Have read the entire thread but have forgotten exactly how the starter said that he was inserting the limiters. Having done PROFESSIONAL recordings for more than 45 years from within my own professional studio (3 of them) and having owned my own record company where over time we have won numerous awards, can I add the following.
1. If not done this way, and if you must use limiters, they should be connected via the input channels "Insert" section and no other way.
2. I have just read up on the desk and if you put a tone through an input channel with nothing in the Insert hole and then raise the level to 0 Vu on the channel's meter (having adjusted the Trim pot correctly) and then connect this signal via the channel's "Direct Out" (use a balanced 1/4" plug) and connect this to the Hd24's input (by the way, I use three of these in sync for every recording), the level received by the HD24 should/will be exactly where it should be.
3. Now connect the LINE output from the HD24 (again via a balanced 1/4" jack) to the LINE input on the desk and raise the channel's fader to its indicated "0" position and now adjust the channel's "Trim" pot so that the channel's Vu meter reaches 0Vu, you will now see that nothing is overloaded and the sound level leaving the desk should be heard as loud as the sound heard via the return into the desk.
4. Over the years that I have been recording, I have VERY seldom had to use a limiter --- a bit of compression on a vocalist sometimes yes and a bit on kick drum can be effective, but that is about all. It's all about gain structure !!!!!!!
5. The electronics in today's modern equipment is so good that noise floor is very seldom a problem, but digital overload is and this is why companies such as Alesis make their digital equivalent of the analogue 0Vu to be set at about -18. Remember the old analogue VU meter went from -infinity up to 0 then (depending upon the quality of the equipment) up to +9 or higher. If digital equipment is run so that the operator presumes that digital 0 is the same as the analogue 0, then when a signal higher than analogue 0 is produced on the digital piece of equipment this signal will be somewhat over the digital distortion threshold.
I trust that all of the above is understandable, but if not it simply means.
Throw away the limiters, set the console so the signals are around 0Vu (on your analogue console), connect the HD24 from the console's Direct Outs (using balanced leads) and return from the HD24 into the Console's Line Inputs (using balanced leads) and ALL signals should be at the correct levels, with the correct dynamic range.
Remember that when mixing, if you individually set each return channel to be at 0Vu on the Master Fader's meters and then mute the channel, as you progressively unmute each channel you will have to lower the Master Fader by about 3db, so set the Master Fader at the console's marked 0 point and mix from there by adjusting the individual channels to get the best mix.
Hope this helps a bit in solving your problem/situation.
David
