more volume on CD

[scrubs]

Ed, I'm glad you have so much time on your hands. My point was that all limiters introduce a certain amount of distortion into the signal and, the harder you limit, the more the sound is "distorted." Whether or not this distortion is audible to the casual limiter is certainly debatable (hence the heavier limiting of commercial cd's that has occurred in recent years). I have no experience with the L3 or any other expensive limiting plugins or hardware, so I really doubt my ears will be of much use in your test. I just know that when I crank the Classic Master Limiter hard on my own mixes, it gets ugly. Still, it is a very useful tool for getting things louder without paying for mastering.

 

[Ford Van]

Ed, I'm glad you have so much time on your hands. My point was that all limiters introduce a certain amount of distortion into the signal and, the harder you limit, the more the sound is "distorted." Whether or not this distortion is audible to the casual limiter is certainly debatable (hence the heavier limiting of commercial cd's that has occurred in recent years). I have no experience with the L3 or any other expensive limiting plugins or hardware, so I really doubt my ears will be of much use in your test. I just know that when I crank the Classic Master Limiter hard on my own mixes, it gets ugly. Still, it is a very useful tool for getting things louder without paying for mastering.

Distortion is really only distortion once it is audile!

That is a point that NEEDS to be made!

To clutter the waters more, your "better" D/A converters might not show distortion as easily as a cheaper D/A converter (duh right?).

But, you are correct, TECHNICALLY, a limiter introduces "distortion".

But, you have to be doing REDICULOUS amounts of limiting to hear it.

You can actually cut down on the audible distortion by increasing the release time. This is one area where the L3 beats out the Classic Limiter. The L3 has a release time adjustment.

So, would you like to hear the tests with increased release time on the limiter compared to a short release time?

So, to sum up, AUDIBLE distortion on heavily limited signal can be avoided by increasing the release time of the limiter.

 

[Ford Van]

And about the "time on your hands" comment. Take advantage of this "slow time" of the year for me. In not too long in the future, I will hardly be posting at all because I will be WAY to busy.

Enjoy it will it lasts, or look forward to when I don't post. Same difference to me.

 

[Blade_Jones]

If you don't want so much "pumping" sound of compression, try adding in a little Steinberg "Loudness Maximizer" plug-in to your mastering process.

BTW outboard units like the Manley Vari Mu sound much better than any software based compressors. But that's only if you are ready for perfection and ready to spend big bucks.