homecrate dynEQ — 5-Band Dynamic EQ, Compressor & Sidechain Send

homecrate dynEQ is a dynamic equalizer and compressor, available as an AUv3 effect you can load on any audio track in Homecrate. It is really two plugins that ship together: hc_dynEQ, a true-stereo 5-band EQ with a per-band follower and a full compressor, and hc_send, a tiny zero-latency utility that broadcasts a track’s level so a dynEQ somewhere else in your project can react to it. Together they do the thing a plain EQ can’t — pull a band back only while another track is playing, and let it come straight back when it stops.

🟢 New to sidechaining? Read Two Plugins, Two Tracks first — it is the one thing people get wrong — then follow Quick Start. You can have a bass ducking under a kick in about two minutes.

🔵 Used sidechain compression before? The mental model is a broadcast, not a routing matrix: hc_send publishes how loud its track is; hc_dynEQ reads that, smooths it with its own attack/release, and uses it two ways — to move individual EQ bands (the DUCK row) and, optionally, as what the compressor responds to (KEY → SIDECHAIN). There are no cables and no bus to create. Version 1 has exactly one shared sidechain path — see One Shared Sidechain Path.

Two Plugins, Two Tracks

This is the whole idea, and it is the only part that trips people up:

hc_send goes on the track that causes the problem — the trigger (kick, snare, lead vocal). It is a transmitter. It does not change that track’s audio in any way.
hc_dynEQ goes on the track that has the problem — the target (bass, pad, rhythm guitar). It is a receiver. It’s a real EQ and compressor, and it moves in response to what the Send broadcasts.

	hc_send (transmitter)	hc_dynEQ (receiver)
Load it on	The trigger track	The target track
Changes its own track’s sound?	No — bit-exact passthrough, even when bypassed	Yes — EQ, ducking, compression
What it does	Publishes its input’s level, block by block	Reads that level and moves its bands / keys its compressor
Useful alone?	No — it needs a dynEQ listening	Yes — a perfectly good 5-band EQ + compressor
Latency	Zero	Zero

Both plugins on the same track does nothing useful. The Send is not an effect you add to the track you want to fix — it is a microphone you clip onto the track you want to react to.

Nothing is routed anywhere. No audio travels between them. The Send publishes a number; the dynEQ reads it.

[SCREENSHOT: Two mixer channel strips side by side — kick track with hc_send loaded, bass track with hc_dynEQ loaded]

Quick Start

Load homecrate: hc_send into a plugin slot on your kick track (the trigger)
Play the song and check the Send’s INPUT meter moves — that’s the transmitter working
Load homecrate: hc_dynEQ into a plugin slot on your bass track (the target)
Watch dynEQ’s FOLLOWER GLASS: the EXT number should pulse in time with the kick. If it does, the two have found each other
In the EQ panel, turn the first duck knob (the 100 column, bottom row) down to about −6 dB
Play it back — the bass now steps out of the way on every kick. Tune FOLLOWER → RELEASE until the movement stops being something you notice

Loading homecrate dynEQ and Send in Homecrate

See Loading & Removing Plugins for the general steps. Both components appear under the Effects tab in the Plugin Browser, listed as:

homecrate: hc_dynEQ
homecrate: hc_send

They are first-party homecrate plugins, so they are not behind the third-party-plugin Pro gate — free and Pro users can load both. (A support banner appears at the top of each face when Pro isn’t active; it doesn’t disable anything. See Pro.)

Both report zero latency, so neither one adds delay compensation to your session. dynEQ also works in a Master Track plugin slot as a plain EQ + compressor, though sidechaining into the master bus is rarely what you want.

The Interface

[SCREENSHOT: hc_dynEQ full face — follower glass, MASTER, EQ + DUCK rows, FOLLOWER, COMP]

hc_dynEQ scrolls vertically and is divided into five parts:

Follower Glass — the phosphor LCD at the top: EXT (incoming level), GR (gain reduction), a segment meter, and the caption FED BY EVERY HC_SEND IN THE SESSION
MASTER — IN and OUT gain, plus the PRESETS menu and SAVE button
EQ — five band gains on top, five DUCK depths directly beneath in the same columns
FOLLOWER — ATTACK and RELEASE, which shape the incoming signal before it does anything
COMP — a full compressor with KEY and POSITION rockers

[SCREENSHOT: hc_send full face — INPUT glass and the single SEND knob]

hc_send is deliberately tiny: an INPUT glass with a meter and the caption BROADCASTING TO EVERY HC_DYNEQ, and one SEND knob.

Every knob on both faces double-taps back to its default.

The Follower Glass (dynEQ)

[SCREENSHOT: Follower glass close-up — EXT value, segment meter, GR readout]

This is the diagnostic panel, and the first place to look when something isn’t working.

Readout	What it shows
EXT	The smoothed external follower level — the loudest live Send in the session, after FOLLOWER ATTACK/RELEASE has shaped it. `0.00` means nothing is arriving. This is your “are they connected?” indicator.
Segment meter	The same value drawn as an 18-segment phosphor ladder. It fills completely at 1.00.
GR	Compressor gain reduction in dB. Reads `0.0 dB` and stays dim when the compressor isn’t doing anything; turns coral when it is.

EXT is a level, not dB. A trigger peaking at full scale reads 1.00, and a quieter one reads proportionally lower. This matters, because a quiet trigger only gets you a fraction of the duck depth you dialled — see the next section.

Because EXT is post-smoothing, a long FOLLOWER RELEASE makes the number fall slowly even though the trigger stopped. That’s normal and it’s what you’re hearing.

🔵 On Mac (Catalyst) the meters stay idle and the PRESETS menu lists nothing. The audio side — ducking, EQ, compression — works normally.

MASTER Panel

[SCREENSHOT: MASTER panel — IN knob, PRESETS menu, SAVE button, OUT knob]

Control	Range	Default	What it does
IN	0.0–4.0×	1.00	Level into the whole chain. Raising IN makes the compressor work harder at the same THRESH.
OUT	0.0–4.0×	1.00	Clean level after everything. The output is clamped as a safety net, so extreme settings can’t blow up the mix.
PRESETS	—	—	Menu of your saved dynEQ presets, plus a Delete… submenu
SAVE	—	—	Names and stores the entire current state as a preset

See Presets below for what a preset captures.

EQ Panel — the bands and the DUCK row

[SCREENSHOT: EQ panel — five band knobs on top, five smaller DUCK knobs beneath, silkscreen reading DUCK — EXT DRIVE PER BAND]

The top row is a normal five-band tone control. Each band is a fixed-frequency bell filter, moderately wide, running in true stereo (left and right treated identically, so the image never shifts).

Knob	Frequency	Range	Duck it when…
100	100 Hz	±12 dB	Kick and bass are fighting — the classic one
300	300 Hz	±12 dB	Two mid-heavy parts (guitar + keys) are cluttering each other
1K2	1.2 kHz	±12 dB	Something is crowding the body of a vocal
3K5	3.5 kHz	±12 dB	Something is masking vocal intelligibility — the most effective clarity duck
10K	10 kHz	±12 dB	Cymbals or air-band content is stacking up

Directly beneath, in the same five columns, sits the row silkscreened DUCK — EXT DRIVE PER BAND (− PULLS BACK, + PUSHES). Each duck knob spans −24 dB to +12 dB, default 0 (off).

The two rows add together, continuously. The top row is always applied; the bottom row adds on top of it in proportion to how loud the trigger is at that instant. Some consequences worth internalizing:

There is no threshold. The duck follows the trigger proportionally — quiet hits move the band a little, loud hits move it a lot. That is what makes it sound like part of the arrangement rather than a gate.
The depth you dial is a maximum, not a fixed amount. You only reach it on a trigger that is hitting full scale (EXT reading 1.00). A quiet trigger gives you a fraction of the depth you dialled, which is why a deep-looking duck knob can barely move the band. Fix it at the source: raise the SEND knob on the trigger (it goes to 2.00), or set a deeper duck depth.
Static and dynamic stack. Cut 100 Hz by 2 dB permanently on the top row and duck it a further 6 dB on each kick.
Each band is independent. Pull one band back and push another from the same trigger.

FOLLOWER Panel

[SCREENSHOT: FOLLOWER panel — ATTACK and RELEASE knobs, silkscreen reading SHAPES THE EXT SIGNAL BEFORE IT DRIVES DUCK + KEY]

Two knobs that decide the timing of everything the sidechain does. Their silkscreen says it exactly: SHAPES THE EXT SIGNAL BEFORE IT DRIVES DUCK + KEY — they affect both the per-band ducking and (when keyed externally) the compressor.

Knob	Range	Default	What it does
ATTACK	1–200 ms	5 ms	How fast the target gets out of the way. Short (5–15 ms) is a tight, invisible duck. Longer lets the very front of the trigger through before anything moves — useful when you want the kick’s click and the bass’s attack to coexist.
RELEASE	10–1000 ms	120 ms	How fast it comes back. This is the knob that decides whether the effect sounds professional or obvious. 80–200 ms suits most tempos.

The movement is smooth rather than stepped, and the two knobs work on opposite halves of it: ATTACK governs the duck while the trigger is getting louder, RELEASE while it is dying away.

If the target never seems to fully recover between hits, RELEASE is too long for the tempo. If you hear obvious pumping, it’s too short.

COMP Panel

[SCREENSHOT: COMP panel — THRESH, RATIO, ATTACK, RELEASE, MAKEUP knobs with KEY and POSITION rockers beneath]

A complete stereo-linked compressor, independent of the band ducking (they can run together).

Control	Range	Default	Notes
THRESH	−60 to 0 dB	0 dB	At the default the compressor is completely inactive
RATIO	1:1 to 20:1	4.0:1
ATTACK	0.1–100 ms	5 ms	Detector attack
RELEASE	10–1000 ms	120 ms	Detector release
MAKEUP	0–24 dB	0 dB	Gain applied after compression
KEY	INTERNAL / SIDECHAIN	INTERNAL	What the detector listens to
POSITION	PRE-EQ / POST-EQ	POST-EQ	Where the compressor sits relative to the EQ

🔵 Sidechain compression is always two moves. At the default THRESH of 0 dB the compressor is doing nothing at all, so switching KEY to SIDECHAIN on its own changes nothing you can hear — you must also pull THRESH down. If GR stays at 0.0 dB while EXT is clearly moving, this is almost always why.

KEY — internal vs sidechain

INTERNAL (default) — the compressor responds to the track’s own signal, stereo-linked so the image never wanders. This is an ordinary compressor.
SIDECHAIN — it responds to the level arriving from the Send instead, already shaped by FOLLOWER ATTACK/RELEASE. The whole target track now dips on every trigger hit. This is classic broadband sidechain compression — the pumping-pad sound.

On SIDECHAIN, THRESH is measured against the trigger’s level, not the target’s. A quiet trigger may never cross the threshold; raise the SEND knob or lower THRESH.

Band ducking is the surgical option; sidechain compression is the obvious, musical one. Running both is legitimate — duck 100 Hz by −6 dB for definition and compress lightly for glue.

POSITION — pre-EQ vs post-EQ

POST-EQ (default) — the compressor sees the already-shaped, already-ducked signal.
PRE-EQ — the compressor sees the raw input and the EQ shapes the result, so big EQ boosts don’t drive the compressor harder.

The Send Face

[SCREENSHOT: hc_send — INPUT glass with the meter moving, single SEND knob and the passthrough text]

Control	Range	Default	What it does
SEND	0.00–2.00×	1.00	Scales the level it broadcasts. It does not touch the audio.
INPUT glass	—	—	The level arriving at the Send, before the SEND knob

The face states its own promise: “Audio passes through untouched.” That’s literal — the Send copies its input to its output sample for sample, including when the host bypasses it. Bypassing a Send only stops the broadcast, which promptly and cleanly releases every duck that was listening to it.

Two practical notes:

The INPUT meter doesn’t move with the SEND knob. The meter reads before the knob, and the knob scales what goes out. So a Send whose meter is bouncing while every dynEQ reads EXT 0.00 means the SEND knob is at zero.
Slot position matters for what it hears. The Send broadcasts the envelope of whatever reaches its input. Put it after the trigger track’s compressor if you want the broadcast to reflect the compressed kick; put it first if you want the raw performance. Sonically its position is irrelevant, since it changes nothing.

Recipe: Ducking a Bass Under a Kick

Two tracks. Every step names the track it happens on.

Step 1 — on the KICK track. Open a plugin slot and load homecrate: hc_send. Play the song. The INPUT meter should bounce with each kick. If it doesn’t, the kick track is muted, has no audio at that point in the timeline, or the Send is in a slot after something that silenced it. The transmitter is now done — there is nothing else to configure here.

Step 2 — on the BASS track. Open a plugin slot and load homecrate: hc_dynEQ. Play the song and watch the FOLLOWER GLASS. EXT should pulse in time with the kick. If it stays at 0.00, go to When Nothing Ducks.

Step 3 — on the BASS track (dynEQ, EQ panel). In the DUCK row, turn the first knob — the one under the 100 band — down to about −6 dB. Play it back. The bass should now dip on each kick and return between hits. Push toward −10 or −12 dB if the kick still isn’t cutting through; back off toward −3 dB if you can hear the bass pumping.

Step 4 — on the BASS track (dynEQ, FOLLOWER panel). Set ATTACK around 10 ms and RELEASE around 120 ms, then adjust RELEASE by ear until the movement disappears into the groove. This is where the time goes.

Step 5 — on the KICK track (Send), only if needed. If the duck is hitting harder than you want and you like the depths where they are, pull the SEND knob down. If EXT never gets near 1.00 and the duck feels weak no matter how far you turn the depth knob, push SEND up toward 2.00 instead. Either way the kick’s own sound is unchanged.

Step 6 — on the BASS track, optional. For broadband movement on top of the band duck, set KEY → SIDECHAIN and pull THRESH down to around −20 dB with RATIO 4:1. Watch GR: if it isn’t moving, THRESH isn’t low enough.

Pushing Instead of Ducking

The duck knobs go up as well as down — the full range is −24 dB to +12 dB. A positive value makes a band bloom while the trigger plays instead of pulling back.

Send on the snare, dynEQ on a room mic or reverb return, +4 dB on 3K5 — the room lights up on each hit and settles between.
Send on the kick, dynEQ on a sub-bass part, +3 dB on 100 — the sub reinforces the kick instead of competing with it.
Send on the lead vocal, dynEQ on a double or harmony, +2 dB on 10K — the stack opens up only while the lead is singing.

Mixed signs on one trigger are the interesting move: push 10K while you pull 300, and the target gets brighter and thinner exactly when it needs to make room.

One Shared Sidechain Path

Read this before you build a complicated session.

Version 1 has exactly one sidechain path. Every hc_send in your project feeds every hc_dynEQ, and each dynEQ responds to whichever Send is loudest at that instant. There is no selector on either faceplate, and there is no way to pair a specific Send with a specific dynEQ.

What that means in practice:

✅ One trigger, many targets works perfectly. A single Send on the kick can duck the bass, a pad and a rhythm guitar simultaneously — each with its own bands, its own depths, and its own follower timing. This is the common case and it is what the design is for.
❌ Two independent trigger/target pairs do not work. If you put a Send on the kick and a Send on the vocal, both dynEQs react to both — whichever is louder at that moment wins. You will hear the pad ducking on kicks and the bass ducking on vocals, and it will look like a bug. It isn’t; it’s the shared path.

So the rule for v1 is: one Send per project. Give every target its own dynEQ and shape each one differently — that’s where the flexibility lives.

One more behavior worth knowing: a Send that stops promptly lets go. Stop the transport, remove the track, unload the plugin, or bypass the Send, and the ducks it was driving release almost immediately instead of freezing in place.

Per-pair routing — choosing which Send a given dynEQ listens to — is a future update. Until then, one Send per project is the rule.

When Nothing Ducks

Work down this list in order. It is almost always one of the first four.

Are the two plugins on different tracks? Send on the trigger, dynEQ on the target. Both on one track does nothing.
Is the Send on the track that causes the problem? The commonest mistake by a distance is loading the Send on the track you want fixed. It goes on the other one.
Is a DUCK knob turned up? The duck depths default to 0, which is off. The top row of EQ gains does nothing dynamic on its own — the movement lives in the row underneath.
Is dynEQ’s EXT readout moving? Play the song and watch the follower glass. Moving means the connection is fine and it’s a settings problem. Stuck at 0.00 means nothing is arriving — check the trigger track isn’t muted and the Send’s own INPUT meter is bouncing.
Is the SEND knob at zero? It scales the broadcast; at 0.00 it broadcasts silence while its INPUT meter keeps moving.
Does EXT peak much below 1.00? You only get the full duck depth on a loud trigger. A quiet one delivers a fraction of the depth you dialled. Raise SEND or deepen the duck knob.
Compressor not reducing? If you set KEY → SIDECHAIN but left THRESH at 0 dB, the compressor isn’t doing anything and GR reads 0.0 dB. Pull THRESH down.
Is FOLLOWER RELEASE far too long? At 1000 ms on a fast part the band never recovers between hits, so it reads as “just quieter” rather than as ducking.
Are two Sends fighting? See One Shared Sidechain Path — a second Send on a louder track will dominate.

Parameter Reference

hc_dynEQ

Parameter	On-screen label	Range	Default
Input Gain	IN	0.0–4.0×	1.0
Output Gain	OUT	0.0–4.0×	1.0
EQ 100Hz	100	±12 dB	0
EQ 300Hz	300	±12 dB	0
EQ 1.2KHz	1K2	±12 dB	0
EQ 3.5KHz	3K5	±12 dB	0
EQ 10KHz	10K	±12 dB	0
Duck 100Hz	DUCK row, `100` column	−24…+12 dB	0
Duck 300Hz	DUCK row, `300` column	−24…+12 dB	0
Duck 1.2KHz	DUCK row, `1K2` column	−24…+12 dB	0
Duck 3.5KHz	DUCK row, `3K5` column	−24…+12 dB	0
Duck 10KHz	DUCK row, `10K` column	−24…+12 dB	0
Follower Attack	FOLLOWER ATTACK	1–200 ms	5 ms
Follower Release	FOLLOWER RELEASE	10–1000 ms	120 ms
Threshold	COMP THRESH	−60…0 dB	0 dB
Ratio	COMP RATIO	1.0–20.0 :1	4.0
Comp Attack	COMP ATTACK	0.1–100 ms	5 ms
Comp Release	COMP RELEASE	10–1000 ms	120 ms
Makeup	COMP MAKEUP	0–24 dB	0 dB
Key	KEY rocker	Internal / Sidechain	Internal
Comp Position	POSITION rocker	Pre EQ / Post EQ	Post EQ

hc_send

Parameter	On-screen label	Range	Default
Send	SEND	0.0–2.0×	1.0

Every parameter above is a real AU parameter, so all of them can be automated over time from the clip editor — see Automation. Automating a duck depth or the SEND level across a section is a good way to make a duck deepen into a chorus.

Both plugins carry a couple of extra parameters reserved for the per-pair routing described above. They have no effect in this version and aren’t shown on either faceplate — if you spot them in a host’s automation list, leave them alone.

Signal Path Reference

TRIGGER TRACK (e.g. kick)                TARGET TRACK (e.g. bass)
──────────────────────────               ─────────────────────────────
   audio in                                  audio in
      │                                         │
      ▼                                         ▼
 ┌──────────┐                             ┌───────────┐
 │ hc_send  │ ── bit-exact ──▶ out        │  IN gain  │ (0–4×)
 └────┬─────┘                             └─────┬─────┘
      │ level × SEND                            ▼
      ▼                              ┌────────────────────┐
 ╔═══════════════════════════╗       │ COMP  (if PRE-EQ)  │
 ║  shared sidechain path    ║       └─────────┬──────────┘
 ║  loudest live Send wins   ║ ────────▶       ▼
 ║  a stopped Send lets go   ║       ┌────────────────────────────┐
 ╚═══════════════════════════╝       │ 5-band EQ, true stereo     │
                │                    │ 100 / 300 / 1K2 / 3K5 /10K │
                │                    │ EQ gain + duck movement    │
                ▼                    └─────────┬──────────────────┘
   ┌────────────────────────┐                  ▼
   │ FOLLOWER               │        ┌────────────────────┐
   │ attack / release       │───────▶│ COMP (if POST-EQ)  │
   │ → EXT readout          │        │ key = INTERNAL or  │
   └────────────────────────┘        │       SIDECHAIN    │
                                     └─────────┬──────────┘
                                               ▼
                                     OUT gain (safety clamp) → out

Presets

Tap PRESETS in dynEQ’s MASTER panel to load a saved preset, or SAVE to store the current one under a name. The Delete… submenu inside the PRESETS menu removes them.

A preset captures the entire dynEQ state: both gains, all five EQ bands, all five duck depths, the follower timing, every compressor control, and both rockers. Presets are shared across your projects, so a “kick duck — bass” preset you build once is available everywhere.

hc_send has no preset menu — with one knob there’s nothing to store — but its SEND value is saved with the project like any other plugin parameter.

Baking the Ducking Into Audio

Sidechain ducking is a cross-track, real-time effect: it happens while the trigger and the target are both playing.

It is not captured in an exported mixdown or stem export. Your EQ, the compressor on INTERNAL key, and the gains all render normally; only the sidechain movement — the band ducking and any SIDECHAIN-keyed compression — is missing from the file.

To keep it, print it first: set the target track’s input to Plugin Output and record the processed signal to a new audio clip while the trigger plays. See Arming Tracks & Input Monitoring, then export as usual — see Mixdown & Export.

Pro

Neither hc_dynEQ nor hc_send is Pro-gated. Both are first-party homecrate plugins and are exempt from the Pro requirement that applies to third-party AUv3s, so every control described on this page is available to everyone.

When Homecrate Pro isn’t active, a support banner appears at the top of both faces. Tapping it opens the in-app upgrade sheet; it never disables a control. Unlocking Pro removes the banner across every homecrate plugin.

Tips

Set the duck depth deliberately too far (−15 dB or so) so you can clearly hear it working, then back it off until it stops being noticeable. Finding the effect and then hiding it is much faster than creeping up from zero.
RELEASE is the knob that decides whether this sounds professional or obvious. Spend your time there, not on depth.
Duck narrow and deep rather than broad and shallow. One band pulled back 8 dB usually beats all five pulled back 3 dB — you keep the target’s character and only clear the space that’s actually contested.
Watch EXT before you touch anything else. If it isn’t reaching at least ~0.6 on the loudest hits, raise the trigger’s SEND knob — every depth you dial after that will behave the way the number says.
Keep the Send in slot 1 on the trigger track. It changes nothing sonically, and always putting it in the same place makes a session readable months later.
For vocal clarity, trigger from the lead vocal rather than a bus, and duck 1K2 by −3 dB with 3K5 by −5 dB, ATTACK 20 ms, RELEASE 250 ms. Far more transparent than automating the pad’s fader, and it tracks the performance for free.
Use dynEQ on its own with no Send anywhere: with every duck depth at 0 it’s a clean five-band EQ plus compressor, which is a perfectly good reason to load it.
Double-tap any knob to snap it back to its default — the quickest way to undo an experiment.
Since v1 shares one sidechain path, pick your single most important trigger for a project. Whichever element the mix is really built around — usually the kick, sometimes the lead vocal — is the one that deserves the Send.

Next steps

The shorter walkthrough in the studio guide: homecrate dynEQ & Send (Sidechain)
General plugin loading: Loading & Removing Plugins
How plugin slots and chain order work: AUv3 Plugins Overview
Automating duck depths over time: Automation
The matching vocal chain: homecrate vocal