[1]

At least, I think a limiter is what I need. I'm having issues with my snare, and it's clipping my drum bus. Most of the time, it's fine:

But on heavier bits, it ends up doing this:

I like where it sits in the mix, so I don't want to turn it down - I just want to cut it at about -3db. I have a limiter on there, but it squashes the sound and (to my ear anyway) seems like it's just turning it down.

What's the right way to go about this?

 

[Kim]

Turn the entire mix down so it doesn't clip anymore.

 

[osiris]

Don't have an answer for you, but I like your threads. They always ask stuff I want to know

 

[1]

Turn the entire mix down so it doesn't clip anymore.

I do that at the end, this is just one particular track. :lol: Basically, I have a peaking track (That could be any track, in this case is happens to be my snare), and I just want to cut it at -3db.

 

[Kim]

What I meant was turn down that track until it doesn't clip anymore and the other tracks relatively, I never use limiters on single tracks, always considered it a mastering tool.

 

[1]

What I meant was turn down that track until it doesn't clip anymore and the other tracks relatively, I never use limiters on single tracks, always considered it a mastering tool.

I know what you meant. The thing is, I don't want to turn down 10 other tracks. I just want to know how to clip this one at 3db. GTFO of my thread, it's not titled "how do I use a volume slider". :lol:

:wub:

 

[Christopher Bechtel]

If it's just level you need to cut, turn down the whole drum group as a whole until it doesn't peak. If it's just certain hits, a compressor is more what you're looking for.

 

[Kim]

Limiter/compressor=automatic volume slider, there's just a little gremlin inside adjusting the "volume" according to your settings.
If it colors your sound in any, try a different one.

 

[Shikaru]

Using the limiter will stop the snare track clipping, but on the drum bus you've got the whole kit going as well so it'll still clip the bus (as you've found out). Simplest option would be to select all the tracks inside the folder/bus and pull one of the faders down (which with them all selected pulls them all down by the same amount), this'll keep the balance between all the volumes of the drum tracks the same. Then just push up the drum bus fader to compensate for the decrease in volume (and it shouldn't clip). So it will end up sounding the same as before, just with no clipping hopefully.

If it's still clipping (or as I may have missed, you don't want to do the former :lol at this point then you could look into other things like a clipping plugin. They clip the signal at a certain level intentionally, but when used on things like snare/kick/toms tracks they effectively cut the level of the signal without changing the perceived volume in the mix (and because the transients are so quick with drum hits, unless you clip it reeeeeeeeeeally hard it won't be audible).

You can sort of achieve that same effect with a limiter, but I find it tends to change the character of the snare (it messes with the transients). GVST - GClip is my goto plugin for this. You'll also find that if you clip the drum hits, they consequently won't be hitting your mastering chain quite as hard compared to other elements in the mix so you can push the volume more comfortably (if that's what you're into).

Sorry for the wall of text! I'm pretty terrible at explaining myself, but I hope this helps! :yesway:

 

[keshav]

The biggest problem with most peak limiters is that instead of cleanly taming your transients (which something like GClip does), they punch a hole in your mix and push everything down - not just the transient but all the crucial mix elements under it as well. Stillwell's Event Horizon limiter plugin is the cleanest one i've used so far but it's still not perfect. Better than a lot of the more popular plugins out there though IMO.

 

[1]

The biggest problem with most peak limiters is that instead of cleanly taming your transients (which something like GClip does), they punch a hole in your mix and push everything down - not just the transient but all the crucial mix elements under it as well. Stillwell's Event Horizon limiter plugin is the cleanest one i've used so far but it's still not perfect. Better than a lot of the more popular plugins out there though IMO.

Good point. If you look at my track setup, I have a separate bus for transients that's not limited. I do have Event Horizon, so I'll give that a shot. I'm basically looking for a way to trim just the high part of the snare hit, because I like where it's sitting in the mix right now.

I could probably just EQ it out, but the thing is with velocity and such, it's not every snare hit that does it - most of the time it's around -3/-6 when I actually go to mix down.

 

[Shikaru]

GClip it, Chris :agreed: Put it on the track, turn down the clipping control (you can see on the display where the transients are) until it's getting all the hits that are clipping the bus and you should be good!

 

[Thomas]

I'm basically looking for a way to trim just the high part of the snare hit, because I like where it's sitting in the mix right now.

I've tried this, and have found it to be a bad idea. It will take the punch from the snare, making it sound soft and unnatural. Instead, I'd suggest using a compressor with a very fast attack and a medium-slow release (about 300ms) to shave a couple of dB off your drum bus or your snare bus. The slow release will make it retain the punch.

 

[Reverend 7 Strings of Hate]

make a 2nd track for the snare and put the maxing out hits only on it. then you can control the bulk of the hits with one set of settings, and the 2nd clipping snare with modified settings like eq?

 

[Professor Squidbeard]

or you could just admit you made a mistake when mixing and lower everything slightly. shit happens, learn from it. these bandaid solutions you're trying to make happen aren't fixing the initial problem of the snare track being buried by everything else. live and learn dude.

 

[1]

or you could just admit you made a mistake when mixing and lower everything slightly. shit happens, learn from it. these bandaid solutions you're trying to make happen aren't fixing the initial problem of the snare track being buried by everything else. live and learn dude.

Or, you could just miss my point. Oh, you did. :lol:

In this particular instance, yes, the solution is to just lower mixes. But again, what I really want to know is the right way to use a limiting filter. So pretend there is no reference to snares in this thread, and let's just say I have a track that I want to chop the top 2DB off of. Pretend that's my question. Stupid bearded Canadian ass. :squint:

 

[Kim]

:lol:

 

[Professor Squidbeard]

Or, you could just miss my point. Oh, you did. :lol:

In this particular instance, yes, the solution is to just lower mixes. But again, what I really want to know is the right way to use a limiting filter. So pretend there is no reference to snares in this thread, and let's just say I have a track that I want to chop the top 2DB off of. Pretend that's my question. Stupid bearded Canadian ass. :squint:

i assume you have the waves stuff. the limiter i use the most is the L3 ultramax.

set the threshold conservatively. just barely hitting those peaks you're worried about, the right side will have a GR meter, you should be able to set it to whatever max peak you want. You can also use a regular comp set to a high ratio like 20:1 which is effectively a limiter and may have more options for attack and release etc.

good enough? cocknobbler. :wub:

 

[keshav]

Chris, if you have the Stillwell plugins (they're free trial) try using the Transient Monster to fix that snare issue? Like slightly lowering the attack knob? It would keep the rest of your mix intact as well...

 

[Mike]

Chris, if you have the Stillwell plugins (they're free trial) try using the Transient Monster to fix that snare issue? Like slightly lowering the attack knob? It would keep the rest of your mix intact as well...

The TM does, in fact, kick ass for such things. You could also watch for where the clips happen, and automate the snare for just those hits. I've done this before with good results.