Re: [LAU] Limiters?

> Steve Harris has a fast-look-ahead-limiter which is
> good.

It's very good, but as every limiter also this limiter will ...

> i can't say what it does for "california style" mastering

... distort the sound, when misused.

> So, if during mastering you are not satisfied with the sound
> why on earth would you try to adjust it using complex filtering
> and dynamics on the mixed signal ? Just fix it in the mix, where
> you have vastly more possibilities by working on separate tracks.

Correct, even if somebody should like loudness masterings, the limiter
is limited, it can't smooth away mistakes of the mixing.
Sometimes I do loudness mixings myself. There's no need for a limiter.
The most important tool are EQs for the tracks + a compressor for the
stereo sum. If you use a limiter to make it louder, you'll get
distortion, clipping like sounds. At some point you can't make it
louder. If the meters freeze at 0 dBFS the sound is dead. In Germany
we've got an itinerant preacher from Mannheim and 'friends' of him
polluting us with dead sound. That's what it's for, preaching and
commercials. We can do loudness mixings, but at some limit it's idiotic.
Sometimes my loudness mixings are already dead without using a limiter,
a multi-band compressor is all you need to do loudness mixings.

> Well there can be a thrid reason: You have an overall good sound, but not
> the knowledge to keep it, while increasng overall volume and keeping the
> overall sound. So lack of information, practise and/or theory. So many people
> -at least here - are still hobby musicians. Willing to learn, but you have
> other obligations.

This is the only reason and that's why several people from the list
explain that a limiter can't do voodoo. It's usual that at some point a
limiter will cause unwanted 'noise'.

Regards,

Ralf

_______________________________________________
Linux-audio-user mailing list
Linux-audio-user@email-addr-hidden
http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-user
Received on Sun Jul 10 16:15:02 2011