Sorry to correct you Kritikon, but his main concern is 'not blowing his speakers'.kritikon wrote:I have to agree with Cookie here. You have a pretty good idea what the volume of a heavy drum hit is going to be, so you can set your channels to that maximum. Presumably by setting the channels as loud as you can, you are telling us you want to capture the best signal, right? Well, the best signal is not going to bo one that is limited by anything. It's basic recording...you set to the level of your highest peak, and don't go over that, otherwise you're asking for trouble.
I can see the idea of a limiter may seem a good one, but you shouldn't need one. Set the levels right, and you might get the odd occasional clip, but it is in no way going to blow any speaker...certainly not with something like drums. In fact a synth is more likely to do it if you crank up the resonance.It's not like you're recording live gigs where you have protection in place just to anticipate all kinds of weird possibilities...you're recording in a studio/at home (whatever), but it's a controlled environment.
Limiters have a place in drumming - they can make good distortion. But do you seriously want to have your original recording limited and possibly distorted, rather than capturing a clean recording and playing around with it later when you actually have the choice?
Even if you have a limiter strapped over your channels...it should be setup ONLY as an emergency. i.e. it should not be limiting during any recording - if it does, then your input channels are too hot, or your limiter threshold is too low.
Seriously - you don't need a limiter for recording drums. You could do several things to avoid loud bursts.
1. Pull down your recording channel input.
2. Pull down your master faders (it seems like master clipping is your main concern here). You can always pull your master faders back up later to mix.
3. Pull down your other mix channels...if your master faders are clipping, then by definition one or more of your tracking channels are way too loud.
4. Change mic placement - if you can get peaks that are so strong that you risk blowing your speakers, then by definition again, your inputs are way too hot or your mics are too close. If you particularly want close placement then you have to pull down the inputs.
I'm really not being facetious or anything here - you're getting something wrong either in your recording setup or in the monitoring/mixing setup if you're getting huge clips on your master channels whilst recording drums.
The main culprits for blowing speakers are synths with high resonance, guitar feedback, and switching things on and off at high volume - not drums.
Now, limiters to avoid the odd digital clip in master recordings, or for intentional distortion, or for drum crunch, or for squishing volume...those are different matters...limiters can be useful. But at recording stages you simply want a clean clear warm signal - doesn't need to be hot. If you're worried about losing some detail, then record at 24bit, or even 32bit to give yourself more headroom. You can hot things up again later easily within a PC - there are loads of limiters, valve sims, preamp sims, impulses of preamps, mics etc. Do that later. Concentrate on getting the original clean and dry and clipless. Which means set the recording up properly - not squash the mistakes.
In his original post he asked about using the limiter on the master bus.
Though your advice is sensible, it's not appropriate.
