How Radio Stations handle different Limiter Outs

[philip]

http://tech.ebu.ch/docs/r/r128.pdf

[Lagerfeldt]

Orban

Breakaway Broadcast Processor

[horizon]

thanks a lot for these interesting links

To substantiate my question: I do have to master a 70s style Rock record and I was listening to some similar styled records from the 70s also draggin
the aif stereo file into logic to see what those look like.
Whereas todays` bought records always seem to reach the top with somehow being mastered to 0 dB or 0,01 dB the 70s ones seem to be mastered with the level not as squeezed and compressed as todays`ones.

So would you guys follow the 70s ones or would you adapt to todays`levels?

[wado1942]

I fight "today's" levels tooth & nail. My clients generally know that I won't push something harder than it wants to go and the last time I was put into a position where I had to do it, I charged extra and asked to be left off of the credits because I love this job too much to personally represent something I hate.
If you want a 70s sound, you can't destroy the top 12dB of the signal. Respect the music and it will sound better on the radio than any "modern" technique.

[horizon]

what do you think were the limiter outs levels in the 70s?

[wado1942]

Not sure what you mean by "limiter outs" but if they're using pro equipment, the levels would be +4dB nominal, just like the inputs.

[horizon]

well as I do have the flux limiter and compressor for my purpose.They sound good though not being any vintage, but still very natural sounding as praised a lot here in this forum.I also like them a lot.
There I´ve got the limiter output knob which is the very final output for the final track.Nothing will exceed this level.I had this set to 0,01 dB which is a nowadays setting but seems not to be a common one for the 70s.

So I wanted to know what these levels had been in those days..

[wado1942]

I see... They were generally dealing with analogue sources and destinations in the 70s, so you can't compare what they did then to what you're doing now. They used analogue peak limiters to just catch the worst transients for cutting lacquer masters. This was done to prevent the stylus from jumping the groove on playback. The input signal would have been +4dB nominal and the output would have been essentially the same. They didn't have digital hard limiters, obviously, as they didn't hit the market till 1993 or so. There was no brick wall, no output ceiling, just a variable threshold and a make-up gain.

When people are remastering stuff from the 70s for today, they go back to the mix tapes whenever possible, which generally wouldn't have any limiting on them. What they do in the remastering process itself for hard limiting depends on what the client (record label, but sometimes the artist) wants. That can mean anything from no limiting at all to "slam your head against the wall till it bleeds." The general rule of thumb for digital mastering is -0.3dB peak for all material, but I see plenty that are higher than that, even as high as a Least Significant Bit. iTunes is suggesting -1dB. The peak level really doesn't matter as long as you avoid inter-sample clipping on replay. The average level is what determines overall loudness and obviously, the more limiting you use, the less sonic impact it has.

Broadcast processors are designed to handle a wide variety of source levels without an engineer present to level-match anything, so average and peak levels don't matter to the processor much either, but the hotter the signal that's feeding it, the more it will get crushed on-air. So, avoiding limiting will give you a sound that's more true to the mix when it's played on the radio.

[horizon]

a thought just came to my mind

as I do have a method concerning mixes where I take a song/mix of similar style and I do it the same till I get there in order to avoid endless mixing;

I also could do it here: I just take a song/master of similar style and do it the same until I get there...and just give a shit on todays`standards