Another Brick in the wall...limiter

[BenignVanilla]

Reading the forums, I see many critical comments on brick wall limiting. I understand where they are coming from, and when I listen to modern music I have the same sort of complaints about the recordings now, but here's my conundrum.

Often, I will come up with a mix on one of my tunes that I like...I'll dump it out of my DAW, and then listen in iTunes....and I get a quiet drab tune. So I end up going back to my mix, and using a brick wall to bring my entire mix up just shy of 0db.

So I am thinking to myself tonight...is the problem the brick wall'ing or the way it is done and being used? Is there a proper way to brick wall your mix without hammering your mix?

I am thinking brick wall limiters don't kill people...engineers do.

[Seafroggys]

Limiters kill transients...end of story

[BenignVanilla]

So help a newb out...I complete my mix, and the output is low...do I go back and kick the level up on everything?

[Seafroggys]

There's different things you can do. Often times I just normalize the stereo mix and be done, but that's because I'm a good arranger and mixer. If there's random peaks that just tower over everything else, find out what causes those, go back to the mix, and use volume automation to notch them lower.

You can also do some light compression, there's two ways of doing this....something like 1.5:1 or even 2:1 set to a low threshold, so everything is mixed, or something a bit heavier like 3:1 set to a high treshold that captures any other loud transient and 'tames' them.

There is this brand new plug-in that I discovered called TesslaPro that I'm planning on using as the only plug-in on my stereo buss. Its a transient smoother, and sounds REALLY nice. Really, that's all you need to get some good punchy stereo tracks.

[mixsit]

Originally Posted by BenignVanilla

So I am thinking to myself tonight...is the problem the brick wall'ing or the way it is done and being used? Is there a proper way to brick wall your mix without hammering your mix?

IMHO it boils down to not only which methods or combinations of methods and tools are used to 'get there', i.e., did we pick and apply the tools appropriate, but then there's the other angle to this. That point where the decision is made to sacrifice sonic benefit for loudness.

Often, I will come up with a mix on one of my tunes that I like...I'll dump it out of my DAW, and then listen in iTunes....and I get a quiet drab tune. So I end up going back to my mix, and using a brick wall to bring my entire mix up just shy of 0db.

You liked it before. Now it’s ‘drab because of lower volume, or for other reasons?
Somewhere in there is your middle ground, A/B at equal loudness is our cross check.

[BenignVanilla]

Originally Posted by mixsit

You liked it before. Now it’s ‘drab because of lower volume, or for other reasons?
Somewhere in there is your middle ground, A/B at equal loudness is our cross check.

I think being a newb, I am still failing to get my mixes to a comfortable listening volume without some plug in help. I understand the stigma of the "I want it louder" belief, but some of us newbs need the bump, not just to make a loud recording, but to make a recording that can be heard without cranking the stereo. That is where I am coming from. Can I put my mix on a CD with other tunes, and not have to CRANK the stereo to hear mine.

make sense?

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Originally Posted by BenignVanilla

I think being a newb, I am still failing to get my mixes to a comfortable listening volume without some plug in help. I understand the stigma of the "I want it louder" belief, but some of us newbs need the bump, not just to make a loud recording, but to make a recording that can be heard without cranking the stereo. That is where I am coming from. Can I put my mix on a CD with other tunes, and not have to CRANK the stereo to hear mine.

make sense?

I understand the desire. Like most things desired, though, they are not easy to come by. You're going up against some real *pros* who are usually doing more than just throwing their stuff against a wall or even using some freebee plug to do it when they do.

The first thing it requires is a mix that can handle being thrown against a wall without breaking. Hell, most of the pro stuff I hear that is flattened these days sounds broken, because the paymasters just don't give a shit about how things actually sound any more. But usually they have mixes that are finished and sound great to begin with; you have to have that "lead" in quality, because the crushing is only going to make it sound worse.

Second is to inch your way towards that brick wall step by step, don't just run into it at full speed from 30 feet away. This often means compressing in steps, and fine-tuning the EQ at each step (if/when necessary) to hold things together as you go.

Finally when you do limit, after all that earlier stuff it'll be easier to try to keep the total amount of gain reduction to 2-3dB or so, which can lessen the blow (so to speak) of hitting that wall.

There are other tricks, such as running the final mix back through your converters again at slight over-gain and letting then clip off a couple of db, and so forth.

You just gotta decide whether you want to go through all that effort just to make your stuff sound worse than it does now.

G.

[RawDepth]

Originally Posted by BenignVanilla

So I am thinking to myself tonight...is the problem the brick wall'ing or the way it is done and being used? Is there a proper way to brick wall your mix without hammering your mix?

You may be either setting your threshold too low or setting your output gain too high. You should be tweaking these to adjust the end result. You don't want your overall waveform to look flat across the top. You should be able to find a happy medium in there somewhere.