Presswerk Limiter: Gain Reduction even when Threshold not crossed ?!

[mholloway]

I've used Presswerk a ton for track by track compression purposes, but hadn't messed with the Limiter view specifically until this week.

In doing so, it doesn't behave quite as I expected...

The main issue is that there is Gain Reduction occurring (based on the metering, anyway) even when the threshold = zero and you can clearly see on the meters that the input level is not, uh, exceeding zero...

so...why? check this picture: Threshold = 0, the peaks of the input are around -6db, but the GR is around 2-3 db....

I can only assume that one of the "behind the scenes" functions from the main page, not visible / controllable in the Limiter view, is responsible for this, but I'd like to know exactly which one / why.

thanks!
-Michael

Presswerk_Limiter.png

[Delta Sign]

There could be multiple reasons for this. A soft knee would cause exactly what you describe, for example, but things like soft clipping, saturation and non-linearity can also be a reason.
Go to the main view and check those parameters. When those are all turned off, the response should get pretty linear.

[sascha]

I guess it's the saturation section and possibly the output clipper as well. The GR meter takes everything into account what might reduce levels.
If there wouldn't be any level drop below 0dBFS, you'd end up with hard clipping, and there's no way around a certain harshness then which we tried to avoid completely in this plugin.
Don't let the visual volume drop fool your ears, in most cases the induced soft clipping will generate a good deal of additional harmonics to make the signal appear slightly louder or intense.