Limiter not limiting?

famous beagle

Well-known member
I don't pretend to know much about mastering, and I rarely do much to this end with my mixes. I'll do slight bus compression (1 or 2dB GR at most), slight EQ treatment (mostly a hi pass filter to get rid of sub lows), and a multi-band comp, again, doing very slight GR of around 1dB on each band (usually 3) at most.

Then I like to put a brickwall limiter on the master buss just to avoid clipping. I usually set this at -.5 or -1dB just to be safe.

But for some reason, it's not limiting this time. I've tried several different limiters:
JB Barricade
Loudmax
Peak Limiter II (Sir Elliott)

Here are the things I've double-checked:
My master fader is set at 0dB
The limiter is not bypassed
The limiter is the last effect in the master chain

I'm not trying to get massive volume or anything. I just simply want to make sure it won't clip.

Most of these have simple interfaces --- usually a gain knob and an output setting. I would think that, if you set the output at -0.5dB, for instance, then the volume would not exceed that, no matter what. The more you raise the gain knob, the more compressed the sound would be, but it would not exceed -0.5 dB.

I thought that was the whole point of a "brick wall" limiter --- that the sound will not go above your setting no matter what.

While I use all the parameters of compressors to their fullest extent on individual instruments (or a drum group, etc.), I tend to favor simplistic limiters because I don't want to have to mess too much with a bunch of settings, for fear that I might screw up the mix. Like I said, everything I do on the master chain is very subtle.

I know these limiters have worked (the way I would think they should) in the past. But I don't know why they're not today.

I can't afford to pay to have this stuff professionally mastered or anything, so I have to make do with what I can.

Anyone got a clue?

Thanks
 
Is the control labeled "ceiling" or "threshold" or something else?

What software are you using?

I'm in Reaper.

Well ... I don't know what the hell, but I opened another project, and now it's working as I would expect it to. I guess I must have done something to that project that I can't seem to find for some reason. I don't see any difference between the two really.

Anyway, thanks for the response. I guess I must have done something.
 
Sometimes stuff just happens. I was punching a vocal part the other day and it didn't align with the other tracks. It started out okay but went out of sync within seconds. Every attempt to punch did the same thing. I restarted the computer and the next punch worked.
 
Any chance you're making an EQ adjustment or something that might be routed post-limiter...?

Cuz, you know -- I've never, ever run into anything like that and spent the next 20 minutes trying to figure out what the hell was going on... :facepalm:
 
Any chance you're making an EQ adjustment or something that might be routed post-limiter...?

Cuz, you know -- I've never, ever run into anything like that and spent the next 20 minutes trying to figure out what the hell was going on... :facepalm:
Even a simple low-pass after the limiter can sometimes "undo" some of the limiting because a hard limit makes a sharp corner, and a low-pass filter won't let that sharp corner exist, so the signal will sometimes end up overshooting. Seems strange, since you'd think the LPF would be only attenuating, but it can happen.

Any limiter with an attack greater than 0 can and will let really fast transients go above the limit you've set, as will anything that has any kind of RMS time or "anti-ripple" filtering involved. Lookahead should help, but doesn't always.

Don't think this applies to any of the limiters mentioned above, but some hardware limiters (and digital emulations thereof) are only capable of a given amount of gain reduction, so that if a peak is way over the limit, it can't turn it down far enough to get it back under.

I honestly have never had good results with anything labeled as a limiter in this regard. They all seem to let occasional peaks get through over the limit you set, or otherwise just don't actually keep the levels in check with the precision that you'd expect. I always end up having to go to a true clipper with a known hard limit.
 
Maybe....undo stuff until you find the culprit. Not sure really, maybe delete and re-add the limiter?
 
I have no idea what the hell I did, but I restarted, deleted the limiter, and added it again, and it works fine.

Yeah there wasn't anything after the limiter on the master track -- no EQ, filters, etc.

Anyway, that's my problem with DAWs. I hate using the mouse, so I'm a command key junkie. And sometimes it bites me in the ass when I accidentally do something unintentionally. :(
 
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