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Hey guys, Matthew Weiss here at www.Weiss-Sound.com. www.TheProAudioFiles.com. This is going to
be a follow-up to my mastering tutorial, it's all about setting the final
limiter, which is probably the last step. A lot of times I am required to
print the mix that will actually be the final mix sent to the duplication house
and so understanding how to set a limiter is very important, it is going
to be the final touch.
Now, the key to setting a limiter is constant gained monitoring. What that
means is that however much is being input into the limiter, the same amount
is being attenuated on the output for monitoring purposes. This will give
us a more honest perspective of what the limiter is actually doing to the
sound.
So let's check this out. Here we have the Fab Filter Pro L. We've got two
little controls here, the gain right here and the output right here. These
are going to be the two most important controls that we work with. And
that's going to be true of any limiter. There's nothing more important than
the amount of limiting being done and how we monitor it. Everything else
that we do down the line is going to be used to fine tune that.
So, what we're going to do is play the record and figure out about how much
room we have until we hit our absolute peaks. And by the way, we're going
to play the record from the loudest part of the overall song because that's
where the limiter is going to start working the hardest.
[music]
So it looks like, according to these meter, we've got about, maybe eleven
decibels until we hit absolute peak volume. We're going to go a little bit
further past that. we're going to find the point of distortion and then
we're going to start backing it off. So let's say sixteen decibels. So I'm
turning up the gain and turning down the output. And what we're going to
hear is the signal hitting the limiter without changing the volume.
[music]
One more time.
[music]
Okay, so obviously that's too much. The snare is getting totally flattened
and there's definitely some pumping going on. So let's adjust it, let's
back it off to maybe, let's try 13.5. Alright, let's give this a go.
[music]
So that's a lot more transparent. I think that that's probably a good
level, even if the band asked me to push it a little bit more, we could
probably push it without too much damage. IN fact, just for the sake of
demonstration purposes, let's push it up just a hair more. Alright, great.
So, now we're going to play it and here we get into the fine tuning aspect
of things. So, not all limiters are built this way. For a lot of limiters,
this is going to be all you get, which is actually the most important
thing. You set it, you find the level where it sounds best, where it
doesn't sound like it's pumping or distorted and you leave it go.
But, we have a couple of other little tools in this. We have this advanced
little section here, which has this style setting, a look ahead and attack
and release. So these are all things that we can use to perhaps optimist
the sound that we're getting. Okay, but what do we want to optimize? What
are we listening for? Well, distortion, minimal pumping, and the most
natural articulation on the transience. Those are the things that I think
would determine the best sound.
So, let's start playing with some controls. I usually input the transience
first. Because that's usually the most distinct part.
[music]
Okay, so what was all that? Well, the biggest thing that changed was when I
changed the style mode, when I changed it to dynamic, the snare popped
right back to life. So that was a big, right there, a big improvement. The
other things that mattered were the attack and the release. For this style
of music, it seems like the further this attack goes, the more crispness on
the snare I get. So, I've got it pretty far, I don't really know how this
corresponds to how the limiter is acting, it doesn't sound like it's
clipping so, who knows? But anyway, I just set it and I keep listening for
those transients and listening for the distortion, listening for the
pumping and see what works the best.
So the slower attack here and the very slow release seem to the best most
natural and switching it to dynamic also seemed to preserve the sound the
best. The look ahead function was a little function, so if I turned it too
short the transient disappeared, but if I turned it too long the transient
also disappeared, so that was weird. But, yeah, anyway, I got something
that I like. I'm going to set this to default and now we can AB between
what we just came up with and the default setting. So, here's this is our
new setting and then default setting.
[music]
So you feel a little bit more of that edge on the kick and snare come back
to life. That's a really, really tiny difference. It's not really as
important as the difference in how much gain is actually being applied.
And, but it's every little inch counts, you know what I mean? So that is
how I would set the final limiter. Alright, guys. until next time.
[music]