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#1
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Limiter on master bus useless?
I have had several cases where I've put a limiter on a bus that gets signal of 10+ tracks. When the combined signal is clipping (and you don't want to turn down the volume) you normally use a limiter to prevent this. But I am now working in a studio where this does not work. The limiter is thereby useless as it does not receive signal above 0dB and thereby does not limit anything.
Am I right that in Pro Tools HD, a limiter (that does not turn up the volume but only chops off the peaks) only works on a track and not a bus? Or is there a setting somewhere for this? Because I'm quite sure previously, in an other studio this was not happening. I know this works in Pro Tools LE (Weirdly not with Maxim), but it would be kind of ridiculous if it wasn't possible in HD as well. Is it plug-in dependent? |
#2
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Re: Limiter on master bus useless?
Learn about gain staging. Like with any mixing console in analog world you must have headroom to have good sounding mixes. If your combined signal of several channels will mix together and have too much level you WILL CLIP YOUR MIX BUS and that's the worst thing you can do. You can only cure this by pulling down the faders. Limiter on master fader will not help you as the clipping will occur a the mix bus stage BEFORE reaching the limiter. LE and other native programs are more forgiving in this regard as the floating point calculation has more headroom but in PTHD you just can't let the mix bus clip.
Having more headroom is good for your sound, your mix breathes and plugins have more headroom for radical processing. |
#3
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Re: Limiter on master bus useless?
Ditto on the above post.
If you are that far in the hole, then you have already made a huge gain staging mistake early on. Sit down with someone who can get things correct and take notes.
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bookerv12 |
#4
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Re: Limiter on master bus useless?
Ok thanks. So there is no option to make headroom like in LE? I guess I have to use a calculator then.
edit: @Booker12: well in this case I had 3 busses with compressors go to a master bus. it seemed more easy to just pull down the master instead of the 3 busses. |
#5
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Re: Limiter on master bus useless?
Quote:
You should start your mixes so that lets say kick and snare drums, as one of the loudest elements of your mix don't peak near 0 db but say somewhere around - 12db. This way you have room to build your mix. But if you are now clipping your buss, just go in and trim down all your faders say 6db's and see if you will be in clear waters then, if not trim down another 6db's until you're safe. If there is no automation on tracks this can be done easily by just activating ALL group in the mix group section, and pull down any of the faders, all others will follow. If you have automation you can switch to volume view on tracks, take trim tool, hold down command (for fine adjustments) and trim down all track volumes one by one by 6db's. You can do that without affecting automation curves if you go to the end of each track and do your trimming past the last volume automation point. You will see the amount of db's you are moving at the track. So no need for a calculator. Alternatively you can go into Volume Trim view and pull down volume trims for each track. That would be the easiest I guess. |
#6
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Re: Limiter on master bus useless?
Always pull down groups that feed the master and not the master. Leave the master at unity, the meter of master fader shows your mixing bus headroom, this is the most important thing for you to keep your eyes on.
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#7
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Re: Limiter on master bus useless?
Thanks,
Your advice is actually what I wanted to avoid. I also realize now that on an audiotrack a limiter is also useless, because the limiter processes BEFORE the gain control of the track. I thought a limiter was intended to LIMIT peaks. Else you should call it a compressor. So the bottom line is that you really can not use limiters in Pro Tools HD. |
#8
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Re: Limiter on master bus useless?
Quote:
I use at least one limiter in every session, and it works just fine. Gain is something you should take care of before the signal hits your A/D. I usually have to bring the treshold on the L2007 down to about -11 to get 2-3 db's of limiting on the loudest peaks.
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Studio rig - Pro Tools|HDX 2018.7 | Logic Pro X.4.2 | Avid HD I/O (8x8x8) | 6-core 3.33 Westmere w/24GB RAM | OS 10.12.3 | D-Command ES | Eleven Rack | Vienna Ensemble Pro 5 Mobile rig - Macbook Pro i7 w/16GB RAM | UA Apollo 8p | Pro Tools|HD 2018.3 | Logic Pro X.4.2 | OS 10.12.6 |
#9
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Re: Limiter on master bus useless?
You can actually use a limiter that way if you send the audio to an aux with the limiter on it and then send the aux to a separate audio track.
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#10
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Re: Limiter on master bus useless?
Quote:
Also it cannot help you if you clip your mix bus, but you can use limiters in digital mixer in their normal operation level that is anywhere below 0dbfs no matter if it's on track, on groups and on master fader. You just need to know what you are doing. If you have 3 groups feeding master fader then these groups cannot have limiters set to 0dbfs as if three signals, every one of them peak at 0dbfs they will overdrive your mix bus. The limiters of your groups must be set around max -6dbfs so the signals won't sum up too hard for the mix bus to clip. You need to learn the basics! |
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