Limiters

10s

10s

Veteran
Ok folks here's another one!

Anybody use limiters?

how, & when?

I know about the old trick for splitting the signal and one track set for normal input signal & the other is down a few dB for peak spikes.

In my music project studio recordings I use comp/limiters to squeeze the sound (3 to 1, to 5 to 1 ratio), so i get really fat sounds...with less dynamics of course...but it's the sound I'm sometimes after. This is for musical studio vocal, pop, rock, blues, etc... not jazz of classical. How about production sound?
 
Re: Limiters

In gathering location sound limiters are used as an insurance policy. You try to keep the dialog in the -12 range but if an actor should pop the levels the limiter is there to maybe rescue it from blowing out.

I am not sure of the specs of the DVX's limiter but most ENG limiters have an attack time of about 1 mS. A lot can happen in that time leaving you with ugly distortions.

As such the limiter should be used as a last resort, keep your peaks at least under -8.
 
Re: Limiters

I guess I might have misunderstood the question. :-/

I was speaking of location sound gathering. Limiters and/or compressors in post is something else entirely.
 
Re: Limiters

No, I was asking about location sound gathering...  Would you ever put a bit of compression in the acquisition chain (as you would with music) or would you just keep the level low and then pump it up (if necessary) in post?

Matt

EDIT: In other words I would be more apt to use a compressor instead of a limiter, or at least BEFORE a limiter in the chain.
 
Re: Limiters

Compression will increase all the background noise including the car in the background , etc... during location recording, that might not be what you want, where as, limiting keeps occassional spikes from clipping. With this top end limiting safety feature it would seem that signals could be run fairly hot giving good S/N ratio. This is my understanding.
 
Re: Limiters

[quote author=MattC link=board=audio;num=1105471387;start=0#4 date=01/11/05 at 13:24:17] or would you just keep the level low and then pump it up (if necessary) in post?[/quote]

This is what I do and would reccommend (although I wouldn't say the level was low ;) , just averaging -12db).

You can apply compression to various parts of track to make it seem louder (they seem to do this a lot in late night commericals...you know the ones that wake you up) but you lose some dynamic range.
 
Re: Limiters

[quote author=10s link=board=audio;num=1105471387;start=0#5 date=01/11/05 at 13:42:28]Compression will increase all the background noise including the car in the background , etc... during location recording, that might not be what you want, where as, limiting keeps occassional spikes from clipping. With this top end limiting safety feature it would seem that signals could be run fairly hot giving good S/N ratio. This is my understanding.[/quote]

Yeah that's pretty accurate. Compression being a post thing and limiting general being an acquistion thing (you can apply limiters in post but I haven't used them).

Running your signal hot is a tricky thing. The limiter might save you, but it might not. The "trick" you mentioned at top about spliting the signal to 2 channels and having one hot and the other nominal is a safer bet (a limiter on both to even better insure yourself). Of course that only gives you one source channel of total input.
 
Re: Limiters

I agree with this, but I've used compressors pretty much as limiters. Just a hair of compression set at a threshold to catch any peaks. Instead of clipping it saves the signal. Anyway, my experience has been mostly limited to a studio environment so I don't know what is best on a location. By the time I'm playing, the audio has already been captured. I was just curious.

Matt
 
Re: Limiters

The nice thing about compression is that it sort of evens out the sound levels when they're too dynamic. Comp/limiters like those used in the studio do save tracks...the location/production recording is something I've done too little of to have some sort of expert conclusion for this matter.

Oleg probably has some good thoughts of location production recording...if he'll read this! :)
 
Location sound and compressors are like oil and water. They just dont mix, because you destroy the dynamic range of the production audio, and amp up background noise in quiet passages. Film is all about dynamic range so thats a bad idea.

The alc or agc on most cameras is basically a compressor and any pro sound person will tell you, right away, turn it off.
 
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