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Is it possible to do 'limiting' in Reason?

Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2008 12:40 pm
by serox
Is it possible to do 'limiting' in Reason?

Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2008 12:44 pm
by james fox
as i understand it, limiting is just compression with a high ratio - so yep, just stick a compressor on there and turn the ratio up

Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2008 1:45 pm
by manray
james fox wrote:as i understand it, limiting is just compression with a high ratio - so yep, just stick a compressor on there and turn the ratio up
Basically yeah you just need to have a very high ratio.

Personally I wouldn't do that but you are limited in Reason to using the compressor.

Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2008 1:47 pm
by miretz
The MClass Maximizer has a simple limiter, i had often used it between the mixer and the Audio Out.

Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2008 2:26 pm
by serox
Reason I ask is I have been looking at a few peoples tunes (Loefah mostly) in Soundforge and they all seem to be hitting what looks like a brick wall limiter.

I have tried with compression but I still get loads of spikes so was going to try limiting and see what happens.

Would I be better off working between the mixer and hardware interface in Reason or working on each bit of audio alone?

Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2008 2:32 pm
by james fox
the limiting will have been done @ mastering stage

so i'd just bounce your tracks as usual then slam them with a limiter in soundforge...

Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2008 2:35 pm
by manray
Serox wrote:Reason I ask is I have been looking at a few peoples tunes (Loefah mostly) in Soundforge and they all seem to be hitting what looks like a brick wall limiter.

I have tried with compression but I still get loads of spikes so was going to try limiting and see what happens.

Would I be better off working between the mixer and hardware interface in Reason or working on each bit of audio alone?
Yeah done at final mastering stage. Don't worry about that too much now. Just make your track sound good.

Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2008 2:45 pm
by darkmatteruk
i have only just started using the limiter within reason. i used to swith off the limiter, and soft clip and 4ms look ahead, and build a tune with no clipping whatsoever, then post in the dubs section. but people would always say, "good tune, but not enough volume"

now i use it, just dont go crazy with the master output of course, and yea if your going to get something mastered, disable this limiter

Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2008 2:55 pm
by darkmatteruk
also, dont just rely on the default mastering suite, experiment with all of the mastering patches, i think theres about 15 of them

Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2008 3:16 pm
by serox
james fox wrote:the limiting will have been done @ mastering stage

so i'd just bounce your tracks as usual then slam them with a limiter in soundforge...
Never tried that but that is something I will look into. Is it worth doing or is it a waste of time?

Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2008 3:18 pm
by serox
darkmatterUK wrote:also, dont just rely on the default mastering suite, experiment with all of the mastering patches, i think theres about 15 of them
Tbh I dont touch it. I thought it was best to leave it alone cos I was not totally sure how to use it.

Do you stick the Mclass Mastering between your mixer the the Interface?

Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2008 3:22 pm
by serox
Am I right in thinking if you did have a brick wall limited you could just wack up the bass and it wont distort/clip? but you could bring more of the freqs up and give it more bang?

Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2008 3:24 pm
by manray
Serox wrote:
james fox wrote:the limiting will have been done @ mastering stage

so i'd just bounce your tracks as usual then slam them with a limiter in soundforge...
Never tried that but that is something I will look into. Is it worth doing or is it a waste of time?
That's what I do. I export my tracks in Cubase so there is enough room for all the sounds to breath and then load it up in my favourite editor and run a limiter over the whole thing to boost the volume. Don't boost it too much otherwise it will just start sounding mushy and loose alot of snap. I usually find a nice point where most of the sound is not hitting the limiter but just enough that the track is much louder.

Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2008 3:25 pm
by darkmatteruk
Serox wrote:
darkmatterUK wrote:also, dont just rely on the default mastering suite, experiment with all of the mastering patches, i think theres about 15 of them
Tbh I dont touch it. I thought it was best to leave it alone cos I was not totally sure how to use it.

Do you stick the Mclass Mastering between your mixer the the Interface?
yea, well its there upon loading anyway

Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2008 3:28 pm
by serox
darkmatterUK wrote:
yea, well its there upon loading anyway
That's how often I look at it :D

Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2008 3:30 pm
by serox
manray wrote:
That's what I do. I export my tracks in Cubase so there is enough room for all the sounds to breath and then load it up in my favourite editor and run a limiter over the whole thing to boost the volume. Don't boost it too much otherwise it will just start sounding mushy and loose alot of snap. I usually find a nice point where most of the sound is not hitting the limiter but just enough that the track is much louder.
I normally would just boost the volumn of the whole track to about 6db. I will see what I can do in Soundforge later with the limiting, cheers.

Posted: Wed Oct 29, 2008 8:59 am
by futures_untold
Serox wrote:Am I right in thinking if you did have a brick wall limited you could just wack up the bass and it wont distort/clip? but you could bring more of the freqs up and give it more bang?
As you turn up the bass, the bass frequencies will begin to muddy the song, regardless of having a limiter on strapped across the output.

Digital limiters stop digital signal clipping, but speaker cones are analogue and vibrate to create the sound we hear. Sounds in the bass register have the longest wavelengths, thus, if a speaker is trying to create long and short wavelengths at the same time, the sound will become muddy/distorted.

Back on topic, yes Reason is capable of limiting. Use a comression ratio of 10:1 or aboveon either of the compressors or the MClass Limiter.

Posted: Wed Oct 29, 2008 9:04 am
by legend4ry
futures_untold wrote:

Digital limiters stop digital signal clipping, but speaker cones are analogue and vibrate to create the sound we hear. Sounds in the bass register have the longest wavelengths, thus, if a speaker is trying to create long and short wavelengths at the same time, the sound will become muddy/distorted.
Good to know!

It makes sense really but sometimes you need to be told things to realise it! :lol:

Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2008 4:34 pm
by doomtube

Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2008 6:58 pm
by futures_untold
Welcome to Dubstepforum :)

Good link!