prism barrell limiters.. make a 8 channel model with meters?

I did a post on gear slutz looking for a 8 channel soft limter with

possibly meters.. I want to use these soft limiters in front of the old

888 to protect them... And they also don't have any input mters...


It seemed to me one could make a fairly cheap box, and add a meter per

channel and soft limit.. If not just soft limit.. This would make my 888

as usable to me as my lavry. It would make it more like the apogee's too.


Does anybody have a suggestion to how I would build these; I mean..

It can't be that many parts and it sure fits a need, if not adding

the circuits maybe on a small board to many of the current projects

or a separate project by it's self..


here's the link..

http://www.prismsound.com/music_recording/products_subs/overkiller.php

[quote author="cwatkins"]This would make my 888

as usable to me as my lavry. It would make it more like the apogee's too.[/quote]

...and you know this for a fact, -do you? -This is somehow going to make 888s as useable as some vastly nicer sounding units? -And you've never even heard it?

A couple of Zeners. measure. Select. Use if it makes you sleep better at night. -Meters? -You're dreaming. Now you're talking all sorts of active stuff, unless you wamt passive VUs, and if you want to ust those for digital, I've got a nice bridge to sell you... :roll:

Keith

Actually, I haven't used the apogee, when I said more alike I ment

by the soft limit function.


But as far as being as usable as the lavry yes;

I can avoid the problems like I said when I aim for -18db/-20db 0 vu.

But there is that occasional peak that might over the convert and the 888's

pop. I have the lavry clocking the 888's and the image might be a little

pinched; but these are not near as bad as people make out.


So the objective and like I said, a meter would just be nice; it is probably

easier to put in the pre. I think I understand what you are saying about

passive vu, that the needle would always be pinned? Isn't there some way

to passively resist before the meter (or calibrate it specially)

so that it takes -18 off before display without active components?

For instance; you have the soft limiter ; and right after that you have

a calibrated vu that makes 0vu = 0 dbfs?


again, I can see the meter being a pain; that's why it's not on the barrel,

but aside from the meters in PT; you're not going to know how hot...

I've also had these 888's peak before what should be 0; even though;

it's calibrated down to the 3rd digit on the volt meter.


So, as far as nicer sounding; I'll take another case besides the screaming

guitar. If one is trying to master or buss mix something that is mixed at

-6dbfs. (a common place for PT mixes). Then after you add somesweeting

with say the pultec; (and it's got transformers in/out) you can get

the occasional spike; Say you want to patch in the ssl; unless you are

very conservative; even if the over is only by 1db; the 888 will pop...


Now; I am hoping, that if I put the softlimter in; it will work like the

lavry/apogee's so that it bumps 0dbfs but it doesn't make it pop,

because the soft limter pulls it down by that 1 db...

(The lavry does this nicely with it's analog setting.)


Ok; so if I mix/master where I'm -3dbfs and I want protection prior

to the a/d ( using the outboard gear) I need a softlimiter of some sort..



Or a full blow limiter that keeps it under -0.1dbfs all the time..



Am i making sense now? I'm actually looking at a refi; not a bridge..

but you never know.

...Are you talking about 24 bits here?

Keith

actually, the a/d is technically 20 bits, not 24..

Why does that matter? The lower 4 bits is usually noise anyway?

If the noise is filling up the last 4 bits of a recording, you can move 24.08dB away from clipping with NO penalty. None. ZERO.

That saves on limiters AND makes your recordings sound better. :thumb:

Derived from the premise that LSB-distortion of noise is distortion of an uncorrelated source, and therefore uncorrelated (which -in hugely oversimplified terms- is why dither works)

If you're recording with 24 bit converters, you don't need to bang against clipping.. or anywhere NEAR it.

Trust me: I record a lot of classical stuff on location, and you CANNOT clip there, but EVERYTHING is 24-bit, and there's no sin or disgrace in the peaks staying as much as 18dB away from clipping... bearing in mind the sheer dynamic range going from a 200-voice choir and a 50-piece orchestra to a solo flute playing pianissimo, 24 bits will work for ANY kind of music, without the need to worry about getting to within the last fraction of a dB of clipping. -And if it's a mix, you can always re-print it at a fraction of a dB lower level... you don't get that chance with live recordings.

Keith

I can build for you a unit with 8 soft limiters and EM80 vacuum tube indicators. It will look cool in darkness! :thumb:

Has anybody here had a look inside these barrel limiters ?
A guy at Townhouse Mastering used to use them a lot.
They must be passive - right?
Back to back zeners ?
Would be interesting to find out.

UP UP UP

Did someone found out ?
would be quite usefull at the back of a G-SSL, to use it as a safe tracking comp ...

trubac said:

Did someone found out ?

Click to expand...

Yes.

JDB.
[in a four year old thread, referring to an eight year old Usenet post]

JDB
Is that a link to a circuit or something, because it doesn't appear to work!
I'm keen to know what this is.

barclaycon said:

Is that a link to a circuit or something, because it doesn't appear to work!

Click to expand...

It's a link to the search page. It was meant as a suggestion.

JDB.
[and it's not like it's hard to come up with the search term 'prism limiter' in this context]

it's not like it's hard to come up with the search term 'prism limiter' in this context

Click to expand...

Yeah allright mate. Calm down.
A civil reply is all that's needed.

In actual fact it was no use anyway.
It just pointed to posts that myself and others here had already made.
The question was 'did anyone have the circuit'.

barclaycon said:

The question was 'did anyone have the circuit'.

Click to expand...

Fair enough, but how much more do you need in terms of circuit description than Scott Dorsey's r.a.p. post, plus the thread here that linked to it?

My 'do a search' reaction was triggered by the fact that lately we are getting a lot of posted questions and thread revivals by (mostly, but not exclusively) new members, when a simple search could have turned up the answers. This was not directed at trubac in particular, mind you.

JDB.
[and I did check that there was an answer before triggering a possible wild goose chase]

So, we are left with the question 'Does anyone actually have the circuit values?'

Whether it's a back to back zener arrangement or something else, if someone has opened up the barrels and checked then we've love to know what's going on.
It's a forum right ?
We ask questions.
Some of them might seem a bit stupid, but it's not hard to be courteous when replying.

barclaycon said:

So, we are left with the question 'Does anyone actually have the circuit values?'

Whether it's a back to back zener arrangement or something else, if someone has opened up the barrels and checked then we've love to know what's going on.

Click to expand...

I genuinely do not see what's missing. The barrels have been opened and found to contain two zeners in antiseries. Value's dictated by converter clip point and has also been spelled out. True, noone appears to have mentioned the zener's manufacturer, but there's very little room for variation there.

JDB.
[the courtesy issue has been discussed before, too]

You've got bad weather in the Netherland ?  :

You've got bad weather in the Netherland ?

Click to expand...

Ha.
It would appear so !

barclaycon said:

You've got bad weather in the Netherland ?

Click to expand...

Ha.
It would appear so !

Click to expand...

Always, apart from our two-day summer that is. Pretty hard to DIY a fix for that, though...

JDB.
[even if you could get the silver nitrate or silver iodine in large enough quantities, any workable distribution mechanism is going to draw loads of unwanted attention from the authorities PDQ]

As an Apogee user, and I must add the SoftLimit feature has a "sound", and is kicking in SEVERAL dB´s below clipping point. So if you want clear and open, switch it off (I do most of the time). And use the pencil tool on the overs, more transparent... ;D

Just my €0.02

/Dave