Hi everyone,

these are certainly absolute beginner questions, but maybe someone wants to help me out here.
1) If I understand Limiting right, it's ultra strong compression and thus there is a limit in dB - does it make sense then to always put a limiter on my master-channel to prevent clipping on the master which might damage my monitor speakers?

2) If limiting works like a stronger compressor and it works on audio that is created live - isn't it possible that the reaction of the limiter to a peak in dB is too slow such that clipping occurs?

3) I'm sometimes not sure when a sound is distorted, if it comes from the processing chain or my speakers. But if i have the speakers (JBL LSR 305) on 6/9 and the master-channel is not clipping the latter should definitely not be the case right?

4) Can someone point me towards some kind of introduction on how to use busses? I imagine they are some kind of mixing workflow improvement, but I don't really have any insight into that.

Thanks a lot

 

I'm a beginner myself, but I can answer you for 1)
I used to play stuff around without a limiter on the master. Then one day I was using headphones and I don't really remember what I was doing, maybe trying out Phoscyon or whatever, and I enabled some kind of feedback loop that kept going and there was a huge resonance that kept going very fast lol it wasn't a pleasant sound
Anyway yes, do put a limiter just for protection. I even read about a few specific plugins that instantly cut the sound if it exceeds a certain threshold, they're specifically made for protection but I don't really see the point

A few words on 4) for the busses: do you mean just grouping mixer channels? That's very useful, independent from what kind of music you're doing. Let's say you want at one point of the track to add a filter to ALL your synths, or ALL your drums, all at the same time. How would you do this, knowing nothing about grouping and busses? You'd have to put a filter on let's say all 4 of your synths, and automate each of the cut off and match them. OR, you could simply route the 4 synths to a sub group called let's say "ALL SYNTHS" (remember to unroute from the master), and then apply one filter here. You could have a compression for ALL the drums (all the drums routed to a "Drum bus") , to "GLUE" them together (ps good luck finding your own meaning of GLUING).
At least this is what I know. I hope you weren't talking about sends right

i'll avoid answering more because I'd like to learn a few things too so le'ts read other peeps answers

 

1) No don't put a limiter on the master. Just use your audio interface to make sure it doesn't go red when sending signal to your speakers. You could limit the master but still blast your interface into your speakers and blow out the speakers. What matters is the volume level coming out of the interface. A limiter on the master channel will change the overall sound and dynamics of the music. Using an overall limiter is not a healthy way to control volume. Use the faders in your daw to avoid clipping int he box and your interface to avoid damage to your speakers.

2) Yes with certain types of limiters clipping can still occur. To avoid clipping at all you'd want a limiter with "true peak limiting" and also to turn down the output of the limiter to -.3 to -.5 dB. Especially if it is the final limiter in your master chain.

3) Yes if you hear distortion and your interface is not clipping then it is definitely your in the box chain. Read up about "gain staging". That will teach you what you need to know. There's lots of great tutorials. It's simple once you learn it.

4) Busses are cool. Busses are when you send multiple instruments/channels to one group channel to be processed by the same processing chain. They are useful for making a track sit well together or for making layered sound work cohesively together. Not sure what DAW you're using but in Ableton when you group tracks together you're essentially sending them all to the same bus. All DAW's though have the ability to route separate channels to the same bus for processing. Typically in a rock say lets say you might have all the guitar channels go to one bus, all the vocals to another bus, all the bass guitar channels to their own bus, and all the drum channels to their own bus. Then route all those busses into one final bus, the "stereo bus" or "two bus" and then route that out to the final master channel. All projects will vary but that could be a typical rock song bus.

 

Does this happen even if the limiter is doing no work? I think this is the case only if the limiter is actually processing sound. If you don't lower the threshold, why should it modify the dynamics and the sound of the music?

 

When it is not triggered, it should do nothing to the sound, of course. The real problem here is: do you always recognize when the limiter gets triggered? Depending on the DAW/plugin you are using you may not see it happening/happened.

 

If you use L1 from waves you have a "memory" of the reduction meter so you can know if reduction happens but you can't know when, only if you stay looking the plugin

 

For my part put a limiter on the master when I make soundesign & composition but I remove it when begin to mix.

 

Clipping on your DAW master won't damage your speakers. There's a lot of infrastructure between your DAW & your monitors btw.

http://www.cerberusaudio.com/Software/Products/Ice9/

Here's one of em, but the DAW I use automatically does that.

 

I put Airwindows ClipOnly safety limiter on my master bus. I've been using a GVST Clip before. Since I'm mixing according to a VU meter, I don't have to worry about the overloads, but it's always a good idea to have a safety limiter on the master bus because some plugins can put out really nasty shit at times. That's the only reason I have it on the master bus. It only gets used when there's nasty shit going on. Otherwise it just sits there doing nothing, but it keeps my mind at ease not to have to think about frying my speakers. I also have a safety limiter enabled in Reaper, too. In case the first one doesn't react on time.

I'm also not really opposed to "mixing into a compressor/limiter", but I don't do it because I like dynamics and you can do wonderful things with it. [kick some serious arse, to put it bluntly ]

 

1. Yes
2. no, most vst need your audio buffer to be at least 64 samples or something for a reason.
   it eats audio data in sampleblocks so it has plenty of time to react if they where "live"
3. yes.. well... no can't tell from here without examples
4. I think someone can

 

1. You can but when you are about to mix get rid of the limiter. There are lots of free "transparent ones" there and also paid ones like blue cat protector for this purposes.

2. no. cause limiting inhibits/prevents clipping. Now you can also use a clipper (provided that there is an oversampling in the clipper to prevent artifacts). The difference between a limiter and a clipper is that the clipper cuts the peaks like a scissor while the limiter squashes the peaks like a hammer (that's the easiest analogy I can make)

3. You should properly set your speaker using a "pink noise" if the pink noise doesn't exhibit any clipping then it's not your setup rather it is the plugins that are doing it.

4. Depends on what daw you are using. Search what daw you are using then go to youtube and find tutorials and introductions on busses. Youll get all the info you'll need.

Any more questions my friend?. I'm here to help. All love my friend.

 

1. What is your main DAW?
2. Are you using DAW included plugins or thrid party (Waves, FaFilter, etc...)

Keep in mind that limters function differently between software developers & hardware manufacturers.
The basic principles are the same, just different in operation and tonality.

Some limiters work great at transparently stopping signals from going over while others excel at bringing track elements forward
or increasing overall volume.

Muilti-Band limiters should be used with caution due to phase issues between crossover points mainly for the non-linear types.

 

Compressors have a ratio. The most common ratios in regular comps are 1:2 to about 1:4 , and everything inbetween. A ratio of 1:1 means no compression, 1:2 means that when the signal exceeds the threshold you have set, the comp is allowed turn down the excess by half. Say it exceeded by 4 db. It will allow the signal to still exceed the threshold but only by 2 db, so that the signal isn't too damaged by being suddenly turned down.

The typical ratio inside a limiter is 1:20, or even higher. Say the signal exceeded the threshold by 4db again like before - now it will only be allowed to peek out by 4db / 20 = 0.2db. That's tiny. Harsh! Very harsh volume control. If the limiter is "brickwall", it won't even allow that tiny amount, harshly stopping anything that tries to exceed the threshold.

If you use a basic "safety limiter" on your master and it rarely if ever does any gain reduction work, this will be transparent. Pick a basic safety limiter on purpose instead of anything advanced, because the advanced one might have some kind of coloration in its sound, besides being overkill CPU wise.

It's fine if the master output clips here and there while you're working, but your ears/speakers might be in trouble if there's a malfunction or unexpected feedback so that it keeps overloading the output till it's blaring like a megaphone and you're scrambling to turn that shit down, but can't find the right button because you're not always sure where that nasty feedback's coming from. That's why you have the safety brickwall limiter on, when you expect this stuff might happen. It will turn down the overloading signal and sound like a bunch of limiter farting instead of ear-killing feedback.

 

@SineWave
@Satai

Brainworks BX_limiter or FabFilter Pro L are probably what you call "Safety Limiter" but can you guys please name a few other example of good recommended limiters to use as "Safety Limiter" ?

 

From what I have experienced:
Use limiter on a master bus, during mixing just for safety, threshold and celling 0. After Mixing, use it to get the loudness you want, but be sure to check the dynamic range before, and adjust the input gain to the limiter.
A PLR above 8 is acceptable but depends on the genre.
On instrument buses, do not use the limiter, unless you want to control the peaks and dynamics.

 

What I forgot to mention is why I use a clipper, not a limiter on the master bus. Because of latency. All good limiters have more or less big latencies, due to lookahead algorithms, that get compensated for by your DAW's PDC, so your whole audio gets delayed by that amount. While you're tracking and I do that a lot, you want the latency of your DAW to be as low as possible and using only 0-latency plugins. Cliponly has only 1 sample of latency. Pretty much any clipper is a good safety limiter IMO.

 

Best safty limiter is the stock limiter of your daw. It should not do any work anyway.

 

I definitely agree, but the limiter in Reaper disrupts the audio when it engages, instead of just clipping it and I hate stopping audio when I work. I always play the track continuously and add new tracks while arranging at the same time. When the audio stops, it feels like someone slapped me on the head. I hate it. Even though I rarely have an overshoot, but it happens. Some weird loud click from some plugin can do it. That's why I prefer a clipper as it doesn't disrupt my workflow, they usually don't have any latency and it doesn't influence the audio in any way since it doesn't work unless there is an overshoot. I wish limiter on the Reaper's output worked like that - by just clipping the audio without any interruption.

OT, sorry: Reaper in general is not made with continuous workflow in mind, unfortunately. That's my main gripe with it, aside from not having true mono tracks and weird audio routing of first 2 channels in multichannel VSTis. But it was significantly worse in v1, v2 and v3... v4 made continuous workflow work much better. I think last Reaper 4 version is the best Reaper version of all. v5 is mostly about unnecessary wankery... and it's buggier. IMHO

 

Last edited: Mar 4, 2018

At least, use stock limiter if you don't have anything else.
I blasted my ears and monitors too many times with bad plugins and various bugs
Now any template i do get a limiter engaged on master.

-It helps protecting ears and hardware.
-It helps getting a nice "workspace" for composition : you need less adjustments before REAL mixing.

When your composition is ready for final mixing adjustments , just remove/disable it.

Like @Clayton123 said, be careful : use a True Peak/Brickwall limiter, because short blasts can pass through RMS limiters.
Like some badly cr4ck3d / programmed plugins