Limiter in the mix

JayRP · Post by **JayRP** » Fri Apr 08, 2011 6:12 am

so if i understand correctly, if i finish a song at say -6 db on the master than that means there's 6db headroom for the engineer to master my track right? you guys says stuff like each channel needs to be at - whatever db but if i bring down the master doesnt that bring down ALL the channel volumes the same amount?

Afroide · Post by **Afroide** » Tue May 03, 2011 6:32 pm

You should be peaking no higher than -6 to -3 db if you're having it professionally mastered... Peak limiting is fine as long as it still sounds good and you're happy with the result, but leave some dynamic range for your mastering engineer to work with

tone-def · Post by **tone-def** » Tue May 03, 2011 9:57 pm

not every track will get mastered by a professional. there is no point leaving lots of headroom if all your doing is making a track for your dj sets.

Afroide · Post by **Afroide** » Wed May 04, 2011 4:12 am

Hence my disclaimer 'professionally mastered'

By all means line up a solid volume reference and slam that master bus until it's loud enough to mix for a DJ set or whatever your immediate need.

I'm not particularly experienced, but I've found Cytomic's 'The Glue' to do a great job adding massive gain without destroying the original material too badly, and adding a nice gentle pump and 'glue' effect with minimal fuss. That is, once you've taken the time to understand how the controls function (i.e. use the sidechain filter with no sidechain input, use the range knob)

Robot Criminal · Post by **Robot Criminal** » Wed May 04, 2011 10:47 am

JayRP wrote:so if i understand correctly, if i finish a song at say -6 db on the master than that means there's 6db headroom for the engineer to master my track right? you guys says stuff like each channel needs to be at - whatever db but if i bring down the master doesnt that bring down ALL the channel volumes the same amount?

Nope, try it out.

RichardLodge · Post by **RichardLodge** » Wed May 04, 2011 2:12 pm

I might be being a bit stupid here, but if none of you tracks are clipping however the total sum clips your master. Will simply putting a gain/utility plug-in reducing the gain on you master not solve the problem?

.. and effectively this allows you to dictate the amount of headroom you leave on a track.

Afroide · Post by **Afroide** » Thu May 05, 2011 10:10 pm

In short - yes, pulling down the gain on the master fader will give you some headroom, but it's not the optimal way to do it if you're mixing in the box, and here's why.

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/so-much- ... tored.html

Long story short - many/most plugins are expecting an input signal to be coming in around -18db to -20db and will perform significantly better if you don't feed it a hot signal. Digital emulations of analog gear do NOT want an input signal coming in at -6 to 0 db. If you think about the equivalent gain-staging on an analog console, you would have approx 20db of headroom above 0dbu before the signal goes to hell. In the digital domain, there is no such thing - there's a hard stop at 0db, so you need to do your own gain staging that builds in some headroom (20db is more than adequate).

Cliff's Notes: Mix with your track levels peaking around -18 to -20 dbfs so that you're leaving your plugins with lots of headroom. Turn your monitors up to hear what you're doing.

hydrogen · Post by **hydrogen** » Fri May 06, 2011 3:23 am

FUCKIT IMA USE A LIMITAH!