Dear Lads/Lasses,

Happy New year!

Alright gonna cut to the chase; So, Setting your limited up during production, and looking at it as a guide to see what triggers it, which would indicate whether the triggering-transient needs treatment or not. My goal from doing this would be to ensure there are no crazy transients or peaks dancing around and keeping everything under control from the beginning.

What do you guys suggest? What's a good way to set your limiter up for that particular purpose.

Cheers.

 

unforunately or not , there is no 1 way .....you can mix into limiter or not...you must find out for youreself...when writing music while doing hardware session you want limiter on masterbuss from start ,i would say..

focus on good gainstaging before processing...mix quit and pump it up later
use a limiter a analyzer is able but makes less sense (or no it can make also sense , can be good indicator)...
leave at least -3db head room on masterbuss...
dont use faders to trim gain..use trim /gain tools cause fader are pre effect..
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Last edited: Jan 18, 2019

transient peaks always trim or compress what you say audiosex ?

 

That would mean you keep an eye on mastering right from the beginning and I think this is the wrong approach. You should first focus on composing, then on arranging, then on mixing and at last on mastering (not at first).

 

It's all about preference...w.e works the best for you is what you should do. Try mixing at -12, -10, or -7 db. Mix into a limiter. People have made great mixes using all of the above lol..

 

Do you know what the limiter is doing? It cuts off the transients. The very thing that moves the speaker drivers. Think about it.

 

Happy New Year Gigity!

Here's a screenshot of my current default master channel when I load up Ableton. You can see there is a limiter on it set at -0.30dB, but it's only there as a protection for my ears and speakers (very important) should anything peak or clip during the production stage. All your crazy transients and peaks should be controlled in your production/mix down stage while leaving enough headroom for your track to be mastered. You should not be using plugins on your master buss to fix a bad mixing mistake. Also my audio tracks load defaulted at -8dB, which means i'll have plenty of headroom for the mastering stage.

 

only couple times i add any plugin in the master bus is when im starting a groove and add a low cut filter along with reverb and midi map them to a control to have an idea of what it would sound if someone would be playing the track on stage (ie: djs), then cut the plugins off for the "drop".

i've actually been using sonarworks reference 4 on the master bus to mix down, has helped out alot but obviously gotta disable it once you're ready to export/bounce your track to get it mastered.

other than that i'd recommend no active plugins in the master bus. or atleast from my experience and research .

good vibes,

edit: forgot to mention i export/bounce at -15db as well .

 

Last edited: Jan 19, 2019

Mixbus -6DB
Master . Compressor fast release for control peaks . atack time depends on your audio material (10-30 ms) . smooth ratio . (2-4)
Gain reduction 2 to 4 dB maximum
Limiter for volume gain

 

again : gainstaging before all other

 

i want to give up on that....

 

If this limiter produces TruePeak, I'd set it to -1 beause this is the standard, according to LUFS. If it's not TruePeak -0,3 can be way too high. I've seen tracks, normalized to 0dB with a TruePeak of +4dB!

That depends on the single track's level and the number of tracks. With a lot of tracks -8dB won't be enough.


Also, please keep in mind that the Lookahead function produces an additional delay/latency.

 

So much bad information here that I just had to create an account... Not everyone, but either way I will share...
I mainly mix rock\metal but this applies throughout all genre's

* If you want a good mix, learn to EQ from the beginning.
* -6db on your MIXBUS for headroom (gives you -12db LUFS give or take)
* EQ on your MIXBUS as close to flatline as possible, touch of compression 1.5:1 to glue it all together
* And for the love of god... don't use a limiter, it will square off your wave signals
* Properly gain-stage each track (Doesn't matter what level you gain stage to, i bring my signals to -6db all around to keep in uniform to the -6db MIXBUS signal)
* set your tracks at mono, double your track count, use hard panning to create a nicer stereo balanced MIX-DOWN
* guitars (you can use a limiter here if you want on distorted guitars)
* drums (an overdrive or exciter helps making them sound nicer), scoop your kick and sit it around 3db
* bass can be brought up so it fills in to the kick, synth is similar on bass notes etc..
* route your tracks into busses
* properly label each track and number with a description (01_MAIN_VOX_30P_L, 02_GUITAR1_60P_R, etc) this will avoid confusion on projects that have 100+ tracks and so on...

On busses also, set your effects on separate busses and not on top of your tracks, parallel FX sounds nicer blended with DI signal and easier during production.

To create a clean MIX-DOWN, be careful using maximiser and limiter, without limiter, you can pump your signal to +6db (-8db LUFS) without it being ruined by a limiter.

Don't be confused with mixing and mastering stages, you want the best quality in your mixing stage so that when you have a finished product, you can import your final MIX-DOWN to then master your MIX-DOWN.

Lastly, If you disagree with me, don't just take my word on it... look up "nailthemix" and get a subscription. You can learn how its all done right, properly, the first time around before you make bad decisions at the start

hope that helps,
Alex

 

Last edited: Jan 19, 2019

thx for heads up
Alex Catlow
....i say welcome to asex

 

Last edited: Jan 19, 2019

??

 

If you complain about bad info, you should mention if you're talking about peak or rms, should write dB and -12LUFS (without the dB).

If it's a mix, don't use any plugs in mainout at all.

If it's supposed to be the master, use a limiter.

 

Yes, of course; but thanks for clarifying in case a newbie finds his/her way on this thread.

 

I'm going to use your idea of setting it up as protection for the gear; there have been times that I almost blew threw does importing a sub-base sample.Cheers mate.

My point from having the limiter on, like someone said; i.e. if something started overly hitting my -6db ceiling, i'd be somewhat "alerted" and go back and treat it; as you know our ears won't hear the peaks so, I'd be having the limiter as somewhat of a red-light that goes on saying, "ay mate, something is poking my arse." and upon checking, we'd find out a sample has a nasty peak in it that's hurting our buddy, limiter.

 

Exactly my point! I believe almost everyone misunderstood me for exporting the mix with the limiter on. No, that'd be foolish, unless I'm thinking of using the limiter with a low ceiling and barely increasing the gain and/or using the softcliper to increase the crest factor prior to sending to the mastering engineer.

 

Thank you for the input mate, I really appreciate you going through all the trouble (if any) of creating an account and posting to this thread.

Welcome to the forum.