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Not to sound too bitchy, but PLEASE throw limiters over your master tracks. It takes about 2 seconds. I can't tell you how many times I've woken up my roommates/destroyed my ears from tracks being twice as loud as they should be. Being way too loud is a sure fire way to get your tracks ignored. End of rant.

Shouldnt need a limiter if all the instruments on a track are set at the right volume so they dont clip. Putting a limiter on a master track can do really nasty things

Good point, but if you're not ready to do a mix down or if you are new to mixing or if you suck at mixing, a limiter will help our ears not bleed, although be warned it may affect the quality of your track if you are indeed clipping.

pretty sure if you bounce a track without a limiter and it is really loud, then all the sounds get cut off at 0db anyway, nothing can go over 0db, which is what a limiter is doing anyway

Not good advice, sorry

A limiter (in combination with compression and EQ) on your master channel is a good idea when you want a very rough master of your track to use as a demo

When you're working on the track however, you shouldn't be going anywhere near 0dB - mix with the faders low and leave plenty of headroom!

1point5 wrote:Not good advice, sorry

A limiter (in combination with compression and EQ) on your master channel is a good idea when you want a very rough master of your track to use as a demo

When you're working on the track however, you shouldn't be going anywhere near 0dB - mix with the faders low and leave plenty of headroom!

100% agree

Please never mix with a limiter on the master. It'll make an ass out of you and me.

lol wut.

limiters make it sound louder, not quieter.

unless you your limiter like a compressor on just one channel. it will make that channel quieter in overall dB level, but not in apparent volume.

I put a limiter on the master without boosting anything just in case I fuck something up with a big reverb and a tape delay, for example.

It's never activated when I'm mixing down cuz I mix in low volumes. Just protection for my ears and speakers.

Genevieve wrote:I put a limiter on the master without boosting anything just in case I fuck something up with a big reverb and a tape delay, for example.

This. I've had friends blow speakers before having ping pong delays go apeshit on them.

why use the master in ableton when you can just lower the volume in windows and not fuck your mix up at all?

and yeah, always good to have protection from feed back loops. but that's really not doing one god damn thing to the mix other than that.

i mean, if it's peaking over 0dB in the master - you should probably fix what's causing that, and not just throw a limiter on the master.

bassinine wrote:why use the master in ableton when you can just lower the volume in windows and not fuck your mix up at all?

and yeah, always good to have protection from feed back loops. but that's really not doing one god damn thing to the mix other than that.

i mean, if it's peaking over 0dB in the master - you should probably fix what's causing that, and not just throw a limiter on the master.

Not advocating keeping the limiter on the master during actual mixing, but by the time the track reaches the stages where a proper look at mixing is taking place I'd hope that I'd have noticed and resolved any delay issues.

gotcha, that's what i figured - considering you're a bad ass.

but yeah, feed back loops have scared the shit out of me before - no blown speakers though, that would... blow.

Does the limiter actually do anything when your mix never reaches the treshhold?

Genevieve wrote:Does the limiter actually do anything when your mix never reaches the treshhold?

no, well it shouldn't. if i'm not mistaken, some limiters will color the sound a bit though.

You might want to edit your post Alan as it sounds like you want people to add a limiter.

I second that mixing without the encumbrance of a limiter is the best way to actually learn how to mix.

When all your sounds are squared off through 7dB GR from limiter X you cannot express detail easily and nuance. Now I know dubstep
is not folk music and has no sonic relation ship to it but you owe it to yourself to try without a limiter and see where you end up.
Any level increasing plans can be performed on the 24 bit stereo bounce out. If your tune gets picked up by a label then you have a 24 bit version
ready for pro mastering at the ready.

You know when you finish your track and get that "well it sounds ok but... "I think it's worth considering great mixes take a great many hours and are honed and tweaked and tweaked again. Mixing is balancing and automating faders and effects, not making every stick to -5dBFS and then balancing them together.

Give it a bash on your next tune and see you might like it.

Oh dear god...

This kinda feels like you all just got trolled..

Sure. If you are new to the game and everything is too loud but you want to show people your new tune. A limiter on the master track is quick fix, but a quick fix can easily turn into a bad habit. The best tip when making a track is to turn the volume up all the way on your headphones and your master track, then adjust the volume of the instruments so they are loud, but not making your ears bleed. Now, if you have left your headphone and master faders on full, the instruments should be nowhere close to clipping.

If you like to make loud punchy tunes, dont turn the instruments up, use compressors, multi band compressors and envelopers, creatively, and keep them master faders up high.

Doesn't Alan X want to say that you should put a limiter on your master for safety reasons, in order to avoid loud spikes and destroying your speakers? Not for making tracks loud. At least that's what I gather from his post.