Limiting
- Thread starter -Loco-
- Start date
this topic can be as big as you want.
simply put, you're right, strict limiting is just not letting the signal exceed a certain level, causing it to clip (think guitar type distortion, only really horrible).
then you have soft knee limiting, where as the signal approaches the limit, it gets attenuated by a larger amount. this "squashes" the waveform. you may have heard of the loudness wars. in general, people limit their mixes in this sense, to make it sound louder to the ear.
that too is a huge topic.
finally, soft-knee limiting is used (and is the only type of limiting really spoken about), in combination with a gain boost, to bring the overall loudness of a track up. you can mess around with built in limiters, but they tend to be not so good. if you want to play around with one, try out gclip, for windows.
simply put, you're right, strict limiting is just not letting the signal exceed a certain level, causing it to clip (think guitar type distortion, only really horrible).
then you have soft knee limiting, where as the signal approaches the limit, it gets attenuated by a larger amount. this "squashes" the waveform. you may have heard of the loudness wars. in general, people limit their mixes in this sense, to make it sound louder to the ear.
that too is a huge topic.
finally, soft-knee limiting is used (and is the only type of limiting really spoken about), in combination with a gain boost, to bring the overall loudness of a track up. you can mess around with built in limiters, but they tend to be not so good. if you want to play around with one, try out gclip, for windows.
John_C
formerly Skeksis268
if you understand what a compressor does, then a simple limiter is just a infinte ratio compressor. Any sound that's louder than the threshhold, the limiter turns the volume down so that the sound is dead on the threshold. The release knob controls how long it takes to turn it back up again after the loud sound
Erkan
mr-walker.bandcamp
Not that I'm an expert but I think you're confusing clippers and limiters.
As far as I know, a limiter is just a compressor, but speficically designed to not let any audio over the set threshold, AT ALL... infinite ratio as skeksis268 just said. So all a limiter really does is turning the volume of the master track (assuming you've got it on the master bus) down and back up again as soon as any audio triggers it, it doesn't "cut" or "destroy" the audio in any way, as opposed to clippers. But imagine what it can sound like if someone pulls your master fader up and down really really fast all the time.... that's right, pumping. So pushing a limiter too hard gives you lots of pumping and just makes you lose clarity in the mix.
Clippers on the other hand, don't even bother turning the volume up and down. They simply chop off the peaks of the signal, in order to avoid making it go over 0 db, or whatever threshold you have it set on. I guess it's like... if you have a signal that clips and goes over 0 db, and you watch it in a wave editor in a really zoomed in level, you can see the top of it being a straight line. That means it's distorted, in a pretty bad way, so if you would drag the points back down manually to form a curve on the top instead of a straight line, that's something like what a clipper does... I think. I'm really not sure about this, someone please kick my ass if I'm lying here
AdamWathan
Member
if you are using logic, just select the f.e.t model on the stock compressor, then set the ratio to max, set the attack and release as low (fast) as they go and the knee to hard.
surprisingly, you can get a decent sounding mix using only the stock logic plugs!
and the event horizon is killer! but its not free, it costs 50 skins, but you can demo it for 30 days for free.
Erkan
mr-walker.bandcamp
Can anyone say what the difference is between GClip and Event Horizon? Mainly, I'm wondering if clippers are pretty much the same no matter who makes 'em, sort of like the basics of digital EQs.
So how are they different... what makes a customer choose one of 'em over the other? So far I only have experience with GClip, and I know there is a JS version of the Event Horizon in Reaper but how is that version, is it any different from the VST version?
So how are they different... what makes a customer choose one of 'em over the other? So far I only have experience with GClip, and I know there is a JS version of the Event Horizon in Reaper but how is that version, is it any different from the VST version?
the clippers are a bit different. some are more transparent than others. I have never used gclip, but ive used the EH and clipped with the liquid mix fet limiter, and logics compressor, and i found that the EH got more GR while remaining transparent.
TheDriller
Member
John_C
formerly Skeksis268
well comparing the JS version of EH and VST gclip, i'd say that it depends on the source.
On some things event horizon can be very transparent, while on others it produces a wash of nasty distorted high frequencies. As stillwell say, it can be wonderfully transparent, but if it's in the wrong place, it'll tell you!
Gclip is reliably nasty at anything other than low gain reduction and i love it! I find event horizon can avoid the nasty "fart out" effect on the lows that gclip often creates though
TheDriller
Member
AFAIK there are some technical limitations to the JS format. the JS version of Event Horizon doesn't have a "look ahead" function like the proper stillwell version. or something....
Erkan
mr-walker.bandcamp
Oh... generally, what type of source is the "wrong" source? Super distorted guitars? Growling vocals? Or maybe a specific complex combination of many things which are hard to predict? I'm guessing you will point at the latter
Well if you say GClip is nasty, I hope you know what you're talking about... because you make me feel like I should use the JS version of Event Horizon anytime over GClip The problem is though, I find myself relying on clippers to get the desired punch and volume in my mixes (or ghetto "mastering" I guess), and it would suck if I couldn't resort to my regular method because the source is "wrong". I have never liked limiters much to be honest... not that I have experimented with them enough to say I hate 'em, because obviously, people do great shit with 'em, but I just love the concept of chopping off the peaks instead of turning the volume up and down. Pump or clip... oh what a dilemma!
Well if you say GClip is nasty, I hope you know what you're talking about... because you make me feel like I should use the JS version of Event Horizon anytime over GClip
The problem is though, I find myself relying on clippers to get the desired punch and volume in my mixes (or ghetto "mastering" I guess), and it would suck if I couldn't resort to my regular method because the source is "wrong". I have never liked limiters much to be honest... not that I have experimented with them enough to say I hate 'em, because obviously, people do great shit with 'em, but I just love the concept of chopping off the peaks instead of turning the volume up and down. Pump or clip... oh what a dilemma!
Erkan
mr-walker.bandcamp
No look ahead? That's a silly limitation... sounds weird. JS script can delay a track negatively or positively, how come it can't look ahead? :O
Anyway, if that's true, then I can see how it would affect the sound. The clipping would be much more aggressive if it can't use any look ahead I guess... atleast it feels like it should be that way.
TheDriller
Member
I dunno, i'm not an expert but i'm convinced i saw one of the more experienced guys here describing the limitations of the JS format not long ago. or maybe i'm going nuts, who knows?
John_C
formerly Skeksis268
Oh... generally, what type of source is the "wrong" source? Super distorted guitars? Growling vocals? Or maybe a specific complex combination of many things which are hard to predict? I'm guessing you will point at the latter
Well if you say GClip is nasty, I hope you know what you're talking about... because you make me feel like I should use the JS version of Event Horizon anytime over GClip
Gclip is nasty, it's a clipper! But that doesn't make it bad at all. It can be used quite extremely on percussive sources and with care on others. As i said though, be careful of it demolishing the bass if you push it too hard.
Event horizon brands itself as "a peak eating limiter". It's blatantly doing some clipping somewhere but i'm not sure quite what else is going on inside it.
Yes it's not totally predictable what will work and what wont, but as a rule of thumb don't give it too much highs, or you'll start getting nasty artifacts.
I reccomend clipping individual tracks in the mix (snare being the obvious first choice) which will give you a "hotter" mix overall before you start doing any mastering. You get a lot more control that way, because for example a snare can take a lot of gclip and still sound good. strings just can't. A clipper over the master bus would be messing to some extent with both, if you clip the snare first you can get away with less clipping in the master stage
Erkan
mr-walker.bandcamp
^
True words.
Oh yeah, I remember that "a peak eating limiter" thingie... hell, if I like the JS version of it, I'll think about buying the VST just to get the last chunk out of it.
True words.
Oh yeah, I remember that "a peak eating limiter" thingie... hell, if I like the JS version of it, I'll think about buying the VST just to get the last chunk out of it.
a clipper is a limiter with a hard knee - when the signal reaches the cutoff point, it doesn't get any higher, but the stop in increase is sudden.
limiters only vary from clippers, in that the cutoff isn't so sudden. it reduces the gain, the closer the signal reaches the cutoff point.
the name gclip is a misnomer, it is actually a limiter with a variable "knee" adjustment.
my fav limiter, that i'm currently using is george whongs waves clone (L1?). this is mainly because i run a mac, and all the other free ones tend to be PC only.. hehe
thanks,
limiters only vary from clippers, in that the cutoff isn't so sudden. it reduces the gain, the closer the signal reaches the cutoff point.
the name gclip is a misnomer, it is actually a limiter with a variable "knee" adjustment.
my fav limiter, that i'm currently using is george whongs waves clone (L1?). this is mainly because i run a mac, and all the other free ones tend to be PC only.. hehe
thanks,
TheDriller
Member
^ if you are refering to the BetaBugs W1 Limiter, it is indeed a brilliant plugin.
Highly recommended.
Highly recommended.
