Limiting Master Bus for a few peaks?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Help Help
  • Start date Start date
H

Help Help

Member
If a track has just a few peaks that are clipping, is there any real detriment to just putting a limiter on the Master Bus? Like, would the only thing effected be those 4 or 5 peaks? Cause most of my mix is a few decibels under 0.

I know that I'm doing it wrong, I'm by no means a professional and don't have anyone to show me stuff. I've just always been confused by how to finalize mixes. My final mixes often creep up around 0, just by habit, but like.. just in a few spots. Would save a lot of time if it wasn't a big deal to just limit whenever it hit 0. I don't quite understand mixing super quiet, or where the levels are "supposed" to be - too quiet and my headphones barely register anything or I gotta crank the monitors. I'll finalize a track, but usually find it's clipping in a few spots, but nothing major. (I apologize for my ignorance, I would love to spend one good day with someone who knows what they are doing.) Thanks for any thoughts.
 
It would depend on where the peaks originate. If it is something like a drum track, I would put the limiter on the drum track, just to avoid affecting other tracks. If it comes from various tracks, and where multiple tracks blend together to product a peak, then you can put the limiter on the master track. I've done that before, usually setting it up so that it kicks in at around -3dB or so, and limiting to -1dB with a look ahead, and a fairly fast attack. That keeps the overloads away.

Most of the time, my mixes are somewhere between -18 and -12LUFS. It depends a lot on the subject material, of course.
 
I will sometimes put a mastering compressor on the master bus , but only to calm things down a little and glue everything together. At this stage in the process you shouldn't have anything Even Close to clipping. I try to keep my "finished" mix around -6 db. This leaves plenty of headroom for the mastering process. Tracking - start out around -6 or quieter. The more tracks you add the louder the master gets. Fix you loud peaks at the track level. When your master starts getting loud turn down individual tracks. When you're finished mixing all the tracks with effects you should still be around -6. If you don't have enough volume feeding your headphones while tracking , you can always temporarily adjust your master bus and your volume knob on your interface (hopefully you're using one) until you can hear everything. Here's a Great Free mastering compressor for your master bus. https://www.tokyodawn.net/tdr-kotelnikov/ I hope this helped a little. mark
 
If you're talking about a mastering limiter, yes you can just slap one on the master buss and get on with your life. You probably won't hear the difference.

If you are worried about it, you can simply turn down the master buss until the mix doesn't clip anymore.
 
best to find the channel that is causing the peaks,
and deal with it there.
 
For a few very short peaks I will usually just go in and manually lower the volume for that one drum hit or note that's causing the issue on individual tracks. Rarely is it multiple tracks together causing the peak.
 
Agreed. Drums can be weird as sometimes they seem to just jump out for no apparent reason. Not even sure if it is a digital glitch in the matrix... LOL
Many times I will either tame the offensive one, or even just copy/paste an earlier hit to resolve it.
To answer the OP's question directly, my answer would be yes. But finding the cause is a better approach.
 
Thank you all so much for your replies, patience, and advice! Means a great deal to me. Also great to see familiar friends like Farview and jimmys69 are still kickin around here, you guys have always been so helpful and patient with me in the past haha. What jimmy said is my experience as well, sometimes peaks will jump out wildly out of some combination in the mix, and I've often done the same thing as he says, copy and pasted another hit - even if the pasted hit is louder, it almost always solves the problem, it's weird.

In regards to what Farview said about turning down the Master Bus, this is a dumb question I think, but is there any negative to touching the Master fader to bring it down? I've looked this up before but I got differing views, wonder if there is a conclusive answer, out of curiosity anyway. I know that for my purposes it wouldn't really be noticeable even if there was a drawback.

Thanks to all of you! I don't know anyone in real life to help me and I'm kinda dumb when it comes to technical stuff, so I appreciate this community a lot.
 
Help Help said:
In regards to what Farview said about turning down the Master Bus, this is a dumb question I think, but is there any negative to touching the Master fader to bring it down? I've looked this up before but I got differing views, wonder if there is a conclusive answer, out of curiosity anyway.
Click to expand...

The reason for the differing views is probably down to which software was being used. Back in the old days when Protools didn't do dithering properly and other software was integer based with no headroom it was probably a good idea to leave the main fader at zero. If you are using more modern software that uses floating point calculations then there's no problem with pulling the master fader down a bit. When posting a question like this it is always helpful if you tell us what software you are using.
 
+1. There is a lot of outdated info on the net. With any daw from the last 10 years, there will be no consequences to turning the master fader down.
 
Thanks friends. I'm using Cubase Elements 10, along with my Tascam US-1800. I assume that means there's no problem with turning the master fader down? I won't make it a habit, just good to know etc. Thanks.
 
Peaks can be crucial, or not crucial. You have two choices. Fix them, either manually or with tools, or lower the level of the whole thing so they’re not a problem. Most peaks like this are just accidental, so slap a limiter on them or just manually add a fader dip to contain them. Or just normalise that one track to drop it down to a manageable level. I just ask myself one question. Does it sound distorted, or just too loud. If it is a mistake, I fix it . If there are a lot, I tend to use a limiter for laziness as long as the sound is ok.
 
Next time you mix have a look at the waveforms and address any crazy spikes, clip gain them down or even use a limiter as the first in chain as long as it does not make that particular transients note boom out (you might bring in far too much of the notes body in a quick instant). When you have all the faders set in place and your master has a few db's of headroom from your first initial balance you should ideally only be REDUCING peaks and gaining headroom from there on out unless you start making different mixing decisions from your initial balance. Compression and mainly eq cuts from this point onwards normally gives you slightly more headroom, even if you are gainstaging properly. Average level comes up but headroom should increase a bit or just stay the same.

I actually put a limiter on when i'm like 80% done on the mix and let it catch one or 2 spikes, then I pull down the equivellent of the master while looking at a loudness meter and pull down until I am at -20 lufs. My tracks normally have around 6 to 8db's of headroom after I'm done with the mix. I just got sick and tired of having to turn up and down my tracks all the time when going from echo speaker, to youtube to whatever else. It's all roughly the same volume now. If any of my tracks were to get mastered i doubt they would care if there was headroom or not

edit: To clarify, most my mixes that I finish get playtested on all speakers around the house and then shoved in a project folder never to be listened to again. If I was uploading to soundcloud or youtube or wherever I would upload a 0dbfs version and let that platform turn it down instead. I am just basically doing the job of what youtube and soundcloud does to level match to everything else only because I don't normally upload any of my tracks anywhere.
 
Last edited:
Help Help said:
If a track has just a few peaks that are clipping, is there any real detriment to just putting a limiter on the Master Bus? Like, would the only thing effected be those 4 or 5 peaks? Cause most of my mix is a few decibels under 0.

I know that I'm doing it wrong, I'm by no means a professional and don't have anyone to show me stuff. I've just always been confused by how to finalize mixes. My final mixes often creep up around 0, just by habit, but like.. just in a few spots. Would save a lot of time if it wasn't a big deal to just limit whenever it hit 0. I don't quite understand mixing super quiet, or where the levels are "supposed" to be - too quiet and my headphones barely register anything or I gotta crank the monitors. I'll finalize a track, but usually find it's clipping in a few spots, but nothing major. (I apologize for my ignorance, I would love to spend one good day with someone who knows what they are doing.) Thanks for any thoughts.
Click to expand...
What are you using for a DAW?
 
Help Help said:
If a track has just a few peaks that are clipping, is there any real detriment to just putting a limiter on the Master Bus? Like, would the only thing effected be those 4 or 5 peaks? Cause most of my mix is a few decibels under 0.

I know that I'm doing it wrong, I'm by no means a professional and don't have anyone to show me stuff. I've just always been confused by how to finalize mixes. My final mixes often creep up around 0, just by habit, but like.. just in a few spots. Would save a lot of time if it wasn't a big deal to just limit whenever it hit 0. I don't quite understand mixing super quiet, or where the levels are "supposed" to be - too quiet and my headphones barely register anything or I gotta crank the monitors. I'll finalize a track, but usually find it's clipping in a few spots, but nothing major. (I apologize for my ignorance, I would love to spend one good day with someone who knows what they are doing.) Thanks for any thoughts.
Click to expand...
i used to have this problem all the time till i changed how i set up a new mix/project... and id been mixing for years up to that point.
 
sonusman 2019 said:
... I personally don't like to "mix through" a compressor or limiter. I find it much harder to find the actual problems, and the mixes tend to have less cohesion between the tracks. Just my opinion. Obviously, there are some big time engineers that endorse this approach. But, I think you will find that they do most of their work with the compressor off, or, that it is barely doing anything when on.

Your mileage will vary. :)
Click to expand...
+1 on your post above. As well on the mix comp/limiter early on. First being there's no particular need or rush generally to getting the mix up 'hot. While I understand the mix into the comp' ins and outs, tried it for a while, I just found the trade-offs' not worth it. Hmm.. ok. Primarily, the existing mix processes -all the existing tools, zeroing in on (in some way discovering') the final mix.. works pretty damned well.
I saw the comp 'early, as a distraction. As you're zeroing in, the question of if' or how much the thing might be acting counter etc. etc. in so many ways :>) Don't need it. And there's still the option for try comp at the end.. Sometimes ok.. Often not even better..
Ack. I gotta' go, I need me some Jack Cassady about now.. :>)
 
sonusman 2019 said:
The reason? Simple. Without exception, the D/A converters we use at home simply don't eloquently handle transients once the audio nears the limits of the converters dynamic range. You WILL get a skewed sound out of your D/A converter (unless you have something at least as good as say an Apogee Rosetta or equivalent) when output audio above -6dbfs, and most likely at even lower levels. It has to do with the cost cutting done to make that D/A affordable to you. The analog audio circuit is not going to be of mastering studio quality.
Click to expand...
What?? "skewed sound" above -6dBFS?
 
sonusman 2019 said:
Yes. a well discussed topic way back when....(2005ish?) I have heard nothing from newer converters that suggests they have any better analog parts of their circuit. That is really the rub. Quality analog circuits are difficult, and expensive to build. Your $200 soundcard is NOT going to include one. ;)
Click to expand...
Sorry, just my opinion - I think your ideas from 17 years ago are a bit outdated.
 
What happened to the "try it and see" approach? In this topic the offerings were:
limit it (as in electronically prevent the maximum level going over an amount - but YOU have to set that yourself)
Go back to the song and find what is causing it and fix it on an event by event basis
reduce the entire thing a little bit so there are no peaks but the music remains mixed exactly the same.

That really is pretty much it. My question is then a very simple one. Why have you not tried all three methods and compared them? It seems so much like you are a chef selecting ingredients for a recipe, but wanting to avoid tasting anything?

Being blunt - you have the repair tools available, but seem scared to try them. We have no idea of the style of music or technical competence, or even how basic or complex your systems are, so the only person who can decide is you. If you want - do all three and post them here randomly and ask us which we prefer, if you can't quite pick. They'll all work.

When I have this happen - as in, Cubase has a little red marker on the output telling me it went over - I tend to just pull the master down a bit. In most cases if you don't hear the distortion, but just see a warning, it just got a little loud - so reducing everything preserves the sound and the balance and fixes the problem. Pick a method, try it out and if the first one fixes it, don't bother with the others?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top