How to tame these peaks

[Dúnedain]

This is the output of a single track in a project of mine (tech house). As you can see there are some big peaks which contribute to the final output. How to deal with it? Put a limiter on my master? Put a limiter on the individual track? Or use a compressor on the individual track (what settings)? Would it make sense to use a compressor to compress not only the peaks but the whole signal of the track (again what settings)?

The width of a single peak is about 1 millisecond.

(The length is about 10 seconds)

[thecontrolcentre]

I would open it in a wav editor and redraw the peaks (if there's only two of them). Or use a limiter.

[DJ Warmonger]

Use saturator to clip these peaks. Also there is a good chance it will sound better.

[chemicalfan]

Those are so quick, I would use a clipper. Assuming those are kicks, I'd just put it on that channel (don't use a clipper on the master). A limiter will work instead of a clipper if you don't have one

[nineofkings]

The peaks are short so the best way would be to put a clipper on the track that causes them. If that causes distortion, the next best thing would be to put a limiter on the track. You can also put a clipper or limiter on the master bus but it's better to correct it at the source.

[ATN69]

I agree with limiter / clipper. If you don't have a good one I can recommend Limiter no 6. It's free and very effective. At first glance Limiter no 6 might appear complicated but it is actually very easy to use.

[Niowiad]

I agree with limiter / clipper. If you don't have a good one I can recommend Limiter no 6. It's free and very effective. At first glance Limiter no 6 might appear complicated but it is actually very easy to use.

Agreed, once you get the modules (and get the fact you DON'T have to use them all), each one has very few knobs. I love that plugin.

BTW the new Limiter6 is being released soon

[Dúnedain]

I agree with you all, a clipper would be more appropriate for tasks like these. The duration of the peaks is just too short for limiters and compressors to notice.

[BertKoor]

My guess is the peaks occur because your notes are painted with mouseclicks on the pianoroll grid. So they all occur at the exact same time.

I think if you move them just a tiny bit around randomly (a few millisec is enough) then the peaks will vanish. You won't notice the timing difference if the shift is less than 5 ms.

[Apratim]

i would use a multiband compressor with little high than normal thr. and high comp ratio at the peaking frequency and later for safety a limiter
you can use Fab filter pro mb but i prefer using melda multi dynamic due to its internal limiter

[Dúnedain]

My guess is the peaks occur because your notes are painted with mouseclicks on the pianoroll grid. So they all occur at the exact same time.

I think if you move them just a tiny bit around randomly (a few millisec is enough) then the peaks will vanish. You won't notice the timing difference if the shift is less than 5 ms.

Interesting remark. I investigated it, it are not notes drawn at the same time (but good to watch out for that in future productions), but just an extreme short decay together with a low sustain of the amp envelope of the synth.

I just fixed it (sustain to 0, decay much longer) and the sound sounds better. The difference is small, but just enough for me to make me happy.

So thanks a lot

[Dúnedain]

An update for the one who are interested: I had good results with a look-ahead limiter.