Compression Question

Nola said:
Thanks, all.
I'm going to try a limiter on it today and see how that goes. If it's bad, I'll go manual. Cubase 9.5 comes with one stock. Jimmy said stock limiters aren't as good as 3rd party. Can anyone elaborate on why the stock one wouldn't do the job? And also, any recommendations on a good limiter if I decided to go 3rd party? Thanks!
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In my opinion it's not so much stock vs. third party as generic limiter vs. good mastering limiter. Sometimes you can get away with a generic limiter if you're clever about the settings, but a quality mastering limiter might make it easier to hit the signal fairly hard without it sounding bad. I guess most DAWs don't come with good mastering limiters so you end up having to buy a third party plugin. Last I heard, Jimmy was using the Fabfilter Pro-L. I've been pretty happy with the Slate FG-X. Vegas Pro has a decent one in its stock effects package.
 
I'm testing the FabFilter and love it. It's lopping off those peaks and leaving the rest and very transparent. I love that you can see the audio scrolling through so you can see exactly where the reductions are and how much. Genius!
30 day trial and very price plugin, though. Ugh.

I have a few follow up questions if anyone wants to take a stab:

1. What's the best sale price Fab Filter ever has? I'd guess black friday. Wondering what they go for then.
2. Is there any danger in over using this? (I'm only taking off 3db and that's on the peaks, the rest of the track is untouched). This shouldn't affect audio quality in any way, even if I have it mastered later, is that right?
3. Does anyone know if these Fab plugins are CPU hogs? I put it on vocals, bass, acoustic, and electric because it was so good. :x
4. I don't notice much difference when I change the attack time. I put it to 0 since I'm trying to tame peaks. But when I raise it I don't hear much change. Should I?
 
Regarding #3, just render the track with the plugin running. Then you can turn off the plugin.
 
Robus said:
Regarding #3, just render the track with the plugin running. Then you can turn off the plugin.
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Good call.
Only when totally complete, though, right? Otherwise you have to keep re-rendering it if you need to change something.
 
I don't recall Fabfilter giving deals, but way worth the money IMO. I use Pro-L and Pro-Q all the time. They are both way better than at least the Cubase stock plugs.

Pro-L is a look ahead limiter that is quite a hog when in 4x oversampling mode. That what you want to use on your final mix. But while tracking I will use he stock Cubase 'Limiter' as it does not interfere with latency at low buffer settings. The Pro-L will mess with you there.

You will see a preset in Pro-L under 'Rock>Hard Rock - Transient Priority bM' that I have ran with 6+ dB of reduction without any pumping of low end. It does start to affect the sound but at times that is not so bad. I almost scary how transparent this thing can be.

I also use single channel presets for start on things like an inconsistent drummer with a limp wrist on his snare or a yelling singer with poor personal mic distance/control abilities. Just don't use the oversampling on individual tracks as it eats up too much processing power. Oh, and this may be obvious but don't use dither on anything other than final master out for mixdown.

I can use 20 Pro-Q instances in a recording project with no latency while tracking. The Pro-L will eat some quickly.

It took a while for me to get used to how transparent the limiter is. Gotta be a bit careful tho. If you A/B on and off with gain compensation, there is a change in the tonal quality. Just use lightly like salt until proper seasoning is achieved. :)
 
It takes one minute. Re-render a track as often as you want. I render my drum VST many times over the course of working up a song.
 
Okay, so this is my first time using a limiter, so this might be a stupid question, but I have the Pro-L on a guitar track. On the Pro-L interface it shows a -5db reduction of the peaks. Yet, on the master bus when I play the track (solo'd) with the limiter on or off it's still showing ~-18db as the peak. Why isn't the peak on the master dropping those 5db that the limiter says it's lopping off?

Apologies if this is a dumb question, but it seems counter-intuitive. My guess was the attack wasn't fast enough, so I dropped it to 0, and I still see no reduction in peak volume on the master bus meter.
 
Nola said:
Okay, so this is my first time using a limiter, so this might be a stupid question, but I have the Pro-L on a guitar track. On the Pro-L interface it shows a -5db reduction of the peaks. Yet, on the master bus when I play the track (solo'd) with the limiter on or off it's still showing ~-18db as the peak. Why isn't the peak on the master dropping those 5db that the limiter says it's lopping off?

Apologies if this is a dumb question, but it seems counter-intuitive. My guess was the attack wasn't fast enough, so I dropped it to 0, and I still see no reduction in peak volume on the master bus meter.
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You have now entered another gain stage. The limiter on the individual track is taking off peaks but it is still outputting the same - or similar output level. Here is a point where you need to use you ears to find if that is actually an issue.

For instance, you can have a heavy picked bass track. it peaks out on the attack in the mix. A limiter on the track may help that, but it does not change the output level of the track itself. Well It does...

What is best is to spend time to find what is wrong and how to use the limiter. 3dB of limiting does not make a track 3dB quieter. It shaves off the peaks (depending on how you use it).

That is actually the reason for using a limiter on individual tracks. Manual editing is likely better, but the combination makes it easier and more cohesive.


And on another note, meters are bullshit sometimes. Not creating a conspiracy thing here but you can't trust a meter. Use those ears man! Seriously! :)
 
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jimmys69 said:
You have now entered another gain stage. The limiter on the individual track is taking off peaks but it is still outputting the same - or similar output level.
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Hm. Even if the track is solo'd and the peaks reduced 5db by the limiter? How does it still output the same peak level to the master? Is it automatically adding make up gain?
 
Nola said:
Hm. Even if the track is solo'd and the peaks reduced 5db by the limiter? How does it still output the same peak level to the master? Is it automatically adding make up gain?
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I can't be specific to your DAW, but is the track 'actually solo' via the master buss, or is it pre fader before the end?
 
Never mind, I figured it out. It looks like the Plugin has a 1:1 ratio button that was checked. I guess this was acting as a make up gain (still figuring my way around this plugin...no traditional "make up gain" label and no "threshold"!). When I turned it off, sure enough the master dropped about 5db.
Thanks!
 
Yeah man, the plugin assumes you know what it is doing.

I bet you spend money here. Money well spent bro! :)
 
jimmys69 said:
Yeah man, the plugin assumes you know what it is doing.

I bet you spend money here. Money well spent bro! :)
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I love it...................$199...................aah. Decisions. Luckily I have 30 days to think it over.

Yeah, "Gain" = Threshold and "1:1" apparently means make up gain. Cool!
 
Keep in mind the output level of the PRO-L plug. For mastering for MP3 share there is recommendation of around .30 on the out level. That is to keep it from being too hot for sharing sites.

I recently have stopped mastering myself for bands unless that is all they can afford. I found a really good mastering guy in NY that has a good ear and room built by the guy that helped me treat my studio (JH Brandt). Always better to have a fresh ear on a $7000 project.

Though he was impressed with my home mastering. Whatever, his are way better with his outboard gear, room and detachment from the recording itself. He did state that I was close with my final product.

Depending on a bands budget or whether you are just doing this for yourself, that will be the deciding factor of what expense is worthy.
 
Mastering limiters generally do automatic make up gain. The FG-X has an equal gain monitoring setting for comparing before/after which defeats the make up gain. Otherwise you can compensate on the output (or "headroom" or "ceiling") of the plugin.
 
bouldersoundguy said:
Mastering limiters generally do automatic make up gain. The FG-X has an equal gain monitoring setting for comparing before/after which defeats the make up gain. Otherwise you can compensate on the output (or "headroom" or "ceiling") of the plugin.
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I have the FG-X also, it sounds great, but always seems to give me issues. Slate is supposed to be coming out with an update for it soon to fix some bugs, so I've put it on the shelf for now and have exclusively been using the L2, which I think sounds just as good. I love the controls on the FG-X though. Have you had any issues with yours?

(Sorry to hijack your thread, Nola) :)
 
JohnnyAmato said:
I have the FG-X also, it sounds great, but always seems to give me issues. Slate is supposed to be coming out with an update for it soon to fix some bugs, so I've put it on the shelf for now and have exclusively been using the L2, which I think sounds just as good. I love the controls on the FG-X though. Have you had any issues with yours?

(Sorry to hijack your thread, Nola) :)
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It's hard to say. I just now crashed a Pro Tools session with it on the master bus, but this Mac is getting old so I don't know for sure what caused it.
 
Robus said:
Nola, what did you buy and how do you like it?
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I'm doing a 30 day demo of Fab Filter pro-L and really like it. I just don't really want to shell out $200 for a plugin so I don't know what I'll do when it's up. Going to mix as much as I can with the trial!
 
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