Other uses for limiters?

[DJ Hellfire]

What are some other uses for limiters other than bumping up the loudness? Like how can I get the most use out my L2007 for example other than slapping it on a master fader at the end of a mix?

[albee1952]

I have lots of plugins that are "one trick ponies". That doesn't bug me at all and I am glad to have them. Feel free to try any plugin in any situation. Just be aware of latency issues that might crop up. Lots of great mastering plugins have no other use(and plenty of great plugins are useless on the master)

[themadarchitect]

Originally Posted by DJ Hellfire

What are some other uses for limiters other than bumping up the loudness? Like how can I get the most use out my L2007 for example other than slapping it on a master fader at the end of a mix?

Loudness isn't why limiters why created believe it or not...

I mean a limiter basically stops a signal from passing a certain level. So lets say you have a vocal track where the general level is good, but you have some passages that are a bit too loud..a limiter would be better than a compressor in this case because you only want to limit the loudest parts and not "squash" the loud and quiet parts together.

You can use it as an automatic "clip control". You can use it as a volume control while STILL maintaining a lot of the dynamics (as opposed to compression which makes the dynamic range smaller)....and tons more

[nst7]

I don't know if this applies to the Massey, but some limiters have a certain character to them, just like some compressors. I've read interviews in magazines with famous mixers and in several cases I've seen the Waves L1 used on individual channels, partly because they just liked the way it sounded.

[albee1952]

Originally Posted by themadarchitect

Loudness isn't why limiters why created believe it or not...


You can use it as an automatic "clip control". You can use it as a volume control while STILL maintaining a lot of the dynamics (as opposed to compression which makes the dynamic range smaller)....and tons more

While this is certainly true of hardware limiters, a software limiter won't prevent clipping of the input or converter.

[themadarchitect]

Originally Posted by albee1952

While this is certainly true of hardware limiters, a software limiter won't prevent clipping of the input or converter.

not while recording...very true..but if used in the chain somewhere where the gain/processing for the next plug is clipping, I have successfully used it before the next plug to prevent it from clipping...only in "no other way to fix it situations"..

Just used it on a voice over recorded way too loud where processing was needed but causing clipping. Definitely not the greatest use of a limiter, but a use..and a creative one at that.

[daeron80]

A brickwall limiter on extreme settings can be used in a similar way to bit crushing - to make a track sound really awful on purpose for a few bars. It can remove all dynamic content, crushing the track out of musical existence. That can be kind of cool for a short contrast with higher dynamic material.