Limiter vs. Compression

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timvracer

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Yet another rookie question based on what I am intuitively discovering. As I have been experimenting with my own mastering, I have struggled most with the fact that my drum peaks are so much higher than the rest of the mix. This then triggers the limiter. What makes it worse is that the peaks are inconsistent. I tried lowering/shaping the drums to bring down the peaks, and was able to do so, but ended up losing the energy of the song.

So, what I did is applied the L3 limiter onto the individual kick and snare tracks. I tried to achieve balance using compression before, but it seemed to dull out the attack if I used a super short attack, and if I use a longer attack (20ms for example) then the peaks squeeze through, and I have the same problem. However, I am really impressed with how the L3 aggressively attenuates the signal to the exact max/peak that I desire with very little destruction of the sound. When I compare limiter on/off, mainly I hear a loss of some low frequencies. However, by squishing those tracks just a bit more, I am able to pump up their sound, without losing the snap of the attack.

Now, I don't understand why I could not get this with compression -- I was using the Waves Renaissance, and could not get it to tame the peaks without significant loss of the energy/snap of the initial attack. But the limiter does not seem to have this issue.

So.. there is what I am experiencing... and as of now, I am loving the mix -- after putting that peak limiting on the individual tracks, I am still getting the energy and crack of the kick/snare clearly in the mix, but when I push on the mastering limiter, it is not having to work hard at all. I am liking the mix now.

I am really interested in some perspective on this from the experienced out there... is this a "normal" use of a limiter?
 
"Normal use" is whatever works for you for that particular mix.

Okay - that said - You might consider something other than a brick-wall limiter for individual sources. A high ratio (4:1 or greater maybe) compressor perhaps (maybe with a slow & low ratio compressor on the drum buss). A "more traditional" limiter perhaps. Parallel compression maybe. Something that will "tame" the source without slamming it. Especially if you're going to slam the whole mix later anyway.
 
I would probably use a compressor on the kick bus/track and then another on the overall drum bus, in this case. More aggressive with the single track and less aggressive with the drum bus. Unless you want the track flatlining the whole time, as in maybe a bass guitar, i'd stay away from a limiter on individual drums. But like MM said, if it works it works.
 
I would think it would likely lie in differences in two's attack and release rates, which may or may not be able to be matched. For example what are the release rates? ('slower is ..well can be, 'darker'.
Then maybe some differences in distortion artifacts -when you're operating that fast? (one adds some 'zing the other doesn't?

I've done a few patches with a few compressors that will do 'zero attack and release, then set fairly low ratios, then dial in just a few ms release as needed -i.e. 'low ratio limiting. That's an option.

Also :>) The PSP 'Master Comp- Does an unexpected thing where it 'limits (or compresses) real fast peaks -in spite of long attacks being set - a little odd actually, but that's been another useful way to tame my drum bus. (A little different- maybe 'nicer sounding? than some hard limits.
 
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Thanks all, very informative. I really don't want to use a limiter, but the reality is that I am trying to accomplish exactly what a limiter does, get all the snare/kick strikes to be capped and more level/even. I am using drum layering, so I have multiple "individual tracks" that combine to make the instrument track (i.e. "snare"), which in this case is a bus. I tried compression on the bus, but maybe I just don't have the right compressor - I understand they all have their own "way" of reducing the signal. I even tried lookahead to see if I could get the attenuation to occur before the peak, but could not get that to sound right.

The reason I am "slamming" the individual tracks, is that it seems to me that the master limiter has far reaching impacts, and doesn't just tame the drum peaks, but impacts entire frequency ranges (using the L3 multi). Maybe I am wrong though, and am just fooling myself? By taming the snare/kick on their own tracks, I can adjust the limiter (or compressor if I had one that did what I wanted) to get those tracks to sound exactly as I want, and then bring them into the mix -- that way when I do master limiting, I actually don't have to "slam" the mix nearly as much, reducing the impacts to other sounds.

But again, maybe my logic is way off here and I am not understanding what the limiter actually does.
 
The multiband limiter isn't really the right tool to tame drum peaks. It will change the sound of the drums in an unpredictable way. You would be better off with a full range limiter, like the L2 or L1.

If you limit at the kick and snare bus, then send all the drums to a drum bus and put a compressor or non-mastering limiter (like an 1176) on the drum bus, you should be able to get the drums under control without making them sound strange.
 
Farview said:
The multiband limiter isn't really the right tool to tame drum peaks. It will change the sound of the drums in an unpredictable way. You would be better off with a full range limiter, like the L2 or L1.

If you limit at the kick and snare bus, then send all the drums to a drum bus and put a compressor or non-mastering limiter (like an 1176) on the drum bus, you should be able to get the drums under control without making them sound strange.
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Yes, thanks. I in fact am using the full ranger limiter version of the L3 (Ultramaximizer) for this. I use the Multimaximizer for mastering only. the only difference is I am using a limiter on the individual composite tracks (i.e. "snare bus" that has the all the layered snare tracks), not the drum bus -- I wanted very direct control of the kick and snare individually. But interesting thought... might be interesting to try it just on the overall drum bus...
 
Do both. Use a limiter on the individual instruments AND at the drum buss. That way, you don't have to hit it as hard at any one time.

Do the individual to give you more consistency and to lengthen the note a bit, then compress/limit at the drum buss to glue the kit together and even it out a little more.

When you lengthen the notes with compression, you can usually turn up the surrounding music (or turn down the drums) while getting the same impact. This gives you a mix that is louder (if you normalize it) naturally, without having to squash everything to death in mastering.

It does depend what the other instrumentation is, if it's a blue grass album, I'm not sure this will work. If it's a metal album, the drums can sound quite over-compressed when soloed and still be awesome in the mix.
 
Farview said:
Do both. Use a limiter on the individual instruments AND at the drum buss. That way, you don't have to hit it as hard at any one time.

Do the individual to give you more consistency and to lengthen the note a bit, then compress/limit at the drum buss to glue the kit together and even it out a little more.

When you lengthen the notes with compression, you can usually turn up the surrounding music (or turn down the drums) while getting the same impact. This gives you a mix that is louder (if you normalize it) naturally, without having to squash everything to death in mastering.

It does depend what the other instrumentation is, if it's a blue grass album, I'm not sure this will work. If it's a metal album, the drums can sound quite over-compressed when soloed and still be awesome in the mix.
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Excellent. I already have a compressor on my drum track, which I think may be accomplishing this, but the overall theme of doing this in bits and pieces rather than slamming later makes so much sense, I will do this. Also, I noticed what you said, that as I compressed/limited my tracks (kick/snare), like you said, they were "louder" in the mix while not peaking over it -- it just sounded better, but I didn't really understand the why. This clarifies things for me.

Oh... it is not metal, but it is alternative/rock - it's pretty hard, so this works well for this mix.

Thanks!
 
There's some good advice offered here... Waves makes some great plugins but I'm not very fond of the L series limiters. If you don't push them I guess they work ok. No one mentioned using a clipper like Kclip Pro. For $60 it works well for what you're describing.
 
Because on a compressor if you have a soft knee or low ratio the sound is attenuated in a softer manner, no matter the attack release. The reason you get better snare Crack on the limiter is because it goes through to the limiter threshold at full volume before hitting the wall. For a compressor to do this, you need hard knee, high ration.
 
At the most basic, compressors and limiters are the same thing. The big difference is that a limiter just chops off levels at a predetermined point. A compressor chops of the levels but then applies "make up gain" to bring you levels back up but with a compressed dynamic range.

The trick with either is to learn your way around settings like attack, release and ratio so you can understand how to get the effect you want.
 
Bobbsy said:
At the most basic, compressors and limiters are the same thing. The big difference is that a limiter just chops off levels at a predetermined point. A compressor chops of the levels but then applies "make up gain" to bring you levels back up but with a compressed dynamic range.
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An odd thing to say ..seems to me?
I can (and do), have limiters and compressors w/o make-up gain. (I actually seldom use make-up in the comps.
Oops..
The trick with either is to learn your way around settings like attack, release and ratio so you can understand how to get the effect you want.
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Not this part! Spot on! ;)
 
Limiters and compressors both perform a similar function. It's fair to say that any compressor (or any decent one) can also act as a limiter but a limiter probably doesn't have the right controls to be a compressor. However, it's simply the lack of some of the adjustments that make that difference.

If you set your compressor to a high ratio...say 20:1 up to maybe Infinity:1 and have the threshold set almost at the maximum level you want, your compressor will be acting as a limiter. It's controlling the dynamic range by preventing any level going beyond the threshold.

If you take the same compressor, play with the threshold and greatly lower the ratio, suddenly it's a compressor again. Like the limiter you're controlling the dynamic range but this time the idea is to help with controlling your mix by keeping the dynamics within a specified range. You could do the same with your faders--it just takes longer. I mentioned make up gain with the compressor because, in most situations, you want to put the peaks up where they started, just with a smaller range between the peaks and the lower bits. However, you don't NEED make up gain--you can do it with your faders or ever use normalise to put the peaks where you want them.
 
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One way to relate to the need' or desire to use makeup gain-- If what you're doing with a dynamics controller is mainly trimming the peak of the track, you not effecting it's loudness much. If you are knocking it's loudness down, then makeup gain- somewhere. Sometimes the speed of release can be as much at play there as how much reduction.
 
Must admit that when mixing in the home studio, I rarely bother with make up gain--I use either of the two methods I mentioned above.

However, when mixing live, I usually WILL use make up gain just to make sense of my gain structure.
 
I was going to suggest using a clipper too. The K-Clip Pro has an algorithm that preserves transients so if you like to beef up your drums you should buy this plugin. T-RackS has a clipper that can be dialed to soft clip as needed and DF-Clip is $69 ... designed by Drum Forge for exactly this purpose. Another technique to retain transients is to dial in some of a dry track in parallel compression or use a transient shaper after you clip the signal. Your R-Comp will act more like a limiter if you max out the ratio.
 
BTW ... compressors and limiters don't "chop off" the peaks unless you allow them to clip. They squash or push down those spikes which can also result in some harshness as well. A clipper will chop them off but might also add some distortion to round off the square waves and soften the effect. Drums and distorted instruments are good candidates for this.
 
Jimham70 said:
The K-Clip Pro has an algorithm that preserves transients...
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How the fuck does that work? It clips without clipping? If it doesn't clip, it's not a clipper no matter what it says on the tin.
 
I tried the TRack Soft clipper, and it introduced too much distortion/tone change into the signal. By the time I backed it off to get rid of the tone change, it wasn't really doing much.

For me, using the L3 has proven to be the best solution to get rid of the spikes with very minimal sound disturbance. Keep in mind, I am doing this on rock, where a attack on the kick/snare is welcomed, but this would likely be a bad method on more subtle genre's I am guessing.

Also, my original source was not well recorded, so that may also have a big impact on approach. (I am in "fix" mode most of the time)
 
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