Sonnox Limiter Causing Distortion?

[TheBSper]

I've seen at least one other post that mentions this as a problem but I haven't found any solutions. Hopefully someone can help, I've also e-mailed tech support but they won't be in until Tuesday because of the holiday. Here's the situation:

I recently purchased the Oxford Limiter (which sounds fantastic as the
final stage limiter for the music I'm mastering) but I'm having some
issues with the first song we did last night when the last chord of
the overdriven electric guitars is ringing out. There's a very
audible crackling/distortion sound that's coming from the Sonnox Limter
that's not in the source and not coming from any of the other plug
ins. It takes a few seconds for the guitars to fade out before the
cracking starts, so I don't think it's from any type of overs (and I
have auto comp in so that should solve the problem anyway).

I use ProTools LE v. 7.4 with a 002 Console and OSX 10.4.9 on a Power
Mac G5 dual 1.8 GHz processors and 2.5GB of RAM. I'm running the
signal through a PSP Neon HR Linear Phase EQ to add no more than 2dB
of EQ in any area that I'm effecting, and I turned down the output gain so it's output
doesn't peak. Next in the chain is a Waves C4 Multi-band Compressor,
which is adding a few dB of gain in the loudest band, and the output
is again trimmed so it won't overload. The final stage before the
Oxford Limiter is a PSP Xenon that's doing about 3.5 dB of limiting.
When I take all of these plug-ins out of the signal path except the Sonnox the crackling continues. Taking the Oxford Limiter out of the chain with all of the
other plug-ins still active causes the crackling to go away, even
when I turn the volume of the monitors up well over the 1.2 dB of gain
that would have been added by the Oxford to check if the distortion is simply
harder to hear because taking the Oxford Limiter out makes the signal
quieter. The distortion also happens when I listen on headphones.

I have my Oxford Limiter set to 1.2 dB of input gain, .70ms attack,
2.0ms release, 0.0 soft knee, auto gain in, safe mode off, enhance at
100%, output level at 0.0dB, Recon meter and Auto Comp both in. I
don't think the crackling is coming from too much limiting because
when I turn the input gain to 0.0dB it still does it, it's only when I
bring the enhance function to 0% that the crackling nearly goes away.
I'm not entirely sure what the manual means when it says that when
safe mode is off and enhance is at 0% it only acts as a leveler, but I
know that the enhance function makes this particular mix sound the
best when it's at or around 100%. I've also tried safe mode with
enhance at 0% and it still crackles.

I can send some audio files if anyone thinks that would help them figure out what's happening. I've been very careful with the gain staging, so there's no clipping on any of the plugs. And in case anyone's wondering why I'm compressing and then limiting twice, the person who taught me the few basics of mastering I know told me one of the best ways to get things loud without getting ugly is to use a number of plugs, each of them giving you a fraction of the overall GR you need. None of the plugs are slammed and having to work extra hard this way, but I'm still getting 6-8dB of loudness out of it in the end. My teacher's got a few golden gramophones too so I trust him, but I also have gotten better results this way than I did when I tried doing it all in 1 plug.

[jdg]

turn enhance to 0%, safe off, auto gain off, output -.5

try that.. its gonna be "quieter" but it wont distort

[MarkRB]

Lots of people like the sonnox stuff here. (not a fan..meh).

I would guess your limiters release is set too fast and it is trying to track the waveforms of your bass and struggling.

2ms is very very fast for a limiters release, try 20-30 and see if that helps.

Enhance at 100% is quite extreme as well. I found 10-15% to be just about the limit for what I was doing.

[masteringhouse]

I had a session this weekend with the same distortion issue on a section with clean guitar, and an electric piano intro. As mentioned the enhance function is the culprit. I had to replace the Sonnox with an L2 along with adding changes in EQ to match the sound of the enhance feature (mainly a bump in the 4K area) as both the client and I lost faith in its abilities for this session.

In addition to the above, the I've had the safe button turn off randomly and issues with automation on the TDM version in sessions greater than 48K. I've brought these issues to the attention of support. There is currently not a fix.

In general I have to say that I'm disappointed in the performance of this limiter given the issues above.

[yeloocproducer]

safe off and auto gain off, enhance 0 should help...

that being said, I've had to replace it in the chain with something else on a few occasions.

it's sort of random, but sustained pure tones... flutes, electric guitars, organs, etc. usually intros and outros... it'll freak and do that distortion thing.

[marchhare]

I don't use it anymore because of this. It can get things loud, but it's not
hard to make it distort.

[steffen]

I also noticed lots of crackle with the oxford, for instance in breaks when a chord or solosound decays.

even with save mode off, attack 0, enhance zero and no gain reduction it´s not 100% clean.

...found myself often replacing distorted portion of the track with L2 processed snippets.

will link to this thread in the beta list. maybe some of the developers will chime in.

steff

[cooker]

Originally Posted by TheBSper

The final stage before the
Oxford Limiter is a PSP Xenon that's doing about 3.5 dB of limiting.


I have my Oxford Limiter set to 1.2 dB of input gain, .70ms attack,
2.0ms release, 0.0 soft knee, auto gain in, safe mode off, enhance at
100%, output level at 0.0dB, Recon meter and Auto Comp both in. I
don't think the crackling is coming from too much limiting because
when I turn the input gain to 0.0dB it still does it, it's only when I
bring the enhance function to 0% that the crackling nearly goes away.
I'm not entirely sure what the manual means when it says that when
safe mode is off and enhance is at 0% it only acts as a leveler, but I
know that the enhance function makes this particular mix sound the
best when it's at or around 100%. I've also tried safe mode with
enhance at 0% and it still crackles.

I think your approach is wrong. 2 limiters working at the same time isn't a good idea speacially if they are both clipping. try this: first place the sony but only use enhance function (no limiter clipping should happen), also 100% enchance is too much, people may prefer different but I don't find myself using more than %15. After that, (if you want) use the psp limiter.

[Lagerfeldt]

No distortion, crackles or clicks in my Sonnox Oxford limiter.

If you turn of the enhancement algorithm completely and use reasonable settings and GR amount it's a very clean limiter.

[steffen]

Holger, are you on powercore, tdm or native?

[masteringhouse]

Originally Posted by Lagerfeldt

No distortion, crackles or clicks in my Sonnox Oxford limiter.

If you turn of the enhancement algorithm completely and use reasonable settings and GR amount it's a very clean limiter.

Which type of plug-in are you using (TDM, AU, etc.)? Possibly there is a difference, though I've tried it as TDM, RTAS, and AU with the same result.

In my experience this plug is very "high maintenance". At comparable levels to an L2 it distorts significantly more. Requiring one to turn off half of the functionality of the plug to remain clean seems absurd, unless you actually want sporadic distortion. A good portion of the functionality being crippled at higher sample rates is an indicator of poor product testing and programming.

OTOH their EQ is very good. I just wish this plug was up to the same standards.

[Darius van H]

The more "dynamics" and "punch" a limiter seems to retain (at extreme GR settings), the more distortion it will produce.

[Jesse Graffam]

Originally Posted by cooker

I think your approach is wrong. 2 limiters working at the same time isn't a good idea specially if they are both clipping.

I agree completely.



dfegad2-limiters

[Bob Yordan]

Hiya

I have used the Sonnox Limiter less frequently during mastering lately (as a safety limiter) and more for coloring on the masterbus during mixing.

My first choise during mastering is UAD PL and sometimes Weiss DS-1.

Dont think I have ever used 2 limiters on mastering on the same mix?

[csl]

As mentioned, the enhance function and safe mode produce distortion, and are related controls. From the manual:

In Safe mode the enhance process is set to run permanently and the enhance slider modifies the action
of the process (rather than the proportion of the effect). Setting ranges from 0% to 100% control the degree of
programme loudness boost generated by the enhancer. The control region from 100% to 125% works identically to normal mode. It should be noted that in safe mode signals at all levels are being processed permanently, therefore some minor changes to the programme dynamics can occur even for a minimum setting of 0%.

So turn them both off. I'd leave autogain and autocomp on, personally, as these should reduce distortion rather than create it.

If I understand correctly, setting your release control to about 2ms will also cause the limiter to start tracking waveforms below around 250Hz, resulting in distortion, so you might like to open that out a bit! (Though having autogain on should minimise distortion caused by short release times). You'll need to keep the attack settings as short as poss to avoid overs, though with enhance and safe mode off you'll still get peak signals peaking above the output slightly, so make sure you're set to about -0.3dB maximum.

[meymia]

had the same problam with whole dynamics from the sonnox...

try another limiter with the same parameters ,is the problam still there?