Can the Lavry gold ADC SOFT LIMIT replace a brickwall limiter

[Lion]

Hi,

what do you think about it ?
I ask this question because some mastering studio don't seem to have brickwall limiter so how do they reduce peak and transient to ADC.
What do you use for reducing peaks and increase the level for critical operation like the mastering ?

Thanks.

[Adam Dempsey]

We love the Gold122-MIII here. Its "Soft Saturation" process is more of an upwards compression rather than a soft limit or clip (linear r'ship to -6dBFS or -12dBFS for 3dB & 6dB settings respectively) and not suitable for everything, where a limiter may be.
I've certainly used it without any additional peak limiter, both with and without Soft Sat (and all those options for a compilation this week). As always, the source material, its density, & dynamic range, and prior gain staging, dictates.

[Lion]

Originally Posted by Boomshanka

We love the Gold122-MIII here. Its "Soft Saturation" process is more of an upwards compression rather than a soft limit or clip (linear r'ship to -6dBFS or -12dBFS for 3dB & 6dB settings respectively) and not suitable for everything, where a limiter may be.
I've certainly used it without any additional peak limiter, both with and without Soft Sat (and all those options for a compilation this week). As always, the source material, its density, & dynamic range, and prior gain staging, dictates.

Thanks Adam.
I agree with you on the fact that there are several configurations and depend on the source (Unfortunately for our money ).

[Andy Krehm]

We also have (and love) the Lavry Gold MK III AD but seldom use the Soft Sat. I tried it when I first got it and didn't find it useful too often and kinda forgot about it until this post. Maybe I'll try it again!

I generally use the Pendulum PL-2 analog Peak Limiter before the DAC and small doses of either the TC Brickwall or L2 to finish (and sometimes a combo of the latter).

[Lion]

Originally Posted by Andy Krehm

We also have (and love) the Lavry Gold MK III AD but seldom use the Soft Sat. I tried it when I first got it and didn't find it useful too often and kinda forgot about it until this post. Maybe I'll try it again!

I generally use the Pendulum PL-2 analog Peak Limiter before the DAC and small doses of either the TC Brickwall or L2 to finish (and sometimes a combo of the latter).

Thanks.
Do you use the harware or the software version of the TC Brickwall and L2 ?
The Pendulum seems to be cool, you are the 2 person speak me about it.

[Andy Krehm]

Originally Posted by Lion

Thanks.
Do you use the harware or the software version of the TC Brickwall and L2 ?
The Pendulum seems to be cool, you are the 2 person speak me about it.

I use the hardware version of the TC (TC 6000) & L2. I've done some testing of the L2 hardware vs the software and although they didn't quite null, I'd be OK using the software if I didn't have the hardware.

Great coincidence reading Adam's post about the the Lavry Gold Soft Sat. I'm working on a Gospel album with decent content but amaturish mixing and production and so am using every trick to make it into a decent master. Tape, a touch of reverb, MS stereo sound stage work, etc, and it was almost there. I added the Soft Sat. and it just did something nice to the floppy bottom making the first track of the day as good as its going to get.

I still used all three of my regular limiters (PL-2/TC Brickwall/L2, but just a bit of each, to control the audio before and after the ADC. Thanks Adam!

[Lion]

Originally Posted by Andy Krehm

I use the hardware version of the TC (TC 6000) & L2. I've done some testing of the L2 hardware vs the software and although they didn't quite null, I'd be OK using the software if I didn't have the hardware.

Great coincidence reading Adam's post about the the Lavry Gold Soft Sat. I'm working on a Gospel album with decent content but amaturish mixing and production and so am using every trick to make it into a decent master. Tape, a touch of reverb, MS stereo sound stage work, etc, and it was almost there. I added the Soft Sat. and it just did something nice to the floppy bottom making the first track of the day as good as its going to get.

I still used all three of my regular limiters (PL-2/TC Brickwall/L2, but just a bit of each, to control the audio before and after the ADC. Thanks Adam!

Thanks for the comparison between Hardware and software version.(I use the L2 and TC Brickwall software versions)
I use sometimes my Apogee Rosetta 800 SOFT LIMIT too, and it's a good improvement depend on the source. It's why i create this thread. I know a lot of mastering studio use Lavry ADC now (it's why i speak about the Lavry and not Apogee...) and use the SOFT SAT.
So i think it could be a good improvement but can't replace a TC Brickwall or L2 or Pendulum for the final touch.

[fenderbender.]

Many mastering studios run the signal from the A/D immediately to disk. Take a CD that was mastered by Vlado Meller and watch the levels on a Dorrough digital meter. Red lights all over the place! I don't know whether he had his L2 output ceiling set to 0.0dB, or didn't have any brickwall limiter in place prior to his recording DAW, but there are obviously many, many consecutive full-scale samples.

Someone was telling me the other day that they had called Sony about a ref. that he had done, and asking why it was clipped. The person at the studio said something like "yeah, we have this Sony meter that just sits up there and flashes; nobody uses it"

(FYI - the meter in question is the Sony DMU-30)

[Lion]

Originally Posted by fenderbender.

Many mastering studios run the signal from the A/D immediately to disk. Take a CD that was mastered by Vlado Meller and watch the levels on a Dorrough digital meter. Red lights all over the place! I don't know whether he had his L2 output ceiling set to 0.0dB, or didn't have any brickwall limiter in place prior to his recording DAW, but there are obviously many, many consecutive full-scale samples.

Someone was telling me the other day that they had called Sony about a ref. that he had done, and asking why it was clipped. The person at the studio said something like "yeah, we have this Sony meter that just sits up there and flashes; nobody uses it"

(FYI - the meter in question is the Sony DMU-30)

Thanks

[fenderbender.]

Many mastering studios run the signal from the A/D immediately to disk

I should qualify this by stating that many mastering studios do the above, however, most of them do not, instead following the A/D with one or more digital boxes.

Lion: In terms of saturation, you might want to try the Oxford Inflator plug-in. At this point in time I know of nothing that can do what the Lavry stuff does. Because the sat. is a digital function, I hope he will one day have it put into software form!

[Lion]

Ishould qualify this by stating that many mastering studios do the above, however, most of them do not, instead following the A/D with one or more digital boxes

So i was thinking right about this (soft sat use), it could be useful but a specialized limiter would be nice too. (depend on the source) And maybe sometimes using the soft sat and a digital brickwall limiter together.

Lion: In terms of saturation, you might want to try the Oxford Inflator plug-in. At this point in time I know of nothing that can do what the Lavry stuff does. Because the sat. is a digital function, I hope he will one day have it put into software form!

I have the inflator (with my powercore) it's a good plug, i use it sometimes on the master or a mix buss. I can make a similar job with my Manley Vari-MU and with my Apogee with the soft sat ON (insert in protools), very good results (push up the input and/or output of the manley for making the tube work and then the soft sat).

Thanks

[fenderbender.]

Originally Posted by Lion

So i was thinking right about this (soft sat use), it could be useful but a specialized limiter would be nice too. (depend on the source) And maybe sometimes using the soft sat and a digital brickwall limiter together.

The concept is that by having a digital brickwall limiter at the very end of a mastering chain, you can trim the overall level of the program while still maintaining a fixed output ceiling. The L2, TC and others all have fine adjustments to the tenth or hundredth of a dB. This is especially good if you have a lot of analog boxes with stepped level controls. If you look at the peak level of various tracks on a given CD you can see whether the mastering engineer changed track gain 'post-limiter' in order to better match levels.

[Lion]

Originally Posted by fenderbender.

The concept is that by having a digital brickwall limiter at the very end of a mastering chain, you can trim the overall level of the program while still maintaining a fixed output ceiling. The L2, TC and others all have fine adjustments to the tenth or hundredth of a dB. This is especially good if you have a lot of analog boxes with stepped level controls. If you look at the peak level of various tracks on a given CD you can see whether the mastering engineer changed track gain 'post-limiter' in order to better match levels.

Now it's clear.
I'm agree that a digital brickwall limiter at the very end of a mastering chain is the best way for maintaining a fixed output ceiling.
Thanks for your feedbacks.

[Lion]

Originally Posted by Lion

So i was thinking right about this (soft sat use), it could be useful but a specialized limiter would be nice too. (depend on the source) And maybe sometimes using the soft sat and a digital brickwall limiter together.

I don't know why i reply that because i always use a digital brickwall limiter too But now it's clear that the Lavry Soft sat could be

a great improvement but can't replace a digital brickwall limiter (just don't

make the same job). Now it's really clear for me.

Thanks fenderbender