Welcome to Sage Audio. Today we’re doing a limiter masterclass. To get the most from
your music, watch the entirety of each chapter because each chapter builds from the previous
to create a complete understanding of the topic, and use the progress bar at the top
of the video to track your progress.
But first, if you have a mix that you need mastered send it to us at SageAudio.com to
receive a free mastered sample of it.
What Does a Limiter Do?
A limiter protects your signal from clipping distortion while allowing you to increase
the perceived loudness of a signal. All limiters have an instant attack time to avoid any signal
going above the set threshold - this is convenient but can cause significant distortion to a
signal if used excessively.
Let’s listen to some various brick-wall limiters.
Avoiding Excessive Limiting
Since limiting is used to attenuate peaks, you can use less limiting or avoid it altogether
by controlling your dynamics. One of my favorite ways to do this is with upward compression,
which brings the quietest aspects of the signal upward, increasing detail while reducing dynamic
range.
Try various forms of compression instead of heavy limiting to see if you can achieve more
controlled dynamics before limiting.
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How Limiting Creates Distortion
By instantly attenuating a signal when it crosses a threshold, limiting will cause mild
to moderate distortion to your signal - how much distortion depends on the amount of attenuation
and the limiter type. For example, some algorithms like the modern setting in the Pro L2 reduce
harmonic distortion significantly.
Whereas others like the punch algorithm create purposeful distortion to increase the volume
of transients. Let’s listen to some of these various settings.
Clipping vs. Limiting
Whereas a limiter attenuates signals that cross a threshold, clippers cut the waveform
at the point of crossover, in turn causing moderate to significant harmonic distortion.
When we use a limiter, we’re trying to avoid the hard clipping that our digital system
would create; however, clipping can be useful.
Some engineers use both clippers and limiters to both attenuate and clip their signal, finding
that it gives them better control over their transients and the timbre of their mix.
Channel Delinking
Most limiters let you delink your channels, meaning the detection and attenuation of your
left and right channels is performed independently. This can greatly change the overall sound
of your master and can help retain detail that would have otherwise been attenuated
from grouped attenuation of the left and right.
Personally, I really enjoy the sound of delinked limiting, and finding that I’ll link the
left and right by only about 30% to keep some cohesion, but retain channel independence.
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True Peak Pros and Cons
True peak limiting has become increasingly popular in recent years since it instantly
detects inter-sample peaking distortion and reduces the signal according to that metric.
This results in less overall distortion; however, it can have a large impact on a mix’s transient
detail and will reduce the perceived loudness.
It works by reforming distorted waveforms, which as you can imagine, will change the
timbre or ADSR of that transient.
Let's listen to both true peak and non-true peak limiting.
Lower Ceiling, Lookahead, Oversampling
If you want to avoid inter-sample peaking distortion when you’re limiting, but you
don’t want to use true peak limiting due to the cons we just covered, follow these
3 steps. Lower your limiter’s ceiling to -0.5 to -1dB, introduce 0.1ms of lookahead
and increase oversampling to 4x.
Although this won’t completely eliminate inter-sample clipping, it will greatly reduce
the amount of it while retaining the ADSR of your transients.
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Using 2 Limiters
If you use 2 limiters on your master you can avoid some of the distortion that would be
caused by relying too heavily on one. To do this, use 2 identical or different limiters
back to back - the first will attenuate peaks and attenuate the signal by about 2dB.
The 2nd limiter can be used to increase the perceived loudness. On both limiters, use
the ceiling, lookahead, and oversampling settings we covered earlier. Also, try different limiter
types to combine the timbres of each.
Soft Limiting
So far we’ve been discussing brick wall limiters, but limiters can be any attenuator
with a ratio greater than 10:1. Unlike brick wall limiters, the attack times won’t be
instant, meaning you can shape the signal more easily with various attack and release
controls.
Additionally, if you’re trying the 2 limiter technique we just covered, try it with the
first limiter being a soft or 10:1 limiter. This will control peaks with less distortion,
and will also give you greater control over your signal’s timbre.
If you have a mix that you need mastered send it to us at SageAudio.com to receive a free
mastered sample of it.
Thank you so much for watching