How to use a normal Limiter as a Mastering Limiter

Hello,
sometimes I need to use a limiter in the Mix Bus but I dont have a Mastering Limiter or Maximizer available, Like the L2 or Massey L2007.

In this situations I have at my disposal a normal limiter, more common the ones in Digital mixing desks, like in Yamaha PM5D, Digico or Soundcraft Vi.
They dont have a Mastering Limiter or Maximizer but have a normal/common  limiter instead.
My question is what type of settings should I use in a Limiter to make it behave more similar to a Maximizer/mastering limiter ?

Thanks

Ratio at max
Threshold close to the limit, say -0.5dBFS
Fairly short attack
Fast release

try this free one it's way better than most of the expensive ones!

https://vladgsound.wordpress.com/plugins/limiter6/

you have play a little bit with the release time depending on the musical material you are working on. as ruairioflaherty  mentioned before, typically extremely short att and short rel times (about 20ms-60ms) are used (although i'd personally not recommend them).

Mastering style peak limiters are optimized for the task, often with lookahead, oversampled side chains etc.  A regular digital compressor/limiter will be a lot crunchier trying to achieve the same results.

ruairioflaherty said:

Mastering style peak limiters are optimized for the task, often with lookahead, oversampled side chains etc.  A regular digital compressor/limiter will be a lot crunchier trying to achieve the same results.

Click to expand...

Hi Ruairi,
thanks so much for your replies. I will try that for sure.

When I was saying Maximizer/Mastering Limiter, I could also have said Brickwall limiter.

I know that this is not perfect for the task and will not achieve the same results, the thing is that I dont have an option most of the times in Live Sound to have a proper peak limiter. I have to use what comes with the digital console.

I would like to use the normal limiter in the consoles in my mix bus so I can shave 2-3 dbs peaks.

So I will try the limiter with:
Ratio at Max, if it allows infinite better
Fastest attack time possible
Fast release around 20ms
Any other advises?

Tomorrow I will engineer a band in a Live Broadcast TV Show,
they dont allow the level to peak over -10dbs, the problem is I will have the TV Show engineer next to me and we will share the console.
Its a talk show and then theres one band in the end that plays 1 song. Im the engineer of that band so they allow that the bands engineer go there and mix just the band.
The Engineers of the TV Talkshow peak the Vocal dialogues at -10dbs, just 2 microphones, so when the band enters it will peak also at -10, but because its a full mix with a lot of instruments it will sound much lower than the Dialogues.
Do you know what I mean? its easier to make 1 instrument alone louder than a full mix for the same peak level.
So I would like to use a limiter so I can have the same peak level but more RMS volume.
If I was mixing inside the box and could use a plugin it would be easily achieved, Waves L2 or any brickwall limiter would work, although unfortunately I have to mix on their digital console with their system, and the only dynamic processors they have are the ones that come with the desk.
I was thinking in sending the band to a Stereo Group and use a Limiter on that Group.

Thank you all

Maybe there is a way to set up the gain structure so that you can clip the peaks and lower the level post clipping? Clip into the group and lower the group? Assuming it's a digital board.  A straight clip would probably sound better for 2 to 3dB reduction.

If you wanted to bring up the rms, why not do a bit off heavy parallel compression of the mix on a sub group so you can control the overall level.  I have never had to much luck getting built in limiters to function as a brickwall limiter. They eventually will go over. I think you will have more control on that aspect if you divide your band into subgroups, like drum and bass on one, guitars on another and vocals on another. Compress each of those a little, and run those busses to your master and another buss. Parallel compress everything on the last bus and fader to taste. Then on your main bus set up another compressor set to 30ms attack and the fastest release you can possibly get.  Next put the limiter after that with the fastest attack you can get and a really long release (above 200ms up to 600ms). I really only do a little compression on each phase (2 to 4 db total gain reduction, maybe 6db on the drum bus) but in the big picture it will help a board limiter not be so unruly with the peaks. The parallel will bring up your rms and not bring up your overall level much at all. You just have to really smash that signal. Don't listen to the comp by itself on the parallel bus, just listen to everything in relation while you are tweaking that com. That one I run fast attack and fast release and the gain reduction is anywhere from 10 to sometimes 20db.

Gold said:

Maybe there is a way to set up the gain structure so that you can clip the peaks and lower the level post clipping? Clip into the group and lower the group? Assuming it's a digital board.  A straight clip would probably sound better for 2 to 3dB reduction.

Click to expand...

Cipping in broadcast is a no-go. Filtering a clipped signal creates overshoots that would necessitate lowering the level another 3-4 dB. Filtering is dictated by the need for perfectly contained spectral content (15kHz in FM broadcast or TV).

Whoops said:

Tomorrow I will engineer a band in a Live Broadcast TV Show,
they dont allow the level to peak over -10dbs, the problem is I will have the TV Show engineer next to me and we will share the console.
Its a talk show and then theres one band in the end that plays 1 song. Im the engineer of that band so they allow that the bands engineer go there and mix just the band.

Click to expand...

You should have mentioned that earlier, because any FCC-approved broadcast must include a brickwall limiter. It is probably included in the transmitter (or exciter) and not user-accessible.
So I would suggest you use whatever compressor you have handy to make your mix sound good, without having to worry about overs. I hope the technicians there understand that, though...

abbey road d enfer said:

You should have mentioned that earlier, because any FCC-approved broadcast must include a brickwall limiter. It is probably included in the transmitter (or exciter) and not user-accessible.
So I would suggest you use whatever compressor you have handy to make your mix sound good, without having to worry about overs. I hope the technicians there understand that, though...

Click to expand...

Yes  the "brickwall limiter. It is probably included in the transmitter (or exciter) and not user-accessible"  and it's also far away from the studio.

The problem is more complicated than that,  I will try to explain it.

I will do a band in a talkshow. I'm the engineer of the Band, I will only touch the faders on the desk  when my band starts.
I have a Big VU in front of me I should not go over -10 on the VU, whatever the measure is doenst matter it's my imposed limit and I use it as a reference only. If some peaks go over it's fine, but anything beyond that and I will be asked to lower to -10.
During the talk show the voice chats are peaking at -10, mixing made by the TV station local engineer, if one voice alone is peaking at -10 that would be perceived as much louder than a rock band peaking at -10 without limiting.
So if I dont use a brickwall limiter in my band mix when the band enters the show the volume of the band will have no impact because it sounds much lower than the rest of the show.

I solved this problem for good, and in the last TV shows my mixes to broadcast were really good and I dont have the "band volume is lower" problem anymore.  I also have much more invitations by bands to go mix them in Broadcast Tv shows and promotions.

What I do now is I take a stereo sound card with me to use plugin Bus processing,
I can use the soundcard digitally inserted in my band group bus, or doing an analog insert if needed also. I then use one auxiliary track in protools with  Stereo Bus EQ, API2500 compressor and Massey L2007 mastering limiter.
Latency is low with this plugins and not perceived visually at all.
Thats exactly what I needed, Sounds great problem solved.


But is also nice to have the Ruairi advise in case you need it:

Ratio at max
Threshold close to the limit, say -0.5dBFS
Fairly short attack
Fast release