Someone explain a limiter to me ...

[thetruthguy]

I'm trying to find the sweetspot on MixCraft's Brick Wall limiter. I set the threshold to -3, the ratio to 10, the attack to 0, and the release to 250. Everything sounds pretty good in the final mixdown, but every now and then it sounds like the guitars are being squashed. I really don't know what any of the above stuff means (threshold, ratio, attack, release), so I was hoping someone could explain it to me and help me with limiters. Thanks!!!

--Dan

[thetruthguy]

Here's the song ... it's the same one I had posted before but now there's a limiter over the track to help pull everything together. Just let me know what you think, and any advice on how to correctly use the limiter is much appreciated.

http://www.neohygiene.com/limiteron.mp3

[daemon barbeque]

okay the limiter "limits" the peaks of your tone.It is to make things sound equal loud!The attack is how fast it reacts ,the treshold is wher it begins to react and the amount is how aggresive it reacts!I hope it helped a bit!
The limiter is mosty used for the vocals.since human voice is not linear ,it needs sometimes get limited not to cause clipping.If you not limit the vocals in some points ,you have to make every other signal quiter in your mix to compansate it.And it will sound really shitty.So the best wys is to use a limiter for the vocals ,and a fair amount of compressor for the rest!

[Newc]

Compressors boost quiet parts, and squash loud parts, sometimes rather harshly, resulting in the "pnnngowwww" effect, where you get minimal attack but an extra long sustain (most commonly heard with an open string with a clean tone).

Peak Limiters limit the Peaks. If you have a sound source that has a wide range of volume - drum kit, mic'd amp, vocals, etc - you use a Peak Limiter to keep the peaks at or below a set limit. If one source is Peaking more than the others, the best thing to keep a natural sound without the squashiness is to reduce the volume of that source so that its peaks match those of the other sources, only using the limiter to catch the absolute highest peaks.

[metalhead28]

A limiter does not usually have a ratio control. A compressor does, and using a compressor in "limit" mode is basically like using a ratio of infinity.

It sounds like you may have out of control levels on individual tracks and the limiting is reacting to this.

The application of compression and limiting has some similarities and it's imperative that you understand the controls to use them effectively.

The threshold is the volume level at which the compresion kicks in. Whenever the level of the incoming audio passes the threshold, compression takes place. The lower you set the threshold, the more of the signal you will compress. If you set the threshold higher, until the audio only occasionally rises above it, you will have less compresion.

The attack time is the amount of time it takes the compression to react once the threshold is passed. A fast attack time will clamp down on the volume really fast and this is good for controlling fast transients like drums etc. A slower release time allows more of the initial transients to get through before the compression clamps down.

The ratio is the amount that the volume is reduced above the threshold. If you have your ratio set to 10:1, any audio which passes the threshold will only be allowed to reach 1/10th of it's original volume. For example, you set your threshold at -12 db. A section of audio originally peaked at -2 which would be 10 db above the threshold, with a 10:1 ratio the volume would only increase by 1 db so you would only reach 1 db louder than your threshold. Make sense?

The release time is the amount of time it takes the compresion to release once the audio has dropped below the threshold. A fast release time would let the audio snap right back to it's original volume. A slower time will of course release the compression more slowly. This can be the most critical control for getting compression or limiting to sound natural.
With too slow of a release time, you might hear the the whole track pump every time the audio peaks. For example, say the kick drum was hitting the compressor hard every time it hit. If the release time was too slow, the compressor would hold the level down after the peaks, and the rest of the audio would sound squashed down for a second and then jump back up. Most people call that "pumping". You might be able to set the release faster and avoid that.

Some compressors show the attack and release times in milliseconds, some just show numbers 1-10 or whatever. Just in case it's confusing, turning the number higher for the release control should equal setting a longer release time. Turning it lower would equal a faster release time.

You may have stray peaks in the song that are causing the pumping effects. If you addressed those on a track by track basis, you 's get by with less of that sort of problem.

Hope this helped.

[thetruthguy]

Cool. Thanks for all of your input. I like the idea of editing individual tracks until each one is on spot. I'll work on doing that next. Thanks!

[hammer84]

I like the idea of editing individual tracks until each one is on spot

That is the way to do it. Running compression on the overall mix can really suck the life and dynamics out a song.

[Newc]

And since most MP3 conversions use Compression on the end-result, you end up with a poofy, squashed mix that sounds like RealAudio (talk about False Advertising )

[Bert]

Hey Metalhead, that was one of the best explanations of compression & limiting that I have ever read. Thanks for that.

[metalhead28]

Hey Metalhead, that was one of the best explanations of compression & limiting that I have ever read. Thanks for that.

No problem.
Alot of people seem mystified by compression. It's really pretty simple if you can get a grip on what you're doing.