When to use a limiter on instruments?
-
- KVRian
- 872 posts since 28 Nov, 2016
well usually you have a compressor on the stereo bus, too, right?
if some track is spiking like crazy, it will get its peaks chopped off by the stereo bus limiter, right?—but not before it causes the bus compressor to freak out over it. So all of a sudden you'll get a weird dip in the whole song as the compressor ducks everything (too slowly) in an attempt to remove the out-of-control peak.
also analogue limiters can offer interesting saturation for things like drums.
if some track is spiking like crazy, it will get its peaks chopped off by the stereo bus limiter, right?—but not before it causes the bus compressor to freak out over it. So all of a sudden you'll get a weird dip in the whole song as the compressor ducks everything (too slowly) in an attempt to remove the out-of-control peak.
also analogue limiters can offer interesting saturation for things like drums.
-
- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 299 posts since 2 Nov, 2020
Such a good answer, thank you!sleepcircle wrote: ↑Tue Nov 24, 2020 8:43 pm well usually you have a compressor on the stereo bus, too, right?
if some track is spiking like crazy, it will get its peaks chopped off by the stereo bus limiter, right?—but not before it causes the bus compressor to freak out over it. So all of a sudden you'll get a weird dip in the whole song as the compressor ducks everything (too slowly) in an attempt to remove the out-of-control peak.
also analogue limiters can offer interesting saturation for things like drums.
Is it true then that for some types of instruments you choose a limiter, and for some others a clipper?
-
- KVRian
- 872 posts since 28 Nov, 2016
possibly, although clipping sounds can get messy really quickly. you want a square-wave? put a sine-wave through a clipper. boom, now you have a square-wave.
so if you have a long sustained tone of any kind and you ram it through a clipper you will hear the corners being shaved off for every single hertz that a sound wave goes past its threshold, AND every time the soundwave comes back under the threshold again. whereas a limiter (which generally has SOME sort of release time) will be slightly more transparent/less grindy.
when people turn away from regular compression, and reach for a peak-slicing tool, they generally use clippers on drums and things with millisecond volume spikes that need shushing, and limiters on other, more sustained or tonal stuff. Obviously these are not hard and fast rules, and you may do what you like, but these are the reasons why people prefer one thing over another.
(if i DO use a clipper/limiter on an instrument track, i tend to run it through tape first (or a tape simulator if i'm in a hurry/getting the sound figured out) or just drive the sound into one of fuse audio labs' interesting hardware simulations. it creates more natural/interesting peak reduction than a surgical/neutral clipper/limiter, which i tend to use for mastering stuff nearer the end of the song)
so if you have a long sustained tone of any kind and you ram it through a clipper you will hear the corners being shaved off for every single hertz that a sound wave goes past its threshold, AND every time the soundwave comes back under the threshold again. whereas a limiter (which generally has SOME sort of release time) will be slightly more transparent/less grindy.
when people turn away from regular compression, and reach for a peak-slicing tool, they generally use clippers on drums and things with millisecond volume spikes that need shushing, and limiters on other, more sustained or tonal stuff. Obviously these are not hard and fast rules, and you may do what you like, but these are the reasons why people prefer one thing over another.
(if i DO use a clipper/limiter on an instrument track, i tend to run it through tape first (or a tape simulator if i'm in a hurry/getting the sound figured out) or just drive the sound into one of fuse audio labs' interesting hardware simulations. it creates more natural/interesting peak reduction than a surgical/neutral clipper/limiter, which i tend to use for mastering stuff nearer the end of the song)
Last edited by sleepcircle on Thu Dec 24, 2020 1:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
-
- KVRAF
- 4584 posts since 21 Sep, 2005
-
- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 299 posts since 2 Nov, 2020
I think I'll get used to track limiting first before using clipping in my mixes.sleepcircle wrote: ↑Tue Nov 24, 2020 9:58 pm clipping sounds can get messy really quickly. you want a square-wave? put a sine-wave through a clipper. boom, now you have a square-wave.
...
whereas a limiter (which generally has SOME sort of release time) will be slightly more transparent/less grindy.
I tried chopping off the "tip" of a snare sample and that worked out perfectly! It kept it more punchy than the limiter. On the other hand, when I hard clipped a synth bass, it became too noisy.sleepcircle wrote: ↑Tue Nov 24, 2020 9:58 pmwhen people turn away from regular compression, and reach for a peak-slicing tool, they generally use clippers on drums and things with millisecond volume spikes that need shushing, and limiters on other, more sustained or tonal stuff.
Is it frowned upon because a limiter can decrease the impact of the drums?codec_spurt wrote: ↑Tue Nov 24, 2020 10:04 pmDrums are quite a common thing to use limiters on when they are used. Some argue against this, but many still do it. There is no wrong/right.
...
I'd just use a clipper personally to give a shave and a haircut to those errant peaks.
Is that better than using a compressor to tame a wide dynamic range?codec_spurt wrote: ↑Tue Nov 24, 2020 10:04 pmThen again you could use a limiter on vocals where there is some unusually high dynamic range and it needs to be caught, so the signal does not blow up in to the red and/or deafen people.
When recording a piano roll sequence I certainly don't want more latency but when it comes to mixing I should probably just accept latency as a necessary evil. I still try to keep it to a minimum if possible.
I haven't tried the plugins you mentioned yet, at the moment I was trialing DMG TrackLimit and SIR StandardCLIP and they seem really nice.
Yeah I've gathered that it's definitely not something to slap on every channel. It may be different for EDM and stuff like that.codec_spurt wrote: ↑Tue Nov 24, 2020 10:04 pmUsually you'll find if you are using a limiter on a track channel, you aren't doing it on more than one or two offenders.
To be honest I have no clue how to use saturators properly. I guess if hard clipping is equal to a limiter, soft clipping is equal to a compressor?codec_spurt wrote: ↑Tue Nov 24, 2020 10:04 pmAs noted by others as well, things like Saturators (which are a form of Clipper) can also do the job for you and may even be more of the right tool again, according to your program material and what you are trying to achieve.
Thank you both for the long answers!
-
- KVRian
- 872 posts since 28 Nov, 2016
Honestly, I have never actually tried to explain how saturation can 'soak up' peaks.
A hard clipper is known as a "brick wall," a lot of the time.
I guess a soft clipper would be a layer of foam on the wall first? But that's if it's the simplest possible wave-shaping. Hardware (or a really good simulation, like (again) fuse audio labs' stuff) tends to soak up and redistribute the energy, to bounce it back, or—in the case of tape—to react like a non-newtonian fluid which is liquid in its rest state, but pushes back the harder you push into it.
A hard clipper is known as a "brick wall," a lot of the time.
I guess a soft clipper would be a layer of foam on the wall first? But that's if it's the simplest possible wave-shaping. Hardware (or a really good simulation, like (again) fuse audio labs' stuff) tends to soak up and redistribute the energy, to bounce it back, or—in the case of tape—to react like a non-newtonian fluid which is liquid in its rest state, but pushes back the harder you push into it.
-
- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 299 posts since 2 Nov, 2020
Oh, so when it comes to soft clipping there are various types of it...
I'll keep Fuse Audio in mind. They have a lot of products, so I'm not sure which one would be best for saturation. I also can't buy too much right now...
I'll keep Fuse Audio in mind. They have a lot of products, so I'm not sure which one would be best for saturation. I also can't buy too much right now...
-
- KVRian
- 872 posts since 28 Nov, 2016
yeah, sorry, hahah. i'm not suggesting you NEED their stuff to make music. it's just that reymund dratwa is one of my favourite developers.
Fuse's RS-W2395C is free, btw, so you might as well get it. It's an extremely gentle yet very pretty-sounding EQ based on an old, pre-digital method of doing it.
anyway, free saturation/clipping stuff that's high quality—and I mean SCARY high quality. Do not let the fact that they're free fool you—:
CHOW tape plugin. A university project by a talented coder.
Airwindows' Purest Drive. Simple soft clipping—will never let anything past -0db—but has a really nice push-back and pleasant, subtle tone.
Klanghelm's IVGI. A cut-down, free version of an extremely high-quality saturation plugin.
Experiment with these and see what they do to sharp volume spikes.
Fuse's RS-W2395C is free, btw, so you might as well get it. It's an extremely gentle yet very pretty-sounding EQ based on an old, pre-digital method of doing it.
anyway, free saturation/clipping stuff that's high quality—and I mean SCARY high quality. Do not let the fact that they're free fool you—:
CHOW tape plugin. A university project by a talented coder.
Airwindows' Purest Drive. Simple soft clipping—will never let anything past -0db—but has a really nice push-back and pleasant, subtle tone.
Klanghelm's IVGI. A cut-down, free version of an extremely high-quality saturation plugin.
Experiment with these and see what they do to sharp volume spikes.
-
- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 299 posts since 2 Nov, 2020
Oh I actually have SDRR, I'm just not sure how to use it!sleepcircle wrote: ↑Wed Nov 25, 2020 3:32 pmKlanghelm's IVGI. A cut-down, free version of an extremely high-quality saturation plugin.
-
- KVRian
- 872 posts since 28 Nov, 2016
Oh, right? Well, believe me, it is all you could possibly need, for a beginner (and for an experienced user, too, honestly). You won't need another saturation plugin for a while.
Do you have any questions about it? Maybe I could help you get the hang of it.
Do you have any questions about it? Maybe I could help you get the hang of it.
-
- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 299 posts since 2 Nov, 2020
Hmm, I'm not sure when to use or what to use it on. And then whenever I tried, I just distorted the whole signal and I didn't make it sound any nicer...
It has Tube, Digi, Fuzz, and Desk and a lot of knobs... I basically don't know where to even start...
It has Tube, Digi, Fuzz, and Desk and a lot of knobs... I basically don't know where to even start...
-
- KVRian
- 872 posts since 28 Nov, 2016
you got discord or something? PM me your name and maybe i could give you a rundown or something. It'd probably be faster than doing it in a forum. Although, on the other hand, if I wrote it all down here, other people could read it…
-
- KVRAF
- 4590 posts since 7 Jun, 2012 from Warsaw
My answer: Never. I can't justify a situation when you'd absolutely have to hard-limit the amplitude of an instrument as a whole, before mixing / mastering stage. You will always lose ton of dynamics.
First of all, limiting makes sense only at master stage after all other processing, so that signal amplitude is fixed and't won't change later.
Secondly, there are other ways to cut the peaks of a signal, such as (band-limited) saturation, removing extreme resonant peaks with narrow EQ or simply adjusting the envelope manually (or via envelope generator such as VolumeShaper). These are more controllable and transparent, preserving some dynamics.
First of all, limiting makes sense only at master stage after all other processing, so that signal amplitude is fixed and't won't change later.
Secondly, there are other ways to cut the peaks of a signal, such as (band-limited) saturation, removing extreme resonant peaks with narrow EQ or simply adjusting the envelope manually (or via envelope generator such as VolumeShaper). These are more controllable and transparent, preserving some dynamics.
Blog ------------- YouTube channel
Tricky-Loops wrote: (...)someone like Armin van Buuren who claims to make a track in half an hour and all his songs sound somewhat boring(...)
Tricky-Loops wrote: (...)someone like Armin van Buuren who claims to make a track in half an hour and all his songs sound somewhat boring(...)
-
- KVRian
- 872 posts since 28 Nov, 2016
Yes, technically true, but sometimes people do it anyway, just because of workflow quirks or because they like the effect, hahah—and I may be wrong, but I believe that on older records people DID in fact use limiters or over-drive away peaks because they were trying to get everything possible out of the narrow head-room they had, cranking up the volume to just below the point of disrupting the musical quality of the signal in their efforts to float above the chest-height noise floor
if i recall correctly, pretty much every single individual track on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band went through the fairchild limiter before being mixed (although by modern standards, the fairchild is NOT a super-fast or especially precise limiter. it'd probably be thought of as 'quick compression' these days.)
if i recall correctly, pretty much every single individual track on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band went through the fairchild limiter before being mixed (although by modern standards, the fairchild is NOT a super-fast or especially precise limiter. it'd probably be thought of as 'quick compression' these days.)
