The ducking button Final Cut never had. Drop one copy on your dialogue, one on your music or SFX, click a style, press play. PowerDuck stages the music at broadcast level, ducks just enough to keep every word on top, starts each move a beat before the first word, and carves an EQ pocket right where the voice lives, like a mixer riding your fader in real time. When the mix is right, one click bakes it all to volume keyframes you own.
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Mac only: macOS 12 or later · Universal (Apple Silicon & Intel) · Final Cut Pro · also runs in Logic and any AU/VST3 host · 7-day free trial
See & hear it
The problem
Final Cut has no mix bus and no sidechain. So music under dialogue means keyframing every line by hand, or an auto-ducker that dips late and pumps through every pause.
PowerDuck rides the fader in real time, and when the mix is right, one click bakes the whole ride to keyframes you own.
Duck Ahead and Rise Ahead start each move before the line lands, so the first word arrives on a bed that is already down.
Bridge Gaps holds the bed level through breaths and pauses instead of bouncing the music every time the voice stops.
How it works
No buses, no keyframes, no sidechain routing to learn: the two copies find each other automatically.
Drag PowerDuck onto your dialogue clip. It starts in Voice mode: it listens and passes the audio through untouched. Nothing else to set.
Drag the same PowerDuck onto your music (or SFX) and click Music / SFX. The panel says "Linked: hearing Voice" the moment the pair connects.
Pick Podcast, YouTube, Documentary, Music-Forward or Cinematic: depth, timing, bed level and the clarity cut are all set to broadcast practice in one click.
Why PowerDuck
Everything is tuned to how dialogue-and-music mixes are actually made, and every automatic decision has a slider if you want to take over.
FCP offers no sidechains, so PowerDuck built its own: the Voice copy publishes what it hears and every Music/SFX copy on the same Link Group follows, across clips, storylines and compound clips.
On by default: Auto measures both sides, stages the bed ~10 dB under your voice and holds the music 16–24 dB under during speech, the broadcast two-state balance. The detector answers only to the real speaker: breaths, room tone and bleed can't trigger it.
The pro trick: alongside a gentler overall duck, a dynamic EQ pocket at ~2.8 kHz, where speech intelligibility lives, so the voice floats while the music keeps its low end and air. Width is one slider.
The Duck History strip shows the last 8 seconds: the music's level with the duck carved in, the removed slice shaded, voice ticks on top, and an orange line riding the applied volume, exactly the curve Bake exports as keyframes.
One slider sets the music's whole level: quiet tracks are lifted to it, hot tracks held at it with a slow, transparent hold. No pumping limiter, ever. And the duck cuts under it. Auto Bed Level then rides it against your voice.
SFX, ambience, nat sound: put a Music/SFX copy on anything that should get out of the voice's way. They can all share one group with different amounts (music −12, ambience −6).
Duck Ahead starts the fade before the first word; Rise Ahead starts the recovery under the last one, the way a mixer rides the fader up early. Pauses hold rock-steady: no motion at all until the next line lands (Bridge Gaps). Every fade stays adjustable.
Engineered around how Final Cut actually renders: cuts, prefetch, background passes, Share exports. What you hear in the timeline is what lands in the export, with constant latency so nothing drifts.
One click computes the whole clip's ducking as real Final Cut volume keyframes. Drag the baked clip into FCP, Paste Attributes onto your music, and the ride is yours: visible in the waveform, editable by hand, no plugin needed at playback.
Quick styles
Voice is king: strong priority, tight broadcast moves.
Voiceover-first: fast moves and a wide clarity cut so every word lands.
Balanced storytelling: the classic music-under-narration feel.
Keeps the bed alive: gentle priority, long easy fades.
Trailer feel: a fixed full-band duck with slow, dramatic moves.
Compatibility
PowerEQ makes your dialogue broadcast-ready with one click: analyze, EQ, level, de-ess. PowerDuck mixes everything under it. Together they're the complete Final Cut Pro dialogue mix, by the same engine family.
One installer, both formats (AU + VST3), signed and notarized by Apple. Try everything free for 7 days.
Mac only: macOS 12 or later · Universal (Apple Silicon & Intel)
Updates & ownership. Your license is permanent. Every update through version 1.x is free, including macOS compatibility fixes. A future major version will be a paid upgrade, always discounted for existing owners. If a product is ever retired I will say so rather than go quiet: the final version stays downloadable and your license keeps working. Refunds: if it is not for you, email apps@rafaelludwig.com within 14 days of purchase and you get your money back, no questions asked.
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