AdamGrossmanLG
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Using A Limiter To Protect Your Monitors?
Hello Everyone,
Today I was playing with a softsynth that got stuck in a feedback loop. I had to immediately shut off my monitors as I felt they were going to blow!
I was thinking, should I place a limiter on my master bus (just temporarily while I am tracking, removing before the mix process), just to protect my monitors?
If so, what limiter would you suggest with what settings? I would not want the limiter to change or alter my audio AT ALL. It's goal would JUST be to protect my speakers.
What do you guys think and do you do this in your own projects?
Thank You,
Adam
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Jeff Evans
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Re: Using A Limiter To Protect Your Monitors?
2015/04/02 03:32:48
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The only problem with this is that yiur entire mix is always passing through a limiter before it gets to your active monitors. Even if you set the limiter with a high threshold so most of time it does nothing, the problem is the sound of your mix is always having the sound of the limiter imposed over it. You would need to invest in a quality limiter that was transparent in sound. Not cheap.
Personally I would not do it.
(live PA for sure!)
Most active monitors have protection built in which will save them. You are better off acting quickly when something like this happens. Just turn your monitor level down to zero or kill the noise etc.. or don't let it happen in the first place.
Specs i5-2500K 3.5 Ghz - 8 Gb RAM - Win 7 64 bit - ATI Radeon HD6900 Series - RME PCI HDSP9632 - Steinberg Midex 8 Midi interface - Faderport 8- Studio One V4 - iMac 2.5Ghz Core i5 - Sierra 10.12.6 - Focusrite Clarett thunderbolt interface Poor minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas -Eleanor Roosevelt
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AdamGrossmanLG
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Re: Using A Limiter To Protect Your Monitors?
2015/04/02 08:31:42
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Hi Jeff,
Thank you for the response. Yes, that is what I was afraid of, but not sure how that would be. For instance, if I use Boost11, set the ceiling to -0.5db, but set the boost to "0", I was under the impression, at this point (as long as you are not near the -0.5db mark, the limiter is doing nothing and NOT effecting the sound at all.
I thought a limiter does NOT color the sound, but only limits when you reach the ceiling set in the limiter. Am i wrong on this?
Thank You,
Adam
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bitflipper
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Re: Using A Limiter To Protect Your Monitors?
2015/04/02 10:02:19
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You are correct. The limiter shouldn't color the sound as long as levels are well-below the threshold. However, depending on the limiter and its settings gain reduction can begin before the threshold is reached. I don't know about Boost11 specifically, as I don't use it. But as a general rule, if your mixes are peaking under -6dB and the limiter's threshold is set to 0dB there shouldn't be any coloration.
Do I do it myself? No. But then I'm usually dealing with samplers and live tracks, not synths so much, and usually at low volume. Plus my monitors have internal limiting for speaker protection (which I've accidentally tested).
 All else is in doubt, so this is the truth I cling to. My Stuff
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Paul P
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Re: Using A Limiter To Protect Your Monitors?
2015/04/02 10:32:46
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Nano Patch+ Compact 2 Channel Passive Volume Controller If I were SM Pro Audio, I'd have designed this with the mute integrated into the volume pot so you'd just have to slap the big knob to kill signal to the monitors, instead of pecking at the mute button. I'd also have painted the knob red. (I'm going to make my own, one of these days...)
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batsbrew
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Re: Using A Limiter To Protect Your Monitors?
2015/04/02 10:53:51
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you really want a hardware limiter protecting your monitors,
if you are going to go there.
better to have plenty of headroom,
and keep levels down at proper levels.
what do the pros do with their extremely expensive monitors?
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Jeff Evans
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Re: Using A Limiter To Protect Your Monitors?
2015/04/02 18:23:55
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Yes I was referring to hardware limiter between your mixer and your monitors.
Putting a limiter on your stereo buss is only a part fix.
And please don't use Boost 11. It is the worst limiter on the planet!
Specs i5-2500K 3.5 Ghz - 8 Gb RAM - Win 7 64 bit - ATI Radeon HD6900 Series - RME PCI HDSP9632 - Steinberg Midex 8 Midi interface - Faderport 8- Studio One V4 - iMac 2.5Ghz Core i5 - Sierra 10.12.6 - Focusrite Clarett thunderbolt interface Poor minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas -Eleanor Roosevelt
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interpolated
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Re: Using A Limiter To Protect Your Monitors?
2015/04/02 18:28:23
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Even a sound device with monitor control can help like Focusrite for example.
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gcolbert
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Re: Using A Limiter To Protect Your Monitors?
2015/04/02 19:44:45
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All of the posters above know a lot more than me and probably have better hearing.
I put Boost 11 on my master as a default on all projects with no gain and a 0Db limit. It kept me from doing a lot of stupid things and kept me from getting as many audio dropouts from overloading.
I currently use the Concrete limiter the same way.
Works for me. You can always turn it off when you get serious about mixing.
Glen
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bitflipper
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Re: Using A Limiter To Protect Your Monitors?
2015/04/02 20:32:39
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☄ Helpfulby Beagle 2015/04/06 12:56:11
batsbrew
what do the pros do with their extremely expensive monitors?
The better powered speakers have failsafe limiting built in. However, that only protects the speakers and their amplifiers - not your ears.
All else is in doubt, so this is the truth I cling to. My Stuff
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robert_e_bone
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Re: Using A Limiter To Protect Your Monitors?
2015/04/03 17:32:09
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The one that kills me is when the interface freaks out and instantly screams at max, and it takes a reboot for me when that happens.
But what I did was to move the monitors to a separate power strip that is still part of the ground circuit, so as to not cause ground hum issues. Anyways. I have this power strip mounted up off the floor where I can almost instantly reach it to cut power to only those speakers. It's not perfect, but I have surprised myself at how quickly I can move at 2 in the morning when I have to reach for the on/off switch for that power strip.
It is not as elegant as a limiter, but it seems to work OK for me.
Bob Bone
Wisdom is a giant accumulation of "DOH!" Sonar: Platinum (x64), X3 (x64) Audio Interfaces: AudioBox 1818VSL, Steinberg UR-22 Computers: 1) i7-2600 k, 32 GB RAM, Windows 8.1 Pro x64 & 2) AMD A-10 7850 32 GB RAM Windows 10 Pro x64 Soft Synths: NI Komplete 8 Ultimate, Arturia V Collection, many others MIDI Controllers: M-Audio Axiom Pro 61, Keystation 88es Settings: 24-Bit, Sample Rate 48k, ASIO Buffer Size 128, Total Round Trip Latency 9.7 ms
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Jeff Evans
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Re: Using A Limiter To Protect Your Monitors?
2015/04/03 19:29:01
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I agree with Dave on this. Even with my Mackie HR824's the sound pressure level can be huge before the protection kicks in and sometimes it still doesn't. Even when I am running for my life! Robert made me laugh with that one. Yes it is amazing how fast you can move when required to! My Yamaha digital mixer actually features a good old analog pot on the signal feeding the monitors so all you have to do is turn it down. Then again you could also use Studio One instead. I have never heard any gut wrenching speaker destroying sounds coming form that. 
Specs i5-2500K 3.5 Ghz - 8 Gb RAM - Win 7 64 bit - ATI Radeon HD6900 Series - RME PCI HDSP9632 - Steinberg Midex 8 Midi interface - Faderport 8- Studio One V4 - iMac 2.5Ghz Core i5 - Sierra 10.12.6 - Focusrite Clarett thunderbolt interface Poor minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas -Eleanor Roosevelt
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interpolated
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Re: Using A Limiter To Protect Your Monitors?
2015/04/04 18:14:07
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I remember Reason had a big bug where it would emit a +40dB spike. It killed one of my speaker sets. Luckily this was a cheaper pair of Creative speakers from years ago.
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interpolated
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Re: Using A Limiter To Protect Your Monitors?
2015/04/04 18:19:54
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Also remember you can use a bus compressor as a limiter where you just want to tame transients rather than cut the top end of them. A ratio of 10:1 and -20dB threshold should do the trick. Of course experiment with the threshold to find your preference.
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arachnaut
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Re: Using A Limiter To Protect Your Monitors?
2015/04/04 18:52:08
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I have Concrete Limiter in the Master Bus 'Normal' template so it always loads enabled; because I always do extreme experimental stuff.
When I go to a final mix I might leave it in or bypass it - I don't usually get final peaks near 0 dB.
I've not noticed any audible differences, but I'm just a 'hobbyist'.
- Jim Hurley - SONAR Platinum - x64 - Windows 10 Pro ASUS P8P67 PRO Rev 3.0; Core i7-2600K@4.4GHz; 16 GB G.SKILL Ripjaws X; GeForce GT 740; Saffire Pro14 MixControl 3.7; Axiom 61 64-Bit audio, SR: 48kHz, ASIO 256 samples latency, Rec/Play I/O Buffers 512k, Total Round Trip Latency 13 ms, Pow-r 3 dither
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Guitarhacker
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Re: Using A Limiter To Protect Your Monitors?
2015/04/04 20:07:39
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I am a serious believer in the ability of a limiter to save your speakers. A band I was in didn't have one. I found one in a rack mount configuration and bought it. I installed it in our rack and several weeks later we had a flashpot explode like a grenade. It blew out every monitor speaker we had and all the speakers on stage with open back cabinets. In our 3000w PA system, we only lost one 15" speaker in the bass bins. Everything else survived.
In the studio, I would not use a software limiter in the master bin. I would opt for a stereo limiter in a hardware configuration that was set to limit the big peaks from wherever they originate. Strictly hardware based on the output of the interface signal path to the monitors. That way, it only affects the finished signal to the monitors.
My website & music: www.herbhartley.com MC4/5/6/X1e.c, on a Custom DAW Focusrite Firewire Saffire Interface BMI/NSAI "Just as the blade chooses the warrior, so too, the song chooses the writer "
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drewfx1
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Re: Using A Limiter To Protect Your Monitors?
2015/04/04 21:37:51
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When your audio leaves your DAW, anything over 0dBFS is going to be clipped at 0dBFS anyway.
A limiter inside your DAW set at 0dBFS might make it sound a little less ugly when it starts to clip, but that's about it.
 In order, then, to discover the limit of deepest tones, it is necessary not only to produce very violent agitations in the air but to give these the form of simple pendular vibrations. - Hermann von Helmholtz, predicting the role of the electric bassist in 1877.
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Jeff Evans
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Re: Using A Limiter To Protect Your Monitors?
2015/04/04 22:09:26
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drew brings up a good point. If you are working at say K-20 and -20 dB FS = +4dbu and you suddenly get a slammed rms signal at 0 dB FS then the interface is now spitting out +24 dBu which is rather loud. That is why limiters in the digital domain on your stereo buss don't actually help much.
A hardware limiter patched between interface and monitors is going to do the job properly. You just have to set the threshold so most of time it is doing nothing but will catch a huge level change.
Specs i5-2500K 3.5 Ghz - 8 Gb RAM - Win 7 64 bit - ATI Radeon HD6900 Series - RME PCI HDSP9632 - Steinberg Midex 8 Midi interface - Faderport 8- Studio One V4 - iMac 2.5Ghz Core i5 - Sierra 10.12.6 - Focusrite Clarett thunderbolt interface Poor minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas -Eleanor Roosevelt
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arachnaut
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Re: Using A Limiter To Protect Your Monitors?
2015/04/04 22:48:35
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drewfx1
When your audio leaves your DAW, anything over 0dBFS is going to be clipped at 0dBFS anyway.
You can export 64-bit floating point WAV audio data and Sonar will save all that data faithfully up to +100 db or whatever the max float number is (10**308 IEEE 754). It's just that very few things are around to use that kind of data. Sound Forge can read that data and manipulate it, but it will not display beyond 0dB, it looks like it clips because the display does not zoom. Neither does the Sonar track display as far as I know. But the data is still valid. This is an unfortunate residue that comes from the tape oriented background of pro audio. True digital audio has a very wide gamut, our physical transducers are far more limited.
- Jim Hurley - SONAR Platinum - x64 - Windows 10 Pro ASUS P8P67 PRO Rev 3.0; Core i7-2600K@4.4GHz; 16 GB G.SKILL Ripjaws X; GeForce GT 740; Saffire Pro14 MixControl 3.7; Axiom 61 64-Bit audio, SR: 48kHz, ASIO 256 samples latency, Rec/Play I/O Buffers 512k, Total Round Trip Latency 13 ms, Pow-r 3 dither
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drewfx1
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Re: Using A Limiter To Protect Your Monitors?
2015/04/04 23:02:33
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arachnaut
drewfx1
When your audio leaves your DAW, anything over 0dBFS is going to be clipped at 0dBFS anyway.
You can export 64-bit floating point WAV audio data and Sonar will save all that data faithfully up to +100 db or whatever the max float number is (10**308 IEEE 754).
Yes, but not over your audio interface, which is what we're talking about here. And actually it turns out that +100 dB is a ridiculously small fraction of the maximum value available in 32 bit floating point. Luckily your speakers couldn't reproduce that, because if you add that 100dB to fairly common loudish listening levels you actually end up with a pressure level that approaches the level of the shock wave from a nuclear blast a few miles away from your listening position. And no, I'm not kidding.
In order, then, to discover the limit of deepest tones, it is necessary not only to produce very violent agitations in the air but to give these the form of simple pendular vibrations. - Hermann von Helmholtz, predicting the role of the electric bassist in 1877.
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mettelus
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Re: Using A Limiter To Protect Your Monitors?
2015/04/05 09:10:38
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drewfx1
When your audio leaves your DAW, anything over 0dBFS is going to be clipped at 0dBFS anyway.
A limiter inside your DAW set at 0dBFS might make it sound a little less ugly when it starts to clip, but that's about it.
This was my understanding as well. Where this can fall through is on an interface like mine with an internal loopback (external cabled loopbacks may also cause this). I read some warnings about monitor configurations when doing this, but not sure if it will bypass this internally as a result (no desire to test such a thing, just in case it does). Ultimately, in any loopback situation, it is often best to mute the armed track so it is not contributing to the output; and monitor levels should be set to zero while doing such routing and then brought up slowly to verify "expected results" first.
ASUS ROG Maximus X Hero (Wi-Fi AC), i7-8700k, 16GB RAM, GTX-1070Ti, Win 10 Pro, Saffire PRO 24 DSP, A-300 PRO, plus numerous gadgets and gizmos that make or manipulate sound in some way.
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AdamGrossmanLG
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Re: Using A Limiter To Protect Your Monitors?
2015/04/05 11:25:36
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Great discussion here everyone, I appreciate it. This is making me question what I thought I knew about limiters now though. I really thought that if I have a software limiter on my master buss, but its set to a ceiling of -0.2db and the threshold is set to 0db, I truly thought the limiter is actually doing NOTHING, but stopping anything going over -0.2db! I didn't think it would color the audio or do any compression/limiting until -0.2db is reached! Am i wrong here? If so, how? I also use a limiter to make temporary mix downs so I can listen in the car as my project progresses and think of new ideas. I use a limiter with some threshold just to get the audio loud, should I not be? Thank You, Adam
post edited by alewgro - 2015/04/05 12:34:11
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arachnaut
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Re: Using A Limiter To Protect Your Monitors?
2015/04/05 12:33:52
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alewgro
Great discussion here everyone, I appreciate it. This is making me question what I thought I knew about limiters now though.
I really thought that if I have a software limiter on my master buss, but its set to a ceiling of -0.2db and the threshold is set to 0db, I truly thought the limiter is actually doing NOTHING, but stopping anything going over -0.2db! I didn't think it would color the audio or do any compression/limiting until -0.2db is reached!
Am i wrong here? If so, how?
I also use a limiter to make temporary mix downs so I can listen in the car as my project progresses and think of new ideas. I use a limiter with some threshold just to get the audio loud, should I not be?
Thank You,
Adam
Easy enough to test for yourself - put the same audio on two tracks one with the limiter the other not. Then sum the two channels, one with phase inverted. Anything coming out is due to the limiter.
- Jim Hurley - SONAR Platinum - x64 - Windows 10 Pro ASUS P8P67 PRO Rev 3.0; Core i7-2600K@4.4GHz; 16 GB G.SKILL Ripjaws X; GeForce GT 740; Saffire Pro14 MixControl 3.7; Axiom 61 64-Bit audio, SR: 48kHz, ASIO 256 samples latency, Rec/Play I/O Buffers 512k, Total Round Trip Latency 13 ms, Pow-r 3 dither
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drewfx1
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Re: Using A Limiter To Protect Your Monitors?
2015/04/05 17:33:09
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alewgro
I really thought that if I have a software limiter on my master buss, but its set to a ceiling of -0.2db and the threshold is set to 0db, I truly thought the limiter is actually doing NOTHING, but stopping anything going over -0.2db! I didn't think it would color the audio or do any compression/limiting until -0.2db is reached!
If it's a hard knee limiter, it should be doing little or nothing to your audio until the threshold is reached (it might well be doing upsampling/downsampling, but hopefully this would be done well enough to not be audible). But a soft knee response will gradually start compressing well before the threshold is reached. However, as we have been discussing, a limiter used this way might not be of much help either as your audio interface is already clipping anything over 0dBFS. You would need something that responds in a fairly specific way to accomplish what we are looking for here.
In order, then, to discover the limit of deepest tones, it is necessary not only to produce very violent agitations in the air but to give these the form of simple pendular vibrations. - Hermann von Helmholtz, predicting the role of the electric bassist in 1877.
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batsbrew
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Re: Using A Limiter To Protect Your Monitors?
2015/04/06 11:26:38
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it acts as an upwards compressor at those settings.
color, indeed.
i use it that way often.
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