Master Limiters

[Armistice]

I don't think it's actually auto makeup gain. The threshold control just adds gain and pushes the audio up into the ceiling, where the limiting happens.

That's how it works differently from a normal compressor. On a normal compressor, the threshold is the point where the compression kicks in. On a mastering limiter, the limiting kicks in at the ceiling and the threshold is actually how much gain you are adding to the signal to push it into the ceiling.

Interesting - I wasn't sure what people were saying about auto makeup gain was correct - because if that's there in a plug in, there's normally an option to disable it, and I've not seen that in this particular plug....

[JD01]

I'm still fucking stumped about all this.

[rayc]

Ceiling = How loud you want it to end up.
Threshold = Where you want it to start adjusting from, (just like most compressors).
The ratio appears inbuilt with the JS plugs.
IF you use, for example, three of the same limiter with each pushinging the ceiling a little further toward your ultimate ceiling goal
AND you use a EQ between each to gently adjust any frequency that gets a little aggressive as a result of the limiting then you'll achieve a louder mix with no EQ problems.
WELL, that's my understanding of Greg's method.
I don't use the whole idea because my ears aren't good enough to do the EQing between them but, to get an idea of where a song's going when the mix is fairly sorted, I do use stacked limiters, (as many as necessary), to get louder gently.
You've heard Greg's mixes & mastering so you know it works.
Mileage, understanding, terminology and belief systems may vary as much as your individual results.

[JD01]

I don't think it's actually auto makeup gain. The threshold control just adds gain and pushes the audio up into the ceiling, where the limiting happens.

That's how it works differently from a normal compressor. On a normal compressor, the threshold is the point where the compression kicks in. On a mastering limiter, the limiting kicks in at the ceiling and the threshold is actually how much gain you are adding to the signal to push it into the ceiling.

Great, given my basic settings on Event Horizon, I'm adding 12db? I'm definitely not getting 12db of gain reduction, the mix barely sounds compressed at all. How do you know where the ceiling is set? I could push it up to 15 - 20db but by then its starting to sound horrible (while still getting louder)

[Armistice]

I don't think it's actually auto makeup gain. The threshold control just adds gain and pushes the audio up into the ceiling, where the limiting happens.

That's how it works differently from a normal compressor. On a normal compressor, the threshold is the point where the compression kicks in. On a mastering limiter, the limiting kicks in at the ceiling and the threshold is actually how much gain you are adding to the signal to push it into the ceiling.

Great, given my basic settings on Event Horizon, I'm adding 12db? I'm definitely not getting 12db of gain reduction, the mix barely sounds compressed at all. How do you know where the ceiling is set? I could push it up to 15 - 20db but by then its starting to sound horrible (while still getting louder)

You usually want the ceiling as close to 0dB, allowing room for things to clip and not register, as you can. Mine is set at -0.2. Depending upon what's going on further down the chain, you can still exceed that ceiling, and certainly you might want to not do exactly that with the multiple limiters method Greg uses - it's more a one limiter method.

That's what I do - not sure if it's correct or not.

There's more to it than that though - now that the loudness wars are over, crunching everything to the max is no longer desirable, and if you put an overly hot mix up to a streaming service like Apple Music or Spotify, they will lower the volume on you by algorithm and your song will be quieter than you intended.

Different services have different standards - I had 3 different masters for the HH album - Bandcamp / streaming / CD-Kunaki. They all have different requirements.

Google "LUFS" and head down the rabbit hole. You'll need more than a limiter you're familiar with to get it right for commercial release. So it all depends what you're trying to achieve...

[JD01]

Great, given my basic settings on Event Horizon, I'm adding 12db? I'm definitely not getting 12db of gain reduction, the mix barely sounds compressed at all. How do you know where the ceiling is set? I could push it up to 15 - 20db but by then its starting to sound horrible (while still getting louder)

You usually want the ceiling as close to 0dB, allowing room for things to clip and not register, as you can. Mine is set at -0.2. Depending upon what's going on further down the chain, you can still exceed that ceiling, and certainly you might want to not do exactly that with the multiple limiters method Greg uses - it's more a one limiter method.

That's what I do - not sure if it's correct or not.

There's more to it than that though - now that the loudness wars are over, crunching everything to the max is no longer desirable, and if you put an overly hot mix up to a streaming service like Apple Music or Spotify, they will lower the volume on you by algorithm and your song will be quieter than you intended.

Different services have different standards - I had 3 different masters for the HH album - Bandcamp / streaming / CD-Kunaki. They all have different requirements.

Google "LUFS" and head down the rabbit hole. You'll need more than a limiter you're familiar with to get it right for commercial release. So it all depends what you're trying to achieve...

So, would 0 on a limiter automatically be set to 0 on the LUFS?

[rayc]

... if you put an overly hot mix up to a streaming service like Apple Music or Spotify, they will lower the volume on you by algorithm and your song will be quieter than you intended.
Different services have different standards - I had 3 different masters for the HH album - Bandcamp / streaming / CD-Kunaki. They all have different requirements.
Google "LUFS" and head down the rabbit hole. You'll need more than a limiter you're familiar with to get it right for commercial release. So it all depends what you're trying to achieve...

Yep,
There's a VST called Loudness Penalty that will suss out the degree to which six or so of the more popular streaming platforms will reduce the level of a track uploaded to it. Run the finalized mix/master with the VST on the track and you get an idea of the tweaking needed for a song to play without getting mangled 1st. mastering houses will produce masters for your preferred medium/platform.
That translated to setting the limiter ceiling and mastering for the reproductive medium/platform...which is what mastering is supposed to be for after all.

[BBvideo=560,315]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8spwwsBDDE[/BBvideo]

[vomitHatSteve]

It's open source, you nerds

When initialized, define some constants including pi and the conversion factors between decibels and logarithms(?)

EH1.png

When a slider changes, apply our conversion factors to the new values. Including calculating a makeup gain

EH2.png

On each sample
1. Apply makeup gain
2. Determine how high above the ceiling the louder of the two channels is (using attack if relevant)
3. Apply our release time to the overage if applicable
4. Use our overage value to calculate a gain reduction.
5. Apply gain reduction to both channels
6. If either channel is above the ceiling, clip it.

EH3.png

So really, the big difference between a limiter and a compressor is when the makeup gain is applied. The limiter does gain first and then applies a hard-limit compressor. The compressor compresses and then increases gain after.

[JD01]

So really, the big difference between a limiter and a compressor is when the makeup gain is applied. The limiter does gain first and then applies a hard-limit compressor. The compressor compresses and then increases gain after.

Despite all the unintelligible technobabble, this last sentence makes sense.

[JD01]

So, what is 0 LUFS? Just an arbitrary level?

[vomitHatSteve]

So really, the big difference between a limiter and a compressor is when the makeup gain is applied. The limiter does gain first and then applies a hard-limit compressor. The compressor compresses and then increases gain after.

Despite all the unintelligible technobabble, this last sentence makes sense.

Hah!

[Armistice]

So, what is 0 LUFS? Just an arbitrary level?

I don't remember about LUFS to be honest. I had to deal with it for the HH album and I found a "one month trial" of a plug in that allowed LUFS measurement and I remember trying to work to specific values but I don't think they were 0 - and to some extent they are arbitrary - specified as desirable by the various platforms.

I just did some googling and it appears there's stuff in Reaper that allows you to measure it (of course!) - so perhaps I didn't need that plug in - try "measure LUFS in Reaper" and you'll find stuff. My left eye isn't working so well this morning so I'm not going to dig into it myself just now...

[rayc]

[BBvideo=560,315]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wPnlND92QU[/BBvideo]

My latest track n vid is being reduced by 2.9dB by Youtube...it's being played at 71% of its native level.
KENNY's video is being played at 100% so he, clearly, sorted it before upload.

[JD01]

OK,

I've done a bit more research on this now.
I think the left hand meter in Event Horizon is the level of my mix, in this case peaking at -9.8.
Now I am adding 10db to this by setting the Threshold to -10.
So, as [mention]vomitHatSteve[/mention] said, the make up gain is before the limiter... I think this would mean that if I had my ceiling set to 0. I would be getting 0.2db of brick wall compression. However, with my ceiling set to -0.2db I'm getting 0.4db of gain reduction.

EH While running.JPG

I've also since added a loudness meter to my chain. My mixes seem to be floating around -14LUFS... which apparently is what Spotify is after and that's where commercial mixes generally end up these days. I also appear to have a fair bit of dynamic range in the mix, but I haven't read the manual properly on the loudness meter yet.

loudness meter.JPG

So, what I think I've learned is this.
Your mix has a level. Say -10db.
Your mix could have a dynamic range also have 10 db (keep the maths easy).
If you used the threshold on a simple limiter like EH set to -9.8 with a ceiling of 0.2 you'd just end up making your mix 9.8db louder but it would be relatively uncompressed - i.e. the dynamic range would stay the same.

Now, I could if I wanted to bring my mix up by 14.8db by setting the threshold to 14.8. However, this would cause me to have about 5db of gain reduction, leading to the dynamic range of my mix decreasing to 5db.

Initial experiments I've done seem to bare this out. What you think?
I've been looking at my LUFS meter while adjusting the threshold on my limiter.