Is it wrong to use a limiter during mixing?

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#Mixing #HomeStudioCorner

[moliver_xxii]

Tomorrow Never Knows by the Beatles is famous for its drum sound that uses agressively the limiter, with a sidechain triggered by the bass drum. the recording workflow was different back then (1966) though, they did It Right At The Source ;-)

[JasonBuffin]

If mixing into a limiter is wrong, I don't want to be right. First thing I do when I start the mix after editing, basic panning and static levels is turn on my 2-bus and limiter.

[aleksamrkela]

I only use limiters when mixing on individual elements poking through. Never on the mixbus. It seems pointless, and I've learned how to get a good crest factor while mixing, so I can know reliably that my mix will handle soft clipping and limiting during mastering well. :D

[CasioChaosTheory]

Some excellent points there Joe. I too thought for years that limiting was only for the mastering stage, but I have more recently seen advice suggesting that you can also mix into a Limiter to achieve a different type of mix character. There is a caveat though, that making volume changes to louder parts in the mix may not appear to do much if those parts are already hitting the Limiter, so you have to be very aware of what the Limiter is doing while you mix.

I generally export a mix without a Limiter, then as I have Ozone 9, I bring in the exported mix and run it through Ozone using their presets so I can get a good test mix with decent loudness and limiting. When I decide that the mix is finished, then I'll do a more hands on approach to it in Ozone and use a mixture of master assistant and also my owm tweaks.

Depending on the particular song, , sound, genre and mixing engineer, mixing into a Limiter is not always the no go that it used to be, though personally I don't think I'm experienced enough yet to start mixing into a limiter.

Anyway, thanks again for the great video - I always learn something useful from watching them 👍

[StratsRUs]

This is fantastic advice and answered my own fuzzy questions about this.
Thank you very much !

[cefahprod]

I got a counter thought for you. I recently experiment it and then search for different mastering engineer opinion. As always, it depends on so many factors but a lot of them including Gavin Lurssen & Reuben Cohen, Jonathan Wyner and Pete Lyman said if you mix into a limiter, please do not remove it before sending to mastering. And it is pretty logic what they said. If you remove it, your mix will be different because as you said, limiter affects more than just dynamic. It affects tones and balance. So if you mix with a limiter and it is good. Then send your mix to master like that and that's it. Personally, I mix with a limiter more as a safety setting and just control my gains staging to be good at any moment. So my limiter is not that useful or even not even triggering anything at all.

[DeltaWhiskeyBravo]

Great tutorial by Master Joe Gilder. I like the visualization within plugins, to confirm what I hear, and to help associate the “if I’m hearing this X, that Y is what I’m going to see. For me, in mixing and mastering, the ears run the show.

I completely agree with teaching means concepts such as how and why.

[darryldouglas]

I apply the stock limiter on the Digital Return (Mains) because curiously many VST instruments cause clipping when loaded.😃

[GapRecordingsNamibia]

I just want to say as a person who had quite a bit of early analogue experience, what most people do not know about is the limiting or compressing affect that analoge tape had all and of its So, should you use limiters? Depends on HOW you use Audio Analoge tapes had it just by the nature of their Not only The natural noise floor that tapes had was what made sure that we mixed pretty hot to it.

[DerekPower]

I have been doing what you have been doing for pretty much exactly for those reasons.

I use sonible's pure:limit in the post-fader position in the Stereo Out (master fader) because it is a very simple tool. But when I am finally done and do my mastering or master preparation, the limiter is turned off.

[SixNine]

Every DAW has got a brickwall limiter or clipper build in. Just pull the master fader up and let it clip. You will hear distortion. Its like ESP in the car. You cannot switch it off. Its for safety function. You can in some cases clip the master. And get louder. Going over zero. But you got to lern to hear distortion and consider if that's what you want to sound rhe mix.

[bjmora]

A nice intro to Pro-L2 for those of us yet to enter Fabfilter-world 🙂 I "was taught" for professional submissions, I should submit three versions of my mix to a mastering engineer: my original (which would ordinarily have a limiter on the mix bus), a version with the limiter off, and a version with mix bus processing (mostly) off. For mix contest purposes, I'd just use the "limited" version.

[LovecraftStudio]

Joe you are a gentleman and a scholar! I AM a surgeon (but I fix hernias, I wasn't smart enough for brain surgery 😆) and I constantly harp at my residents that memorization is not MASTERY! What will you do when something happens that wasn't "part of the plan"? What happens when the "recipe" doesn't account for what you are staring at right now!? Everything worth learning is like this! There's no recipe. The problem is a puzzle, and your brain is a tool box. Examine the puzzle, consult your tool box, and engage some problems solving skills! This is tough to do when you realize you don't really understand the tools in your tool box.... Warms my heart to hear someone else emphasize this point about learning and understanding. We appreciate your down to earth approach and no nonsense mentality about how fancy gear will never be a substitute for a fundamental understanding and a good set of ears. GIRATS!

[SuperAgentAB]

For me, it's fine to use limiter (if set it correctly). You may try use different styles of limiting in Pro-L plugin.

[Endless_Skyway_Adventures]

Limiting in mixing, heck yeah.
1. Frequency split 80hz-120hz on drum bus with Presonus limiter on low side . “A”setting slow attack, 20ms release . Sometimes “B”. 1/2-2db gain reduction. The Presonus limiter set this way gives me the hard punch vs the pillow punch other limiters do.
2. Lead vocal 1/2-2 db gain reduction, med attack 30ms release.
3. Clean guitars
4. Acoustic Guitars
5. Kick
6.Snare
7. Vocal bus parallel limiting, hit it hard mix in low, shhhh don’t tell anyone.
Yes I am a fanboy of the Presonus limiter, and my methods on compression and limiting are to have multiple layers.
Stacking two LA-2A’s or 1176’s sometimes with no gain reduction gives you harmonics on harmonics and don’t tell anyone about that either.
Full disclosure, I didn’t invent multi stage compression or limiting, but it took me a while to put all the pieces together.

[akiraish]

It can crush the hell out of a mix destroys your transients

[obidavekenobe]

Tip: … and use a limiter on the master buss during live streams too, whether its your church or your youtube podcast👍

[michaeltablet]

God bless you Joe! You are so helpful!

[gylp]

If YOU make experimental electronic Music with feedback loops limiter shuld always be used

[nashseen]

proL2 and Newfangled Elevate are crazy good.