Shoe Posted January 30 Share Posted January 30 TLDR: Looking for the best way to smoothly duck any playing distributed audio for room/house announcements. I'm re-racking my gear and probably changing my audio matrix along with upgrading to a Core3 from an HC800. I'm trying to understand if I can get what seems like a simple feature. Play an announcement without pausing the music and instead fade the volume lower and play the announcement over the audio and then bring the music volume back up. Nice and smooth and gentle. I currently have an older C4 audio matrix in the rack and planned to replace it with a videostorm CMX16 to pick up some digital inputs for things like Roon endpoints and return audio from TV's. I'm asking now in case I need to incorporate some hardware for the ducking. Any thoughts on ducking announcements? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
msgreenf Posted January 30 Share Posted January 30 Buy a c4 matrix and that is native... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chopedogg88 Posted January 30 Share Posted January 30 (edited) I don't believe it matters what type of matrix you're using... By default Control4 will mute the music and play the announcement. It won't pause it. Lowering the music (vs a full mute) would be a nice enhancement. Edited January 30 by chopedogg88 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RyanE Posted January 30 Share Posted January 30 2 minutes ago, chopedogg88 said: Lowering the music (vs a full mute) would be a nice enhancement. In order to lower the music volume and still play the announcement, you would need an audio mixer, not an audio switch. Control4 doesn't support audio mixing (either through software, by the controller mixing the announcement into the already playing audio or through hardware mixing, which you would need if an external source were playing), and I would guess that there are no plans to do so at any point in the future. RyanE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lippavisual Posted January 30 Share Posted January 30 That audio switch has a built-in announcement feature. However, I don't recall if fading was part of it. Videostorm would be able to answer this for you though. RyanE 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GregCAMS Posted January 30 Share Posted January 30 1 hour ago, chopedogg88 said: I don't believe it matters what type of matrix you're using... By default Control4 will mute the music and play the announcement. It won't pause it. Lowering the music (vs a full mute) would be a nice enhancement. @chopedogg88 surprised you didn't mention the other hardware option for this (lol) that does the ducking as part of this in its build as an add-on Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpencerT Posted January 30 Share Posted January 30 24 minutes ago, GregCAMS said: @chopedogg88 surprised you didn't mention the other hardware option for this (lol) that does the ducking as part of this in its build as an add-on I'm assuming you're talking about Josh, which I believe does ducking if you use the core. Dumb question, but can you have Josh play custom announcements based on events or actions in control4? I tested Josh a while ago (just a micro without a Core before they added all the new features) but have always wondered about this for announcements. GregCAMS 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
msgreenf Posted January 30 Share Posted January 30 I thought there was a matrix amp that could duck vs pause? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shoe Posted January 30 Author Share Posted January 30 5 hours ago, lippavisual said: That audio switch has a built-in announcement feature. However, I don't recall if fading was part of it. Videostorm would be able to answer this for you though. I had wondered, but I didn't see anything in the specs or documentation discussing it. @videostorm does the CMX16.. have any mixing or ducking capability that would fade the music for the announcement input? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GregCAMS Posted January 30 Share Posted January 30 4 hours ago, SpencerT said: I'm assuming you're talking about Josh, which I believe does ducking if you use the core. Dumb question, but can you have Josh play custom announcements based on events or actions in control4? I tested Josh a while ago (just a micro without a Core before they added all the new features) but have always wondered about this for announcements. It did ducking back in 2020 when I only had Micros and the Core and Nano did not come out. Now have added Cores & Nano's in addition to C4 system and does the ducking as shown in videos showing the functionality. I use the announcements for a few scenarios: Everyday use - Items on scheduled time like dinner and my wife who runs an in-home childcare in casita to announce specific activities that are also tailored to a time/day and announces activities, turns the lights on, opens shades, plays kids song and puts TV on mute. Same for dinner in terms of specific time/day, announced, and carries out actions on the C4 devices (lights, music) and shades (Lutron) Events - Family in town - use the whole home announcement function in Josh to say 'we're headed out' or 'time to eat' that plays thru the Core and then thru the Triad matrix to all audio zones to announce Probably doesn't answer your question fully. I eliminated all C4 scenes about 18 months ago and just use C4 for non-scene actions and a few remotes. Time2Jet and SpencerT 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shoe Posted January 31 Author Share Posted January 31 Looking for hardware options turns up a few things, but nothing ideal. Seems like a the main solutions are not stereo and then its maybe only useful on one source. I have to agree this would be a nice feature to add to the controller. Better in a matrix so you can mix an input to one or more zones. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lippavisual Posted January 31 Share Posted January 31 15 hours ago, Shoe said: I had wondered, but I didn't see anything in the specs or documentation discussing it. @videostorm does the CMX16.. have any mixing or ducking capability that would fade the music for the announcement input? Took a deeper look and the announcements in that switch is part of using Netplay and not directly on the switch, I believe. I know I have at least 2 customers that use it for doorbells, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shoe Posted January 31 Author Share Posted January 31 1 hour ago, lippavisual said: Took a deeper look and the announcements in that switch is part of using Netplay and not directly on the switch, I believe. Thanks for taking a look. Do you have a reference on how that works? Does it assume netplay is managing the sources like Pandora rather than the controller? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lippavisual Posted January 31 Share Posted January 31 You’d need the Ethernet option installed on the CMX switch. Does not work with just rs233 control. Then the announcement setup is accessed through the webpage for the switch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shoe Posted January 31 Author Share Posted January 31 1 hour ago, lippavisual said: You’d need the Ethernet option installed on the CMX switch. Does not work with just rs233 control. Then the announcement setup is accessed through the webpage for the switch. Thank you. I have two of these and they both have the ethernet module. We'll take a look. I couldn't find any documents on the VS website. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eggzlot Posted January 31 Share Posted January 31 7 minutes ago, Shoe said: Thank you. I have two of these and they both have the ethernet module. We'll take a look. I couldn't find any documents on the VS website. I use the CMX to do doorbell announcements. Unless I never found out how - there is no ducking. Audio pauses, doorbell plays, audio stream resumes. You don’t hear the doorbell over the audio stream Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
videostorm Posted February 1 Share Posted February 1 7 hours ago, eggzlot said: I use the CMX to do doorbell announcements. Unless I never found out how - there is no ducking. Audio pauses, doorbell plays, audio stream resumes. You don’t hear the doorbell over the audio stream This is correct. The announcement feature ramps down the currently selected audio (to zero), then switches to the network audio to play the announcement (wav file), then switches back to original audio and ramps it back to original volume. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shoe Posted February 1 Author Share Posted February 1 14 minutes ago, videostorm said: This is correct. The announcement feature ramps down the currently selected audio (to zero), then switches to the network audio to play the announcement (wav file), then switches back to original audio and ramps it back to original volume. Thanks. That's closer. This is probably an enhancement request for an audio matrix manufacturer. The ability to mix inputs to outputs and apply ducking. Basic scenarios are simply like the whole house is playing and fade down the audio and play an announcement. More complicated is N number of sources playing on some but not all zones and you want to play an announcement at the same time across all zones instead of popcorning it. Even more complicated is ducking N number of sources with zone specific announcements all at the same time. Or ducking some but not all of the zones on the same source. I've found a couple of hardware duckers that can be upstream from the matrix or looped back into the matrix. You would need one for each source. Something like a Rolls DU30b. About $100. No idea how well it works or how much it stomps on the source. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
South Africa C4 user Posted February 1 Share Posted February 1 (edited) 5 hours ago, videostorm said: This is correct. The announcement feature ramps down the currently selected audio (to zero), then switches to the network audio to play the announcement (wav file), then switches back to original audio and ramps it back to original volume. This is much better way of doing things than the C4 matrices (and I would assume many other) which simply mute and then return (no ramping) and often have audio overflow (playing at the announcement volume instead of the music volume) giving way too loud (or at least loud is the problem) music for a few seconds on certain zones after switching back… Edited February 1 by South Africa C4 user Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popolou Posted February 1 Share Posted February 1 This is uncanny timing since i was also about to implement this same feature using a triad matrix amp. I drafted the programming (yet untested) to include ramping down/up the volume around the announcement. But, is it peoples experience that without a specific ducking feature, the combination of C4 with a matrix amp will not actually lower the playback volume but cease it entirely before the announcement is executed? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WhyPhy Posted February 1 Share Posted February 1 In my experience, with 20 zones across 3 AudioControl matrix amps, it’s better to just let C4 handle the announcement and not do custom programming. C4 does numerous pause/save/adjust/announce/resume steps that are not apparent and don’t necessarily behave consistently. The announcements Agent is basically a “black box” that’s supposed to just work. Additionally, I have to add delays before each announcement so the first few seconds aren’t cut-off (the more zones, the longer the required delay.) In the end, announcements mostly works, but would be much better if implemented by the matrix itself as an “announcement input” vs C4 doing save/announce/restore for each zone individually. chopedogg88, Shoe and South Africa C4 user 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
South Africa C4 user Posted February 2 Share Posted February 2 20 hours ago, WhyPhy said: In my experience, with 20 zones across 3 AudioControl matrix amps, it’s better to just let C4 handle the announcement and not do custom programming. C4 does numerous pause/save/adjust/announce/resume steps that are not apparent and don’t necessarily behave consistently. The announcements Agent is basically a “black box” that’s supposed to just work. Additionally, I have to add delays before each announcement so the first few seconds aren’t cut-off (the more zones, the longer the required delay.) In the end, announcements mostly works, but would be much better if implemented by the matrix itself as an “announcement input” vs C4 doing save/announce/restore for each zone individually. I agree. This is what I do and using a blank segment at the beginning of the announcement file, you can get a graceful opening to the announcement. I have failed to get a bulletproof graceful exit from the announcement due to volume differentials. I have tried 101 things to get this right and always failed, 8 wonder if a 5 or 10 second mute when an announcement ends would solve the problem. Certainly something I must try at some stage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lippavisual Posted February 2 Share Posted February 2 This is where that VideoStorm switch shines as it does the ramp down of audio, plays announcement, then ramps back up. I never had to add any additional silent audio to the announcements for the signal sensing amps. Which also doesn’t require using the snapshot driver to capture each room. South Africa C4 user, WhyPhy and Shoe 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WhyPhy Posted February 2 Share Posted February 2 2 hours ago, lippavisual said: This is where that VideoStorm switch shines as it does the ramp down of audio, plays announcement, then ramps back up. I never had to add any additional silent audio to the announcements for the signal sensing amps. Which also doesn’t require using the snapshot driver to capture each room. I really wish my AudioControl Director Matrix Amps had a dedicated announcement function. There is an announcement feature, but it’s only for public address use and doesn’t work for intermittent announcements. The C4 announcements agent takes care of all the snapshotting to make sure the rooms return to their prior state after the announcement. I’ve never had to use the snapshot driver. Delays and announcement cutoffs are my big complaint. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shoe Posted March 2 Author Share Posted March 2 Just an update. I have Josh.ai now and Josh has some options for ducking. It can duck all, just audio, just video and disabled. This works great with Sonos for obvious reasons. To do this in one of the main rooms where I have Josh and have the Josh responses come out of the ceiling speakers while retaining C4 controlled audio on the room I am doing the following: Gear: Rolls Ducker Josh Core Josh Micro C4 Matrix Episode amps Config: Micro is configured to output to Core Audio 1. Core Audio 1 is connected to Rolls Ducker Aux input Zone output from Matrix is connected to Rolls Ducker line Rolls Ducker output is connected to Episode zone input Result: I am able to play audio to the zone from C4 as this routes correctly. When playing audio from C4 if Josh wants to respond to something the audio comes out of the Core audio 1 output and the Rolls Ducker ducks the C4 audio and plays the announcement. When the announcement is complete the Rolls Ducker passes the C4 audio. So at a small scale of 2 zones this works because I have two outputs on the Core. Since we do not have Josh native output with more than 2 outputs at the moment it would seem my only option is Sonos if and when I need to scale. Since I'm just testing the Josh system and not 100% committed yet I'm fine with the two zone limit at the moment. I'm liking the idea of Sonos in the mix, but retaining the Matrix and C4 audio so the future plan is Sonos port like functionality for each zone in place of the Josh core outputs. That can get me C4 audio, Sonos audio controlled by C4, Josh controlled Sonos audio, Josh announcement ducking for both C4 and Josh music. The Josh Sonos audio can interrupt C4 audio so for any audio announcements to come out of the speakers and work 100% of the time they would need to come from Josh. GregCAMS and South Africa C4 user 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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