using saturator as a master limiter?

Johnisfaster · Post by **Johnisfaster** » Sun Oct 02, 2005 6:27 am

ok I'm sure someone has brought this up at some point but originally I was thinking saturator was only a distortion but it does appear that it works really well as a master limiter to keep your entire song from peaking out. any thoughts on this? is it a good idea or is it a bad idea? does it fu*k up the sound quality on a micro type level?

mosca · Post by **mosca** » Sun Oct 02, 2005 9:01 am

Personally i use this George Yhongs W1 Limiter

it's free (PC & Mac)

not a huge fan of saturator

Machinate · Post by **Machinate** » Sun Oct 02, 2005 10:36 am

I dig it - but on the other hand I'm the kind of guy who uses flatblaster 2 to totally kill a track.

I think the Live Saturator is pretty good for subtle tweaks, using the soft mode and a really high threshold, but once the program material gets challenging I don't feel it cuts it.

forge · Post by **forge** » Sun Oct 02, 2005 2:21 pm

yeah, dont know if it trust Sat with a master channel, more an individual instrument thing

Machinate · Post by **Machinate** » Sun Oct 02, 2005 2:24 pm

heh, I use the saturator on nearly everything I would normally have comp'd. But I'm a moron.

3phase · Post by **3phase** » Sun Oct 02, 2005 2:30 pm

Johnisfaster wrote:ok I'm sure someone has brought this up at some point but originally I was thinking saturator was only a distortion but it does appear that it works really well as a master limiter to keep your entire song from peaking out. any thoughts on this? is it a good idea or is it a bad idea? does it fu*k up the sound quality on a micro type level?

Its generally a bad idea because you implement a lot of distortion...
But if this is what you want...Than go for it...
You might like to run a clean mix in parralel in case that that what sounds punchy on your speakers becomes a distorted cloud on another system.

supster · Post by **supster** » Sun Oct 02, 2005 2:48 pm

i use saturator all the time on individual elements, its great for warming things up and adding a little dirt ... which makes a bigger difference than i might have thought it would have in a lot of cases. really does the trick with all this digital stuff imo

i also will selectiviely run it over some full tracks in a DJ mix - very light settings, ive also found reasons to do this and again, it warms/dirties up in a way no other processor is doing it

but as a limiter? noo i think there are way better units for that, i dont think this was meant for that .. i know what you mean though, ive seen the waveform on tracks that were pushed hard with it, it looks like a limited track.
.

Johnisfaster · Post by **Johnisfaster** » Sun Oct 02, 2005 8:26 pm

yeah but if you pull up saturator(without using any of the presets) it will be in clip mode with no drive and it appears to simply be a limiter. it doesn't seem to add any gain but just limit everything? am I insane?

krank · Post by **krank** » Fri Dec 23, 2005 10:31 am

Johnisfaster wrote:yeah but if you pull up saturator(without using any of the presets) it will be in clip mode with no drive and it appears to simply be a limiter. it doesn't seem to add any gain but just limit everything? am I insane?

Sending this back to the top since I've been wondering the same thing.

Merry Christmas and a Saturated New Year.

Machinate · Post by **Machinate** » Fri Dec 23, 2005 10:37 am

Johnisfaster wrote:yeah but if you pull up saturator(without using any of the presets) it will be in clip mode with no drive and it appears to simply be a limiter. it doesn't seem to add any gain but just limit everything? am I insane?

No you're not insane - that's right. Also called a "clipping limiter" - doesn't add anything, just brickwalls, to help prevent *really* nasty digital clipping. If you want to, you can add some gain and clip your peaks a bit more that way.

djsynchro · Post by **djsynchro** » Fri Dec 23, 2005 11:06 am

If you render as 24 or 32 bit it is not necessary to have your track peaking at 0db, if it's a bit under (to prevent it from clipping) that's fine. Just pull the master fader a bit down.

I think it's a better idea to leave the mastering for later, even if you do it yourself. Once compression is on, you can't take it off. If it doesn't sound loud enough - turn it up.

Good article on mixing here: http://www.digido.com/portal/pmodule_id ... ge_id=119/

using saturator as a master limiter?

using saturator as a master limiter?

Re: using saturator as a master limiter?