Strange technique

[wado1942]

I'm not sure about the architecture of the L2, but I think it passes 32-bit float through the output, in which case, I wouldn't use any dither, maybe flat dither at most but not shaped dither.
As for clipping, I often use just a touch of soft clipping FIRST, then limiting, so that there's isn't tons of gain reduction on short, sharp transients. It seems to sound a little less squishy that way. If you still need tons more level for the brain-dead "have to have the worlds most distorted CD", a lot of people use hard clipping after everything else. That's often done in small stages, 1dB of clipping after a limiter feeding a DAC, 1dB clipping coming back to an ADC after analogue gain and .5dB clipping at the very end. By doing it in the stages where there's extremely high sample rates (minimum 8X) LPFs in there, you're reducing alias distortion.

I will not do that. I do not employ hard clipping ever, but I don't do Death Magnetic levels either.

[Huntley Miller]

Originally Posted by wado1942

I'm not sure about the architecture of the L2, but I think it passes 32-bit float through the output, in which case, I wouldn't use any dither, maybe flat dither at most but not shaped dither.
As for clipping, I often use just a touch of soft clipping FIRST, then limiting, so that there's isn't tons of gain reduction on short, sharp transients. It seems to sound a little less squishy that way. If you still need tons more level for the brain-dead "have to have the worlds most distorted CD", a lot of people use hard clipping after everything else. That's often done in small stages, 1dB of clipping after a limiter feeding a DAC, 1dB clipping coming back to an ADC after analogue gain and .5dB clipping at the very end. By doing it in the stages where there's extremely high sample rates (minimum 8X) LPFs in there, you're reducing alias distortion.

I will not do that. I do not employ hard clipping ever, but I don't do Death Magnetic levels either.

That is incorrect. The L2 processes at 48-bit internally so you always need the dither on.

[Rossd25]

Never mind.

This wasn't a very good idea after all.

Two limiters sound strange on a masterbus. It's fine when they are used on individual tracks and when there is a final limiter on the entire mix, but it sounds kind of strange with two of them on the entire mix. Or maybe Ozone and the L2 don't sound good used together? And clipping distortion just doesn't sound good to my ears or transparent, although it is a trade off from the pumping sound that you get from Ozone set to slower settings. I decided to just push the L2 for 4dbs of gain reduction, which may seem like sacrilege to some people. Most of the mix is very dynamic. However, there is just one section that is louder than the rest and the peaks shoot up pretty high.

[wado1942]

Yeah, when it comes to pushing levels, there's no such thing as transparent. There's nothing wrong with experimenting though. I usually just use some light, soft clipping followed by a good hard limiter and call it good. If the high points of a rock song are around -10dBfs RMS and I don't hear any really obvious degradation, I'm happy with it and most of my clients are as well.

[Rossd25]

None of these limiters sound good pushed.

I just decided to bring it down to the crest with Ozone. I might as well give up on trying to make it "hot." On the plus side the original mix remains intact along with the transients.

[JustMastering]

Originally Posted by Rossd25

None of these limiters sound good pushed.

I just decided to bring it down to the crest with Ozone. I might as well give up on trying to make it "hot." On the plus side the original mix remains intact along with the transients.

. It was well worth experimenting with, but I think you did the right thing.

Cheers !
Rob

[bissellstudios]

Originally Posted by Rossd25

Never mind.

This wasn't a very good idea after all.

Two limiters sound strange on a masterbus. It's fine when they are used on individual tracks and when there is a final limiter on the entire mix, but it sounds kind of strange with two of them on the entire mix. Or maybe Ozone and the L2 don't sound good used together? And clipping distortion just doesn't sound good to my ears or transparent, although it is a trade off from the pumping sound that you get from Ozone set to slower settings. I decided to just push the L2 for 4dbs of gain reduction, which may seem like sacrilege to some people. Most of the mix is very dynamic. However, there is just one section that is louder than the rest and the peaks shoot up pretty high.

My experience with two limiters has been the same. Especially if set to different release times. You will notice some very unwanted drops and rises in the mix. I think what you're wanting to do is cut the transients to get maximum volume. After all, the more consistent you can get the volume level, the more you can raise it without any noticeable effects. I've found it best to use a compressor in peak handling mode to manipulate the transient information. This seems to be much more transparent when compared to a brick wall limiter. Also try side chaining the compressor to a bus that has a noise gate that only let's out the transients in the song. This will improve efficiency of the compressor. Another think you can do to limit/compress the mix is apply a a virtual tape machine in the master bus (ie. Eddie Kramer MPX works great!). It does a great job of simulating true analog distortion/compression all in one plugin. This way, the track will be able to be louder when trying to maximize volume with the brick wall.

[Peaks]

On a related note, I have seen double clippers used. The UK master of "That's What Makes You Beautiful" has 2 levels of clipipng by judging from a waveform scan.