How To Use Limiter - Beginners Tutorial

Limiters are very commonly misused by beginners, I know this from first hand experience…

In this video, I am going to guide you though the process of using a limiter, so that you can use them properly in order to increase the volume of your tracks once you’ve finished mixing and mastering them.

CHRIS PAVEY MASTERING X THE AUDIO JOURNEY OFFER

Chris Pavey Mastering is a company that is owned and run mastering engineer Chris Pavey, with his expertise in audio mastering spreading across many different genres. His masters have gone on to be played on BBC Radio, and his list of clients is very impressive.

———————————

EQUIPMENT LIST

BEST CHEAP AUDIO INTERFACE/SOUNDCARD -

MY AUDIO INTERFACE/SOUNDCARD -

BEST CHEAP STUDIO MONITORS -

BEST HOME RECORDING MIC -

CHEAP UNLIMITED SAMPLES -

MY CAMERA -

LAUNCHPADS
Launchpad Mini

Launchpad MKII

Launchpad Pro

*These are affiliate links, meaning I make a small commission if you buy using them. It makes no difference in the price, it’s just a normal Amazon sale, and I really appreciate the support for the channel that you provide by using these links to buy.

———————————

[theeouapolal]

You make a good presentation, simple and straight-forward. I was hoping you would talk a little about the horrible mistakes that you said you've made, just so that we can avoid the same pitfalls.

[talitha]

Dude you're the real MVP! Thankyou so much for such a simple explanation, most folks keep blabbing on and on-but you made it so easy to understand.

[egaananthjeevan]

Thanks for proper explanation with level meter

[DarrenNoFun]

I'm trying to use it in the context of ripping Records from vinyl to my computer, and I want to preserve the mix of the recording, and use limiters to lower the volume of the pops. I don't want to raise the lower volumes, or mess with the mxing of the rest, i just want to cut off those pops. Whenever i try to use a limiter it messes with the dynamics, and every video talks about raising the volume of everything else. A lot of these videos don't seem to want to focus on the "limiting" aspect of it, but a combination of limiting and changing dynamics

[TheSomsom]

I have been scratching my head over the loudness issue for years and never understood how to solve that prblem without ruining my songs completely. So, up to now, I've always mixed my songs down, so they never clipped. Until I saw your video and sudenly it all made sense. The Limiter works as a compressor in the sense that it sets a barrier at 0.0dB and allows you to increase the dynamic of the sound until it reaches that limit. Thanks a lot for a clear straightforward explanation.

[emojiwastaken]

Hi! Nice tutorial, thanks for that!
I have heard people use the term ceiling, and I know what it is in theory. But can you explain what it does? A reply is also sufficient :)

[VladimirShagin]

Straight to the point, no extra words... thank you!

[thomastreppenhauerphotosho]

yeah, it's sort of an easy topic... but before I'm going to use limiters, I wanted to make sure that I understood everything well. So this video helped. Now I'm going to use them and avoid clipping.

[pasanKonline]

hello jhone. i need to know about summing mixing... plz help me.

[ozgurakpinar_gr]

I wasn't expecting the peak to to change. Does it also need to be close to 0db?

[scottdionbrown]

Thanks for this. Very straightforward and helpful.

[jasongurr]

Very good well thought out tutorial. However I work as a documentary maker and forever sending music back as they always have music peaking at 0. I now request music at -12db because it far easier to turn up than down and as I have to output around -6db

[wfilms]

Very nice! What are the common mistakes you can make tho?

[pirre]

Thanks for this video! You explained it very good!

[sarstar]

Your videos are really helping me understand basic stuff pretty easily. Thanks a ton!

[jonmatthews]

using a limiter can cause the problem of quiet sections, particularly intros and fade-ins getting boosted too much, also thay can cause noise and hiss, any tips on how to avoid this?

[nounix]

Hi! I have 2 questions (that you'll prob think are dumb lol - but please reply if you can) ;)
1. What's the difference with selecting a clip in logic and increasing the gain via the inspector's gain control, and applying a stereo limiter to the selection/s (right-clicking on the selection/s and opening the selection-based processing window and applying a stereo limiter)? I mean in both cases the track/c sound louder, so why not just up the gain directly via the inspector, and "bam" you have a louder track that you can export..
2. Does the master volume slider on the top right of logic (which is the same master slider in the mixer) affect the exported audio file's loudness and quality, or is its level "ignored" during a track's exporting (and therefore is only there so we can hear what we're doing louder or less loud while working on a project, but it does not affect the exported track at all)?

[hersheybell]

Hi. Great video. I'm pretty fluent in Logic and mastering but this was an additional "boost" to my abilities (pun intended!). However, when I open the built in level meter on Logic and then apply gain to the Limiter, while it certainly SOUNDS louder and fuller, the RMS does not change at all. For example, I'm using a simple track this is only guitar and before applying the limiter, the RMS is showing at approx. - 17. When I applied gain to the built in limiter of 4.5 dB, it sounds louder, but the limiter still shows the RMS at approx. -17. Thoughts? Thanks.

[ashiqabedin]

How far of tweaking the threshold parameter of limitter is safe.?

[alxdrksoul]

What??? you could have explained what happens when those red marks appear above, maybe I want them or maybe I don't, what does it mean when they appear, I mean I still have questions, I can open up the limiter and turn that thing up, but I wanna know how far can I take it, I've seen other limiters that lets you set a ceiling level, where is that... I am a beginner but... not that naive :/