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Old 01-27-2006, 11:52 PM
xsane xsane is offline
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Join Date: May 2004
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Default Dynamics III & Limiter Question

I regularly use the Dynamics III compressor for compressing my vocals and I love the sound... But for the life of me, I can't get the Dyanamics III limiter to work the way I want it to. I want to use the D3 limiter to bring up the level to that of a CD but it always clips and shows red in the mixer window. I really need a limiter BAD. I mean REAL bad. My question is this, is anybody using the D3 limiter like the Waves L1/L2/L3 limiter and getting it to work right? If I can't get it to work right I want to buy the Waves L3 but for TDM Accel it's $1,200. The native version is $600. One other question here, does the native version sound as good as the TDM Accel version, is it simply a matter of CPU power? Please let me know your thoughts, I'm going to make a purchase in the morning probably. I really wish I could use the Dynamics III or the DigiRack limiter... they just don't work like the waves one. I don't get it. HELP!
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Old 01-28-2006, 01:37 AM
frenchman frenchman is offline
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Default Re: Dynamics III & Limiter Question

I have little experience with Dynamics III but I can see where your problem is

Dynamics III like most compressor limiters where made to emulate analog devices, and as such some of the "drawbacks" of analog gear :
Any "normal" analog limiter has a minimum reaction time. This implies that although most peaks will be limited, there will always be a very short spike nonetheless. This can actually be desired sometimes for transient enhancement on drums etc...

In a not so distant past ;-) the look ahead limiter was invented.
The idea was to insert a very short delay (used to be analog delay !!) between the peak detection circuit and the gain stage in the limiter, to compensate for the reaction time. That way no peaks would get through.

Now, back to plugins: most compressor limiters are NOT lookahead limiters because nobody wants that ! they would make very boring effects indeed!

If you need level maximizing, you need special limiters sometimes called brickwall limiters, that have a optimized design for that purpose.
This means not only lookahead circuitry (this is why the often induce longer DSP delays), but also infinite ratio and usually some clever circuitry designed to minimize distortion

To sum it up : if you are after level maximizing you need a tool designed for that : Sony Limiter, L1, L2, L3, Maxim, MasterX and others of the kind

NOW if you are short on means, some plugins like McDsp have clever soft clipping output circuitry:
By bussing you mix through such a plugin after the limiter, and setting the levels so as to clip you small peaks you might actually get a very similar effect. You would be surprised at how efficient this can be, but please don't say I told you...
If you want to read more about how dynamics processing works I highly recommend this user manual written by the Sony Oxford team, which has brilliant theoretical background to the subject..
Sony dynamics manual
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