Limiter vs Compressor -- Which one?? Or Both??

[Dj Izm]

I've been recording my mixes through Bias Peak and then doing some simple post-processing (e.g. eq'ing). I'd like to throw a limiter and/or a compressor over the whole thing but I'm not sure if they'll cancel each other out or not. That is, should I use one or the other?

[img]graemlins/snoopy.gif[/img] dance izm dance [img]graemlins/snoopy.gif[/img]

[Brian]

what is your reason for wanting to use compression and limiting?

[Fatima]

ahem... I don't have a clue about DJing but I do have some experience in sound design for motion picture, and this is what I've learnt, and correct me if I am wrong:

A Limiter filter limits anything that peaks over a certian db, it does not changed anything below that db.

A compressor filter will compress the entire input if it is over a certain db.

[JorgeG]

Originally posted by Fatima:
ahem... I don't have a clue about DJing but I do have some experience in sound design for motion picture, and this is what I've learnt, and correct me if I am wrong:

A Limiter filter limits anything that peaks over a certian db, it does not changed anything below that db.

A compressor filter will compress the entire input if it is over a certain db.

Hello Fatima - I would agree that you are correct in it's simplist or absolute form ...had to [img]biggrinangel.gif[/img]

[Dj Izm]

Originally posted by Brian:
what is your reason for wanting to use compression and limiting?

In some of the blends, the incoming song may be too low. Or, I may have recorded it too low and I need to do some amplification. However, I also want a richer sound. Sometimes, for whatever reason, the mix sounds a little (only a little) hollow to me. I'm sure I could EQ it, but I'm looking for something a little easier to work with.

Question answered?

...izm...

[O'love]

Originally posted by Dj k.Lex -- a.k.a. Dj Izm:

quote:

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Originally posted by Brian:
what is your reason for wanting to use compression and limiting?

In some of the blends, the incoming song may be too low. Or, I may have recorded it too low and I need to do some amplification. However, I also want a richer sound. Sometimes, for whatever reason, the mix sounds a little (only a little) hollow to me. I'm sure I could EQ it, but I'm looking for something a little easier to work with.

Question answered?

...izm... [/QUOTE]you cannot get a "richer" sound with dynamic-tools like limiters and compressors....

a compressor is basically an automated volume fader/rotary control..... the treshold defines when the volume is moved, the ratio defines to what extend the volume is changed.... that's basically a compressor....

so you probably want to put some gentle compression on your mix, with a low ratio and a treshhold a few dB's below your peaks...after the compression you can normalise to -0,2dB or limit the mix a few dB's to -0,2dB output..

anyway, if you mix is already recorded to one track it's near impossible to bring out a low recorded incoming song, as its already blended with the louder playing song, together they define the total volume which will trigger the dynamics..

Olaf

[Dj Izm]

I'm still a little unclear, but I'll have to try what you said. I'm not in front of Peak right now. I'm not sure about all this ratio stuff.

Thanks for the advice though!!! You always seem to be ON IT!!! U need your own page/thread

.izm.

[Mark Andrus]

Originally posted by Dj k.Lex -- a.k.a. Dj Izm:

quote:

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Originally posted by Brian:
what is your reason for wanting to use compression and limiting?

In some of the blends, the incoming song may be too low. Or, I may have recorded it too low and I need to do some amplification. However, I also want a richer sound. Sometimes, for whatever reason, the mix sounds a little (only a little) hollow to me. I'm sure I could EQ it, but I'm looking for something a little easier to work with.

[/QUOTE]Multiband compression can help with this sort of thing...both for evening out the levels and smoothing the EQ differences between songs.

If you use fairly slow attack/release times, with moderate amounts of gain reduction, you can get a pleasent "automatic-equalization" effect without causing aubible "compression"-type artifacts (assuming you're using a good multiband compressor, of course).

The best multiband compressor plugins I've used are the ones from Waves (C4 and Linear Multiband...I prefer the latter) and McDSP.