who uses the renaissance compressor in mastering?...and some other mastering stuff...

[Pete Weaver]

djc8902,

In response to your question about limiters,
I have come up with a very trustworthy way to use
the L1 or L2 that doesn't cause distortion or
tone change to the mix.

1. Mix your song to a stereo track, with no dither (staying at 24 bits) and no compression nor eq on the master fader. Don't worry about the volume level. If it's not as loud as you want that's fine. Just make sure there's no clipping on the stereo mix track.

2. Create a brand spankin new 24 bit session and import your mixed stereo track into this new session.

3. Create a master fader and put the L2 or L1 on it in bypass mode (not currently active).

4. Put the mastering plugins of your choice, Ren Compressor, C4, Linear Phase Multiband, whichever you like, on the stereo mix track, not the master fader. (master fader only gets L1 or L2)

5. Play your mix and adjust the mastering plugs
on the stereo track to taste as far as EQ and compression go, but don't worry about volume just yet.

6. Once your mix sounds wonderful, it's time to adjust volume. Turn the L2 on (no bypass) and set it for threshold=0 and out ceiling=0.3

7. Now, leaving the master fader at 0.0 volume, slide the volume on the stereo mix track up so that the L2 attenuator is kicking in on the
peaks but no more than 3db (or you'll probably hear distortion)

8. If desired you can also increase the output of the last plugin on the stereo mix track for additional volume control. Adjust volujme as hot as you wish using the stereo mix fader and /or the plugin outputs, but don't use the threshold slider in the L2 (it definitely causes distortion).

9. Use your normal routine to dither the mix to 16 bits, (L1 or L2 or whatever is normal for you)
and bounce to disk or print the mix externally (whichever is normal).

Add milk, eggs, sugar and beat thoroughly!
You should now have printed a 16 bit mix with good hot volume levels that hopefully dont kill the dynamics of the song as long as you didn't hit the limiter too hard.

Fun!

You can check out any of my mixes using this method at:

www.halftheworld.cc

[img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[guitates]

I Always have the RenComp and L2 (only for slight limiting>>2--with NO dither)on Master fader Only for my 24 tr sessions with lots of Reverbs and plugs.

I then bounce to a dual mono, (NO dither) 24bit file and open a new 1 stereo channel/master fader session, and import the dual mono in.

Then on the Master fader I can open the Linear Multi-5-band and the S1 for slight imaging and the L2 with 24 bit dither and Ultra NSh.

This gives me the ability to open the Linear EQ if necessary.

I could NEVER get the Linear MB and/or EQ open with my 24 track sessions... [img]images/icons/cool.gif[/img]

[Ben Jenssen]

I have the L1.

I always adjust it by pulling down BOTH threshold and output level at the same time. (by dragging the arrows inbetween.)

This way it’s easy to hear when the limiting kicks in, and control how much you want. Then I pull the output up to -0.2 or something.

[Morningstar]

Originally posted by Ben Jenssen:
<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by Morningstar:
Actually read the manuals with the waves stuff, there's a tip.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Are you being sarcastic?
[img]images/icons/mad.gif[/img] <hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Um, no, I meant something along the lines of, say, 'read the manuals'. Because I think they're more than slightly informative, and many of us don't read them like we should.

I'll be sure to say please from now on.....

[peter parker]

* note to self: remember to feed the dog.