AudioIntermediate

Audio Ducking

Briefly lowering the music so important sounds punch through the mix.

audiomixfeedbackpolish

Examples

Captured from this page's own interactive demo below.

Overview

Ducking drops the music volume for a moment whenever something important plays — a big hit, a pickup jingle, a voice line — then brings it back up. The music 'ducks' out of the way instead of competing with the sound that carries the feedback.

It works because loudness is relative: a sword hit over full-volume music reads as quiet, but the same hit over music ducked by 6–12 dB feels louder without actually being louder. Film and radio have used the trick (sidechain compression) for decades.

The envelope shape is the feel: a fast attack (30–80ms) makes the duck invisible — the ear credits the SFX for the sudden space — while a slow release (300–600ms) lets the music breathe back in without pumping.

Interactive Demo

MUSIC

SFX

press Boom to start the music

Duck Amount70%

Attack50ms

Release400ms

Use Cases

Combat hitsVoice linesPickupsUI confirmations

Best Practices

Do

✓Duck by 6–12 dB for SFX and more (12–20 dB) for dialog — full mutes read as an audio bug, not a mix decision.
✓Keep attack fast and release slow — the asymmetry is what makes the duck feel natural instead of pumpy.
✓Route ducking through mixer groups (music vs. SFX bus), not individual sources, so it scales to any number of sounds.

Don't

✕Don't duck for every minor sound — constant pumping is worse than no ducking; reserve it for feedback that matters.
✕Don't let overlapping duck requests fight — restart or extend the current duck instead of stacking envelopes.
✕Don't duck the whole master bus — the SFX you're making room for gets ducked with it.

Common Mistakes

⚠Linear volume math on decibel parameters — mixer volumes are logarithmic; lerp the dB value, not a 0–1 fraction of it.
⚠Ducking on scaled game time, so slow motion stretches the envelope and the music stays quiet for seconds.
⚠Forgetting a cancel token / stopping condition, so a duck started right before a scene change never releases.

Implementation

Paste this into your AI assistant (Cursor, Copilot, Claude) to add the effect to your project.

Prompt

Add the "Audio Ducking" game-feel effect to my project: Briefly lowering the music so important sounds punch through the mix.

How it works: Ducking drops the music volume for a moment whenever something important plays — a big hit, a pickup jingle, a voice line — then brings it back up. The music 'ducks' out of the way instead of competing with the sound that carries the feedback.

Guidelines:
- Duck by 6–12 dB for SFX and more (12–20 dB) for dialog — full mutes read as an audio bug, not a mix decision.
- Keep attack fast and release slow — the asymmetry is what makes the duck feel natural instead of pumpy.
- Route ducking through mixer groups (music vs. SFX bus), not individual sources, so it scales to any number of sounds.

Avoid:
- Don't duck for every minor sound — constant pumping is worse than no ducking; reserve it for feedback that matters.
- Don't let overlapping duck requests fight — restart or extend the current duck instead of stacking envelopes.
- Don't duck the whole master bus — the SFX you're making room for gets ducked with it.

Implement the effect in whatever engine/stack the project already uses and follow its existing code style. Wire it up where it makes sense.