Limiter for mastering?

[ncoak]

Hey folks, been debating my next project and have decided on building a stereo limiter as the last piece of my mastering chain. Have done some digging around these parts and looks like the SA-3A fits the bill. Was wondering if anyone has experience working with it in this capacity, or could point me towards other projects available that would do the trick?

Thanks much for your input.

 

[pucho812]

Well doug sax over at the mastering lab has been using la2a's for years in his mastering chain and it sounds great.

 

[JohnRoberts]

I don't know how good you want this to be, but if you are using a digital storage medium with the capability to generate an extra output to feed the side chain that is literally a fraction of a second ahead of the primary audio path you could slow down the attack time of the limiting and still get good results without overloading from fast transients. Of course the lead should not be so much that you can hear evidence of it operating ahead of the audio dynamics.

JR

 

[ncoak]

ah, i see - so the idea is that it's near impossible for an analog limiter to provide the lookahead - instant attack 'brickwall' effect of it's digital counterparts without sidechain assistance. hadn't considered that! perhaps i'll modify my plans

 

[JohnRoberts]

Yup.. all gain modulations are distortion, but keeping those control voltage rates of change low and slow, makes for cleaner audio.

There are even fancier tricks for non-real time processing... for example if you played back the file backwards, you would see the decaying tails first, so even a real time dynamic processor could keep up more easily... Sudden transients when played backwards are just sudden silences. Of course that takes manipulations possible with analog tape but difficult, easier in digital.

Likewise clocking out a digital file at 1/2 or 1/4 speed would slow down attacks...

Think outside the box... once you are free of hard real-time constraint you can do all kinds of things.

In live sound reinforcement they even short delays in real time to improve noise gate performance (RANE).

JR

 

[gemini86]

So that's why the drummer always looks like he's playing ahead of everyone, no matter how close to the stage I am. Interesting...

 

[JohnRoberts]

;D

I forget how much delay is build into the RANE box but its in the low mSec range so not likely to be perceived by us mere mortals. Similar to placing the mic a foot away or something like that.

JR

 

[gemini86]

I have super-human timing...

...and am also immortal.

 

[ncoak]

Yup.. all gain modulations are distortion, but keeping those control voltage rates of change low and slow, makes for cleaner audio.

There are even fancier tricks for non-real time processing... for example if you played back the file backwards, you would see the decaying tails first, so even a real time dynamic processor could keep up more easily... Sudden transients when played backwards are just sudden silences. Of course that takes manipulations possible with analog tape but difficult, easier in digital.

Likewise clocking out a digital file at 1/2 or 1/4 speed would slow down attacks...

Think outside the box... once you are free of hard real-time constraint you can do all kinds of things.

In live sound reinforcement they even short delays in real time to improve noise gate performance (RANE).

JR

heh, yeah i'll likely skip mastering backwards or half speed  ;D

or perhaps create a new niche market - i'll call it gniretsam

but thanks for the input! that does help to clear things up a bit for me.

 

[JohnRoberts]

I have super-human timing...

...and am also immortal.

I recall tracking a bass player back in the '80s with a smpte to midi sync'ed up drum machine and he was always complaining about the drums being out of time.  8)  Funny thing is he was probably right because the guy who coded the smpte to midi box was a little flaky... actually a lot flaky, but he's dead now so I'll let him rest in peace. He wasn't immortal.

JR

 

[detonator]

I have super-human timing...

...and am also immortal.

LOL. So the number of posts you've made is your actually age?

 

[tv]

tracking a bass player back in the '80s with a smpte to midi sync'ed up drum machine and he was always complaining about the drums being out of time.

I recorded a certan amount of basslines in 90's, also similar setup: sampler, midi synced to a tape-multitrack, atari - and imho the "outoftime" complaint has some ground: these devices were constantly "chasing" each other and the tempo was always slightly "fluid".

The only time the rhythm was "solid" was for "quick jobs", if I played bass directly on top of a synth workstation directly into a recorder (jingles, demos).

 

[meverylame]

Well doug sax over at the mastering lab has been using la2a's for years in his mastering chain and it sounds great.

This is not 100% accurate. Doug uses the opto element out of an La2a in an otherwise custom limiter. FYI.

 

[pucho812]

Well doug sax over at the mastering lab has been using la2a's for years in his mastering chain and it sounds great.

This is not 100% accurate. Doug uses the opto element out of an La2a in an otherwise custom limiter. FYI.

well they do pull the transformers out as they run the units unbalanced.

 

[ruairioflaherty]

well they do pull the transformers out as they run the units unbalanced.

From what I've been told the changes run deeper than that.  I think the "transformerless LA-2A" has been an ongoing  miss-characterization...