Limiters

[LeVzi]

Gutted I missed the Tokyo Dawn sale on BF now.

Still going on Plugin Boutique.

Thanks, but I would have bought that cos it came with a clipper so I'd not have bought the SIR one.

[Hermetech Mastering]

I've tried a lot, regularly trying new ones to see what's the best. A lot of my clients are asking me for things LOUD!!! The one I have found that is the most transparent with high gain reduction settings is DMG Limitless, but it can sometimes take quite a bit of faffing around with the settings to get there. It can be by far the most transparent though. If I need a lot of loudness, I'll usually combine it with Clipping beforehand, with StandardCLIP.

[Vortifex]

I've tried a lot, regularly trying new ones to see what's the best. A lot of my clients are asking me for things LOUD!!! The one I have found that is the most transparent with high gain reduction settings is DMG Limitless, but it can sometimes take quite a bit of faffing around with the settings to get there. It can be by far the most transparent though. If I need a lot of loudness, I'll usually combine it with Clipping beforehand, with StandardCLIP.

I suppose it depends on the source material, but generally how much clipping do you feel you can get away with before it's not 'transparent'? I've tried clipping on the master bus but I find there's a very narrow range where it's possible.

[Cooker]

No Voxengo OVC-128 mentions?

[Obsolete236871]

I suppose it depends on the source material, but generally how much clipping do you feel you can get away with before it's not 'transparent'? I've tried clipping on the master bus but I find there's a very narrow range where it's possible.

If you understand what a clipper does, you will understand why it only works in a narrow range before unpleasant distortion becomes audible. As was said before, clipping (= basically static waveshaping) is mainly used in conjunction with limiting (= dynamic gain reduction) .

Both combined will give you the maximum gain reduction possible (maybe add dynamic EQ to get a bit more loudness). Obviously there is only so much gain reduction of your audio material possible before it becomes a squashed mess, regardless of how sophisticated the limiter is (some limiters are designed so that you cannot increase their gain reduction at a certain point, so they will always stay in the transparent range).

With the current loudness standards there is no need for overly compressed masters anyway. If you use clipping, limiting and saturation for artistic / sound design purposes, obviously you could squash the hell out of your (for example) kicks, but as we already determined: that huge kick sound in the examples posted above is not created by simply putting a clipper and limiter on the buss, but by using various sound design techniques, including layering and fine tuning various sounds into one coherent mass (which involves tuning of the various elements to play together well, ADSR of each layer, filtering to avoid frequency overlaps and resonances, phase adjustment, probably even some mono-stereo widening).

People think they can simply put a quality limiter on the buss and that will do the sound design and mixing for them. That's not how it works. The real magic happens before the master buss.

Tip:

You can use the demo version of Tokyo Dawn Slick EQ M and use the smart ops to analyse the frequency spectrum of one of those sounds you are aiming for and then apply that frequency spectrum to one of your own sounds (for example a kick). Also check the stereo correlation, are those kicks narrow and fully mono or are they wide? Use all different analysis tools to examine those kicks and see the characteristics in the frequency, stereo and volume domain.

[Hermetech Mastering]

I've tried a lot, regularly trying new ones to see what's the best. A lot of my clients are asking me for things LOUD!!! The one I have found that is the most transparent with high gain reduction settings is DMG Limitless, but it can sometimes take quite a bit of faffing around with the settings to get there. It can be by far the most transparent though. If I need a lot of loudness, I'll usually combine it with Clipping beforehand, with StandardCLIP.

I suppose it depends on the source material, but generally how much clipping do you feel you can get away with before it's not 'transparent'? I've tried clipping on the master bus but I find there's a very narrow range where it's possible.

It 100% depends on the source material. With ambient sub bass drones, it's not often possible to do ANY clipping at all, without it being audible. With well mixed, minimal modern pop/trap/EDM, with loads of spiky short transients, it's often possible to clip 3-5dB on the highest peak, and have it be inaudible, or almost inaudible.

As always, it comes back to experience, listening, and trying out a few things. If the client wants LOUD I'll clip, then limit, spreading the load over both processors.

Another thing I have found is that by up-sampling everything to 96kHz before mastering, and doing all the Clipping at that rate with 32x OverSampling in StandardCLIP, I can get very clean results (Linear Phase, Largest Filter Kernel Size, 100% Cut Off).

[dionenoid]

that huge kick sound in the examples posted above is not created by simply putting a clipper and limiter on the buss, but by using various sound design techniques, including layering and fine tuning various sounds into one coherent mass (which involves tuning of the various elements to play together well, ADSR of each layer, filtering to avoid frequency overlaps and resonances, phase adjustment, probably even some mono-stereo widening).

People think they can simply put a quality limiter on the buss and that will do the sound design and mixing for them. That's not how it works. The real magic happens before the master buss.

Exactly that yes.

It's never just a case of putting a limiter on the mix and smashing it to bits. It's the whole process before that : everything from sidechaining and channel clipping/ limiting/saturating to automated frequency cutting and envelope shaping.

[V0RT3X]

Another thing I have found is that by up-sampling everything to 96kHz before mastering, and doing all the Clipping at that rate with 32x OverSampling in StandardCLIP, I can get very clean results (Linear Phase, Largest Filter Kernel Size, 100% Cut Off).

I remember a Dev on gearslutz saying that there are lots of mixing and mastering plugins that benefit Internally from Higher resolution signals. So that makes sense!

I’ve never thought to upsample stuff though. I’ve always been against the idea of upsampling from a lower resolution, but hey if it works then why not?

[Hermetech Mastering]

I've been up-sampling everything I do in mastering to 96k for a number of years now, if it doesn't arrive at that rate. There are loads of good reasons for doing it, which I won't go into here as it's OT, but yes, it definitely works for me!

[Obsolete236871]

I've been up-sampling everything I do in mastering to 96k for a number of years now, if it doesn't arrive at that rate. There are loads of good reasons for doing it, which I won't go into here as it's OT, but yes, it definitely works for me!

Clipping in in 96k resolution with 32 x oversampling engaged is technically about the same to clipping in 44.1k with 64 x oversampling engaged. Hence I love sophisticated clippers like the one from LVC-Audio (currently on 50% off sale btw).

I mean, yes: probably sound quality overall can be improved if you do all the tracking / recording in a higher resolution to begin with.

I'm not sure though whether up-sampling stuff that is already recorded in 44.1 k will really do the trick, because up-sampling and then again down-sampling adds additional calculations which are prone to artefacts, especially if you (as I assume) up-sample form 44.1k to 96k (which is up-sampling by an uneven number). If you upsample, it's better to upsample times an even number (less error prone calculation): 2 * 44.1k = 88.2k (which then can be divided / down-sampled again to a perfect even number again).

[plexuss]

I've used many of the limiters mentioned. The most transparent limiter I've used is NUGEN ISL2. The second most transparent limiter is DMG Limitless. ISL2 is a single band limiter and Limitless is multi-band, hence why I think ISL tends to be more transparent. Give it a whirl.

[Hermetech Mastering]

Like I said before, there are loads of great reasons for doing it, which I won't go into here as it's OT. About half the MEs I know do it, and the other half prefer to work at the client's base rate. It depends a lot on your workflow, and how your converters sound at various rates. Therefore, there is no better or worse, except as it applies to your own chain. I did many protracted tests over many years with my system, and it for sure gives me better results this way. It's a constant process of checking things, trying new stuff, keeping what works, discarding what doesn't, always with the goal of obtaining the best sound quality for one's clients.

Sorry for OT.

[kingozrecords]

Maybe try mine:

https://www.kvraudio.com/product/la-sch ... ds/details

It's free, so money back guarantee, and it uses LU

[Hermetech Mastering]

No Voxengo OVC-128 mentions?

I just tried the demo, getting almost nulls with my StandardCLIP preset, can't tell the difference in sound on this particular track, BUT IT'S MUCH FASTER WHEN RENDERING OFFLINE than StandardCLIP (despite using a bit more CPU, not sure how that works), so I may have to switch. I shall demo a bit longer!

[codec_spurt]

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