  Please Adobe, there must be a way, right?

    SteveG_AudioMasters_
    Community Expert
    SteveG_AudioMasters_Community Expert
    Community Expert
    January 13, 2025

    It does sound like a routing issue. On the other hand it may be that because the controlling track isn't actually running during the stem export that it isn't being applied, which sounds depressingly plausible and would pretty much result in that happening. So it may be by design. There's also the issue of whether this was applied as a clip or track effect - not sure what happens under these circumstances.

     

    What might be interesting would be to try the same thing using Audition's built-in ducking system in Essential Sound and seeing if the same thing happens. Short video on setting that up (it's very easy, and gives you a lot of control) here. 

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