Custom filter - "Audio Ducking" filter

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Oh gosh. So I went back to Claude, after he helped me with my “Bleep Censor Tone” filter, and I asked him if it could be amended easily to produce an “Audio Ducking” or “Audio Duck” filter…
.. and within 30 minutes, he came up with this, after I made a few suggestions to tweak it..

2026-09-01 16_13_48-Untitled_ - 1920x1080 29.97fps 2ch - Shotcut
2026-09-01 16_13_48-Untitled_ - 1920x1080 29.97fps 2ch - Shotcut532×455 44.6 KB

You can choose Normal level, Duck level (how many Dbs the ducking subtracts form the Normal level), Duration of fade In/Out (in frames; so a value of 30 = 1 second in a 30fps video, and a value of 0 gives an instantaneous duck).
Then a checkbox: Duck here. (Off/On toggle).
How to use:

Play the video. Press “Duck here” to create a linear ramp down to the Duck level. Press again to go back to the normal level.
Here’s a lightning fast demo I made on first testing:

Here is a Zip of the folder.

audio_ducking.zip (2.6 KB)

How to install:
Unzip, then place the audio_ducking folder in the filters folder:

C:\Program Files\Shotcut\share\shotcut\qml\filters

Restart Shotcut, search filters for “duck” or “ducking”, and it will appear.
You are then good to go.

(Big shout out for Dolly Parton, who passed away this week. “It took a lot of money for me to look this cheap”… priceless… :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

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FYI, version 26.9 is adds an auto-duck track feature in Timeline. It will be interesting to compare approaches. This might still be handy to limit it to a particular clip.

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Interesting, @shotcut. Yes, I’d like to compare it too. Is it available yet in a nightly build?

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@shotcut, please remove this thread. I don’t feel like contributing any more.

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Because I told you that Claude did it wrong?

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Yes, but a beta is due in a week if you want to wait for that.

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Good point. I was just upset about the “bad behaviour” thing, and all the time I spent on it, in good faith. I will calm down in a few hours! LOL!

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Wow, I hope everything is alright here, because contributing is the spirit of opensource community, but everything is not integrated systematically.

By the way, I’ll soon be introducing an update to the Lightshow filter that will allow users to select their audio source (developed with Claude too :grin:). Accepted or not, that’s the game :wink: :+1:

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So, we can create pretty much any filter adn add to shotcut. This could really make shotcut more popular