Master track Clipping?

[alekst1923]

Hey all, quick question.
I have a drum rack loaded up on a midi track with just a kick sample. The sample is limited using a plugin (izotope ozone 4) through the drum-racks built in send/ receive. It stays in green on the midi tack when i play the sample, but my master track goes over the line and turns red. Anyone know why this is happening?

[DangerousDave]

is there a compressor or any other fx on the master channel?

[alekst1923]

No nothing

[fx23]

nothing else from other tracks, monitor in tiny noize, or feedback, is master not moved from 0?

does it happen if you solo the track?

btwn there are no rule but usually limiting is an insert process, the way you do it's a parallel process (wich can be interesting)
but it's not limiting. source is added to limited.

when you say track is green, you mean the real track output, not in the rack?

[alekst1923]

It is just 1 midi track with a drum rack. The drum rack has 1. 808 kick sample with izotope ozone 4 loaded on the built in chain list.
In izotope i am only using the Loudness maximizer and lowering the threshold to -7, the output volume of the midi track is green and is not clipping into the red area. The master track is also green and is not clipping.

How ever when i lower the threshold to -9, the output volume of the midi track is green, but the master track is clipping into the red area above the line.
This seems strange considering that my midi track is not clipping/ going into the red zone above the line.

What do you think?

[DangerousDave]

There's gotta be somewhere in the fx chain where you are adding gain. If you start lowering the threshold, and slowly the kick starts to get closer and closer to the red, then i would just raise the threshold or use a different limiter and move on with your life. Its hard to tell whats going on. it MIGHT be a bug, but i bet somewhere in the fx chain, the level is being boosted, either in live or in the limiter itself.

[alekst1923]

Yeah, you right. Because when i place the izotope plugin after the drum rack instead of using the built in send/ receive it does not clip on either the midi track volume or the master track volume. Strange, i guess that the built in send/ receive is for things like reveb or ping pong delay... Kinda lame.. Not that it makes a huge difference..

[kev herb]

you are putting ozone on a return channel and feeding it with the sends?

[alekst1923]

No, i am using the built in send/return chain within the drum rack.

[Khazul]

So lets gets this straight - you are using a return chain in a drum rack for your limiter and using rack internal sends to drive it?
Im guessing the return chain output goes to rack output?

And now your wondering why the limiter isnt limiting?


Sound kind of like sticking an essential border crossing checkpoint in the middle of a field near a main road instead of right in the middle off the main road where it should be, then posted on border crossing anonymous forums askign why the hell loads of illegal aliens keep getting past...

[alekst1923]

So lets gets this straight - you are using a return chain in a drum rack for your limiter and using rack internal sends to drive it?
Im guessing the return chain output goes to rack output?

And now your wondering why the limiter isnt limiting?


Sound kind of like sticking an essential border crossing checkpoint in the middle of a field near a main road instead of right in the middle off the main road where it should be, then posted on border crossing anonymous forums askign why the hell loads of illegal aliens keep getting past...

the limiter is limiting... im just wondering why it shoots the audio in my master track into the red area despite the fact that the drum rack output remains below the line and constantly green.

[Roric]

I think is Ozone 4 that is causing it.
When I use it to do a master on a lot of tracks I notice that having it at unity (0Db) still causes the master level to peak.
Try notching down the output of Ozone a decibel or two or the cheap and easy trick of just placing a Saturator right after it.

[fx23]

nope that's what i meant and Khazul.. imaged lol .your wiring is paralel, not insert.

so your dry signal goes out of rack + goes to send that limit and reffedback as a return also to rack ouput = addition of booth = cliping. signal +limited signal = cliping. signal--->limiter = no cliping. you shouldn't use send receive, just place it after
the rack or at the end of the chain. send receive is useful if several sounds share same reverb or delay, then only wet signal
is feedback and added to dry input, but exept very rare cases where you know what you do (paralel comp), limiting
is an insert and not send process and should'nt be done that way.

you have to understand the basis of inserts vs parallel send/returns processing, thats quite very basic but important stuff
to know, you should understand that even before thinking about limiting.

[alekst1923]

Thanks, cleared things up for me.

[Syncretia]

fx23's post probably cleared this up already, but I'm just going to put this in more simple terms.

The sample is limited using a plugin (izotope ozone 4) through the drum-racks built in send/ receive

The main reason you would want to use a send/receive is when you only want to send part of the a signal somewhere. For example, you might want only part of your signal to get reverb which is where the Dry/Wet thing comes in. Basically I can't think of a single case where you would want to put a limiter on a send because the whole point of a limiter is to take the whole signal and reduce the volume to a point where it isn't clipping. So all you have to do is move your limiter to the end of your drum rack chain rather than the send/receive.

Although, it's generally poor practice to use a limiter in this way. Your best bet is to just turn the track down. Limiters should always be used sparingly.