Automatic loudness adjustment

[D.M.P studio]

I'm wondering if there's some kind of feature in Audition or a 3rd party vst that'll make vocals automatically get louder to match an instrumental, so during loud parts the instrumental doesn't drown out the vocals?

[Title & text edited for clarity. —Mod.]

[SteveG_AudioMasters_ · Accepted solution]

There's nothing automatic that does this - and if there was, you almost certainly wouldn't like the results!  Generally this is something that vocalists do when fed a sensible level of a track back into their headphones; they adapt their performance. It's a basic part of mic technique, involving more than just singing louder - they tend, when they get louder, to move slightly away from the mic too. But the major difference when they get louder is that the quality of their voices changes, and this is immediately perceptible to the listener - and this is what any form of automated system couldn't achieve, and why you really wouldn't like the result very much; it would sound completely unnatural. Same thing happens the other way around as well - if they get quieter, their voices get softer, and you can't achieve that at all with software either.

But this is only the tip of the iceberg - all the other things you can do to separate out vocals are what is essentially the art of mixing, and there are plenty of things you can do with tailoring frequency responses and stereo field positioning that will make a huge difference to the way a vocal is perceived in a performance. What generally happens is that you get an 'appropriate' vocal performance, and don't alter that too much in terms of dynamics - instead you fix just about everything else!

[Bob Howes]

Steve's entirely right that it doesn't exist and, if it did, could cause problems.

HOWEVER, if you come at this from a different direction there might be a facility to achieve what you want:  Sidechain Compression.

Instead of raising the vocal, what this can do is dip the music (by a little or a lot) every time the vocal comes in.  It's not that hard to set up but it's easier to show than try and describe it here, I suggest you have a look at this tutorial:  Sidechain Compression Audio Ducking - Adobe Audition (TUTORIAL) - YouTube

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

I did think about mentioning side chain compression, but it doesn't really fit the OP's request as stated, and anyway, doing this as a part of a production is going to make it sound even worse!

[stefan_gru]

Stevestals: Try using the Essential Sound panel to match loudness: Get started with audio mixing

Also see the "Record and adjust multitrack sessions" video (3rd one) in this tutorial: Record and edit music in Audition