Real peaks will almost always be higher than what your meters read. For a limiter to prevent that, it needs to calculate the projected actual peaks that can occur between samples (intersample peaks, or ISPs) AND it needs a lookahead feature to allow it to see those peaks coming and pull them down in an unobtrusive way.

Not all limiters are capable of this. If you're stuck using such a limiter, all you can do is bring your levels down accordingly. Of course, the ideal solution would be to acquire a more capable limiter. Ozone would be my recommendation.

Thanks Again Everyone...

You all have excellent thoughts and info and are very correct in many of the issues...

I'll try to answer what I can...

Yes, it's the last device in the chain and all data is being fed to/through it. there is nothing afterwards and nothing along side...

Mike - Thanks for the Waves suggestion and all... I don't have Audition (tho I have a copy of it's predecessor somewhere on an old machine), but I'm simply going to spend the time to deal with the 3 little peaks discretely... I thought I might save the time, but as I'm not getting the results I'm after with a short-cut method, I may as well... I was "miffed" about not having attack control for the CL as it was near impossible to grab the peaks I wanted anyway... and Yes, It's important enough in the end. I don't really want any square wave in this as it's one of my own tunes! ;-)

I think I'm always chasing my tail! This was just another incident where attempting to do something "quickly" yielded poor results and exposed more bugs/issues...

I'm doing my best to minimize limiting/compression in my mastering and as I have access to the raw mixes I rarely find any EQ necessary on my work after the mix.... though I'm sure "real" mastering engineers might find it so... One of the great reasons to NOT have the mixing engineer as the mastering engineer! ;-)

I thank you all again....
Keni

Danny Danzi

Keni


Hi Danny...

Nothing to be sorry about... I'm very pleased that you've given me of your time and experience to try helping me. It's only thru conversation that we get to know about each other and what level of assistance is needed...

Your ideas are all excellent and in line with my usual work... I rarely do this, but it seemed a simple matter (from my experience) to quickly solve in the manner I tried. I've done this in analog,,,

You're absolutely right that the CC is not the right tool for the job... I can't find another that I own that is any better suited. I used to have the Timeworks compressor which has separate input and threshold setting which allowed me to do this kind of thing tho it's brickwall never seemed to catch everything even with a fast attack setting... I'd try it but it's no longer available on this new machine...

Last night I suddenly started experiencing a new and weird problem (which I'll be posting separately) and it made this a not-needed-till-later issue which I will likely approach from one of the other methods...

But I still don't understand why a brickwall limiter's ceiling isn't strictly enforced...?

Much thanks again...

Just in the spirit of getting to know each other... I'm a professional engineer from back in the days of analog tape... I've been a studio designer/builder/owner/operator for most of my life in one capacity or more... Lots of credits... No money! ;-)

As a performing musician prior to getting into engineering, I'm a Berklee alumni (Class of '71)...

So I wear a lot of different hats for sure... But these days I mostly create and help others create...

A dedicated Cakewalk user since Cakewalk for Windows as I switched from being a beta tester and alpha site for the MIDI program Texture...

Best to you and thanks again for your efforts... I was guessing I knew the reason for the CC's not being right for this but was surprised the the brickwall was made of rice paper! ;-)

Much Thanks Again...
Keni

Hi Keni,
 
Ah ok, so you're a REAL engineer with a musical background to boot! *bows* :) I like to consider myself a real engineer...lol...I come from the full analog days myself, a little school, some out of school classes, loads of intern work and "in the field experience" with more time being spent in the field recording on various machines and formats. I even still have tape machines and a few racks of gear sitting here that I don't use much anymore. I should have went to school for music, but got pretty lucky as a hacker that could pick up just about any instrument and make a sound with it enough to use on a recording. LOL! After 40 plus years of that, my hacking skills as a musician have improved a bit also. :)
 
Yeah some of these processors we have available ITB won't get you those analog results nor will they react like you hope at times. I will say this though, if you get the cash, two recommendations that I think an engineer of your caliber should really have....definitely the UAD 2 stuff at some point. They've come down on their prices and you'd probably be fine with a UAD 2 Duo, unless you have the cash for a quad. Between the UAD Fatso and the NEVE 33609, you're pretty covered as these babies really so sound and react "analog" to me and are two of the best compressors I have EVER used in my life.
 
The other thing I'd be lost without, is the Waves API 2500 compressor. Fantastic piece that is a must have in everyone's tool box in my opinion. As for limiters, that PSP Xenon is a beast and the Ferarri/Bently/Bugatti of limiters. It's just not something I use for dirty hip hop/rap rock or metal due to how clean it is. You know how it goes...sometimes we need a little dirt under the old fingernails. :)
 
I keep calling rhe Concrete Limiter CC...not sure why, lol....but I meant CL. :) Like Bub, I too have read a few things about people having some issues, so it very well could be that limiter.
 
Another option to consider is what Mike had to offer. Adobe is such a great program for stuff like this. In my opinion, Audition 3 is one of the most under-rated programs ever made. Seriously. Not for the recording aspect, but due to the editing possibilities in its "edit mode". It has things in it that you just can't get anywhere and they truly work. It's been doing some of the stuff that iZoptope Rx Advanced is doing now....and it's been doing it for 100 years longer. LOL! The effects look a bit lame at times...but man, this is one program where the lack of GUI talent doesn't bother me in the least. LOL!
 
If you have it, Scott Garrigus has an awesome little tool you can grab here: 
 
http://www.digifreq.com/digifreq/downloads/SetupSonarUtils__302.exe
 
What this enables you to do is, if you have Adobe, it allows you to add it to Sonar's "tools" menu. You can hightlite a track, click on tools, then Adobe, and it will import just that file into Adobe's editor section. You can do what you need to do using the tools in Adobe, then save it as "edited version" or whatever and re-import it right back into Sonar without messing up your original track. This has really saved my butt quite a few times and is worth having as an extra tool in the box.
 
Anyway, hope some of this helps. I'm curious, just for my head...what track or tracks are creating these peaks? Like, what instrument(s) is it?
 
It sounds like you got it figured out though, so I'm glad about that. Take care man...nice chattin' with you. :)
 
-Danny

Hi Danny...

Thanks... I've heard a bit of your work and you do a great job... Schooling and the likes are only a particular path to achieving results... It's mostly in the desire and determination that it emerges...

I don't have Audition, and these days I'm so broke I can little afford such a "luxury"... Same with UAD... I've been aching to buy a quad from them but I can barely keep my electric on... I'm currently living in a small town and disconnected from the most business... I did homecare for my folks (simultaneous stroke victims) for a number of years and have lost much of my connections and continuing work through that time... during which I was world-trouble site for Soundscape (back in the SSHDR1 days) as it only entailed phone support...

Fortunately, the current Cakewalk pc76 and ca2a are competitive quality with the UAD's and I find them both quite pleasing... As much of my work is in very controlled environments/situations, I find little need for many "exotic" methods anymore...

But due to many things in this song, I've been remixing it for many days (over a few weeks) and I still have issues with the mix... These are mostly due to my radical use of flanged vocals which I typically would not do.... But the artist in me likes what I hear...

My problem is that no matter what I've tried, I can't get the vocals comfortable for myself and other listeners... I have a mix which sounds great to me... in stero... When played in mono, the vocal essentially disappears and I'm guessing there's some phase cancellation going on? I want the vocals subdued, but not loost and the mono isn't important to me tho many people do quick playback via iphone/ipad/etc and it makes it sound very bad...

So I had opted to try a "simple" idea to resolve these peaks being tired of working this tune! ;-) I guess that isn't going to work, but even worse is that along the way a new problem has reared it's ugly little head and now vocal clips are intermittently playing back (see my other post)... This is truly driving me crazy and making work on this song really drag....

But I have some errands to run and a simple session at noon, so I must run... I will try to post more later...

All My Best - And thanks again to everyone for chiming in with help and support...

Keni

bitflipper


Real peaks will almost always be higher than what your meters read. For a limiter to prevent that, it needs to calculate the projected actual peaks that can occur between samples (intersample peaks, or ISPs) AND it needs a lookahead feature to allow it to see those peaks coming and pull them down in an unobtrusive way.

Not all limiters are capable of this. If you're stuck using such a limiter, all you can do is bring your levels down accordingly. Of course, the ideal solution would be to acquire a more capable limiter. Ozone would be my recommendation.

Thanks bitflipper...

I was using the Concrete Limiter which claims to be a look ahead... So I thought this stuff would work... I understand (a little) of intersample peaks and I endeavor to leave the headroom for such... this is an unusual situation for me and I would/could fix it in other ways but was trying to be expedient.... not! ;-)

Keni

Hi Keni,

Sorry to hear about your folks, that's a tough one. You're a good son. :)

On the flanged vocals, I know this is probably a dumb question, but have you eq'd the actual flange on those vocals and maybe even thought of compressing the flanger itself? This can really work well...especially with a good eq curve on the flanger due to how it can dip down and take certain "up front" elements away from the vocals. An additional compressor AFTER the flange (if you are using it in a bus) can really work wonders on how the flange literally executes itself over the vocal part. Just some more things to think about that may help you with this. :) Best of luck brother...keep us posted.

-Danny

You've given me something to think about, Danny. Again.

I'm reluctant to use a flanger on vocals except as a very subtle effect, precisely for the reason that it can kill intelligibility. I'm going to experiment with parallel flanging and heavily compressing the effected portion. Might also be cool to put reverb or delay on just the effected chain.

Sorry, Keni. I know this has nothing to do with limiting, but ideas sometimes come at you at a tangent.

Danny Danzi


Hi Keni,

Sorry to hear about your folks, that's a tough one. You're a good son. :)

On the flanged vocals, I know this is probably a dumb question, but have you eq'd the actual flange on those vocals and maybe even thought of compressing the flanger itself? This can really work well...especially with a good eq curve on the flanger due to how it can dip down and take certain "up front" elements away from the vocals. An additional compressor AFTER the flange (if you are using it in a bus) can really work wonders on how the flange literally executes itself over the vocal part. Just some more things to think about that may help you with this. :) Best of luck brother...keep us posted.

-Danny

Hi Danny...

Yes, I'm doing both... I've rolled off a considerable amount of lows (high pass at 144k) as well as a somewhat wide eq boost at something near 2k  and I'm compressing the flanged output with the CA2a (after the eq)...

As soon as I figure out why clips are intermittently and randomly not playing (see other post), I'll be back to fixing this issue...

Thanks again for all the good ideas and assistance...

Keni

bitflipper


You've given me something to think about, Danny. Again.

I'm reluctant to use a flanger on vocals except as a very subtle effect, precisely for the reason that it can kill intelligibility. I'm going to experiment with parallel flanging and heavily compressing the effected portion. Might also be cool to put reverb or delay on just the effected chain.

Sorry, Keni. I know this has nothing to do with limiting, but ideas sometimes come at you at a tangent.

Not to worry bitflipper... I'm glad if my posts help anyone in any way...

...and I too don't do this kinf od thing often... What Danny suggested are my "normal" procedures for doing this since way back in the days of tape and unruly flangers! ;-)

Keni

bitflipper


Real peaks will almost always be higher than what your meters read. For a limiter to prevent that, it needs to calculate the projected actual peaks that can occur between samples (intersample peaks, or ISPs) AND it needs a lookahead feature to allow it to see those peaks coming and pull them down in an unobtrusive way.

Not all limiters are capable of this. If you're stuck using such a limiter, all you can do is bring your levels down accordingly. Of course, the ideal solution would be to acquire a more capable limiter. Ozone would be my recommendation.

intersample peaks, you don’t own stock in a limiter development company do you?

Yeh, I get $0.02 from iZotope everytime I talk someone into buying Ozone.

The joke's on them, though. I use Pro-L.