Ableton Forum

Hi,

i usually put limiter (ceiling -0.30db) at the end of my master chain on all my beats, but with this one limiter won't seem to work.. i have to go into sound forge and manually normalize it to -0.30db - why is this?

thanks..

umm.. is that what a limiter is supposed to do? normalize to the ceiling? I'm not sure you've got it right.

so limiter only reduces the levels if they're too loud, not boosts them if they're too low as well?

thanks guys.. i had it all wrong

abletony84 wrote:so limiter only reduces the levels if they're too loud, not boosts them if they're too low as well?

thanks guys.. i had it all wrong

well you can set the limiter threshold and then turn up the input gain on the limiter rather than normalise in soundforge

but then id have to trial and error to get it exactly at -0.30db right?

no, the limiter will keep the sound at below the the maximum you set, if you want to increase the average volume of the track you could just turn up the input gain on the limiter.
I'd say this is the worst possible way of making music sound good tho', it would be way better to get into creating a balanced mix (for studio stuff) or figuring out a live set up that gives you decent control over the volume of individual elements- so you can get the most out of the PAs frequency response. Limiters are great for avoiding clipping, but they're also really good at creating an overcompressed mid range blare that mainly appeals to people who are so buzzed out that they could dance to a ground loop. A good audience- but not usually the only one that will be present.

oddstep wrote:no, the limiter will keep the sound at below the the maximum you set, if you want to increase the average volume of the track you could just turn up the input gain on the limiter.
I'd say this is the worst possible way of making music sound good tho', it would be way better to get into creating a balanced mix (for studio stuff) or figuring out a live set up that gives you decent control over the volume of individual elements- so you can get the most out of the PAs frequency response. Limiters are great for avoiding clipping, but they're also really good at creating an overcompressed mid range blare that mainly appeals to people who are so buzzed out that they could dance to a ground loop. A good audience- but not usually the only one that will be present.

real talk thanks a lot man

Ha sorry. I was simply hoping to share the big mistake I've made with limiters, which is to ramp up the input gain, because it sounds great on my headphones and small home speakers - forget I've done that and then spend the first 30 minutes of a live performance thinking - why is this music stripping my tooth enamel? Same with recordings - hearing tracks played out where I've put heavy limiting on the master has made me think 'why did I wreck that track through evil amounts of limiting, I'm a twat and should have worked at the craft/art of mixing and not gone for the shortcut of using a plugin to get it to sound good'.

Yeah you could use a limiter to get the average volume at 0.3 db - through boosting the input gain - the ceiling value would stop the output going above the threshold you've set.... but I reckon that it would take me ages to get a mixdown that wasn't a complete mess using heavy limiting - because it will simply make everything the same volume.. reverb tails on snare hits, decays on hats, the lot.. so I'd have to automate the input gain really meticulously to avoid this, and I could have taken this time focusing on getting the mix right in the first place; ultimately that is what's going on with mastering innit -trying to get the feeds from the individual stems to the masterout to sound as good as possible. Why waste time fixing the output when you can address problems at source?
Sorry for coming across as arrogant.

Thanks that was really useful and not arrogant at all.

Cheers.. thinking about quiet drums... compression with a shortish attack (40 ms), a decay of at least 500ms and threshold of around midway between infinity and 0db seems to make my drums more snappy/louder.

indeed that was really useful and not at all arrogant..

why is this music stripping my tooth enamel?

hahah

if the limiter would have to put up your volume if it's too silent. what does it play then when there IS NO SOUND? -0.3db noise, or something? would sound great, not..



it limits, that's what the name is for.

oddstep wrote:Ha sorry. I was simply hoping to share the big mistake I've made with limiters, which is to ramp up the input gain, because it sounds great on my headphones and small home speakers - forget I've done that and then spend the first 30 minutes of a live performance thinking - why is this music stripping my tooth enamel? Same with recordings - hearing tracks played out where I've put heavy limiting on the master has made me think 'why did I wreck that track through evil amounts of limiting, I'm a twat and should have worked at the craft/art of mixing and not gone for the shortcut of using a plugin to get it to sound good'.

Yeah you could use a limiter to get the average volume at 0.3 db - through boosting the input gain - the ceiling value would stop the output going above the threshold you've set.... but I reckon that it would take me ages to get a mixdown that wasn't a complete mess using heavy limiting - because it will simply make everything the same volume.. reverb tails on snare hits, decays on hats, the lot.. so I'd have to automate the input gain really meticulously to avoid this, and I could have taken this time focusing on getting the mix right in the first place; ultimately that is what's going on with mastering innit -trying to get the feeds from the individual stems to the masterout to sound as good as possible. Why waste time fixing the output when you can address problems at source?
Sorry for coming across as arrogant.

not arrogant, just confused.

"Yeah you could use a limiter to get the average volume at 0.3 db - through boosting the input gain"

the Average volume? surely you mean the peak volume? the average volume usually relates to RMS and an RMS of 0.3db is ridiculous
Healthy RMS would be around -12db

boosting the input gain on a master limiter is not gonna destroy the dynamics in your mix unless it pushes the peak volume way beyond 0db

say your mixdown is peaking at -3db , all the limiter input gain should be used on the master to boost the volume using the remaining headroom. as soon as the peak its 0db - stop

anything more elaborate than that on the master is a bad move unless you're a mastering engineer

totally agree. Although i was talking about doing insane things with rms levels. I really noticed it when playing through pas with their own limiter. Crunch!

Don't worry. It's 15 years after you posted this and here's a photo:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Anspqm ... sp=sharing



See how the Limiter is set to -6 db and the signal is peaking at -3 db ?

That means it doesn't work.