my limiters never truly limit

[-J-]

is this common? it looks like it's limiting on the meter of the plugin, but on the board, the track will pop over zero, to 0.5 or 1 every so often, even though the max is set to zero.

 

[Rob Logic]

I could be wrong but some limiters have a look ahead feature and adjusting this may help with your overs. I also typically set my limiter below 0.0 to -0.2 or more. If your session is in 24 bit and you'll be dithering to 16 bit, I don't think the small loss in db will affect the over all apparent volume of your track. I'm assuming volume is what you're going after with the limiter.

 

[-J-]

cool, I'll take her down a notch or 2. amazingly, I didn't think of that.

 

[006]

Yeah I usually set my limiter's output to -2dB. If I set it to 0dB, it clips.

~006

 

[Metaltastic]

Yeah, the limiters I've used (L2 and Elephant) both have an output limit control, which I usually have at around -0.4 just to be safe