Limiters generally tend to have fast attacks - try to set your attack time to be as short as possible, without loosing impact. The attack and release parameters determine how quickly limiting is applied to the input signal and how quickly it returns to an uncompressed state. Before you start tweaking any settings, I recommend that you set the output gain limit to somewhere between -0.2 dBFS and -0.02 dBFS. In practice, you want this level to be below 0 dBFS to prevent any digital clipping. The output ceiling is the limit that your audio signal doesn’t cross. You might need about 4 – 7 dB of gain reduction to achieve this. To start off, slowly increase the input gain of your limiter until you reach your target level. The more gain, the more gain reduction, and the louder your master will be. The input gain is the amount of gain that you’re feeding into your limiter.
For the purposes of this post, I’ll be using one of my favorite mastering-grade limiters, PSP’s Xenon. Setting up the limiterĮvery limiter has almost identical controls such as input gain, an output ceiling, attack, release, and gain reduction, and it’s worth going through how we can apply these in a practical fashion. If you go beyond 0 VU and into the red, you’re pushing the loudness of your master and making it less dynamic. When you’re limiting and getting your mix to a target level, note that if your VU meter is hitting around 0 VU, you’re more-or-less hitting the desired loudness. Here’s a quick refresher of the different target levels needed for the different genres: This is an essential step to help guide you towards reaching the loudness you’d like to achieve. In part two of our mastering series, we talked about the importance of setting target levels by using VU meters.
Here are a couple of tips to get you started with limiting. It’s here where you get your mixes up to commercial loudness to compete with the other masters out there. Limiting is the last step in your mastering signal flow. If you’ve missed an entry, click on any topic below to catch up:
This post is the fifth article in our introductory guide to mastering. Limiting is the step in mastering where you get your mixes up to commercial loudness to compete with the other masters out there.