Limiter Used to Protect Amplifier?

lancer · 12th April 2008

New to the forums, hope I got this in the right area . . . I've done a lot of live mixing / recording and am pretty confident in producing a good pleasing sound but I've been asked to put together a medium sized PA system for a new church plant, so now I'm dealing with the hardware behind the scenes, like near the amplifiers, not my area of expertise.

So this guy who runs alot of live gig's hooked me up with equipment that has a limiter prior to entering the amplifier. His theory is that it will limit the signal entering the amp and keep it from burning up the amp by pushing it too hard. Don't I do the same thing by keeping the amp knobs at say 75% and not clipping the thing out? Interested in your thoughts.

Here is the current chain : Mackie 1604VLZ -> dbx 223 Crossover -> DoD 231Q EQ -> Behringer Autocomm Pro Limiter/Compressor -> Mackie FR-2500 Amp -> FOH Speaker/Subs

Can I safely eliminate the Limiter?

Thanks in advance!
Lancer

stuntbutt · 15th April 2008

I'm pretty sure that your EQ is before the crossover right now.

Do you really need a limiter protecting the amp in a church situation? Probably the only time my house limiters have kicked in is when a some yahoo band thinks it's cool to drop a 30Hz tone on their backing track.

nathanvacha · 15th April 2008

yeah... running through a behringer limiter is not gonna help you as much as crap on your sound. run the amps wide open, provided they're matched somewhere near correctly to the speakers and don't push the master fader into clipping.

and the processing does look backwards. if your eq and limiter are after your crossover, you're only processing half of the signal. anything you want done, i'd do before the crossover.

12th April 2008	#1
lancer Gear interested Joined: Apr 2008 Posts: 1 Thread Starter	Limiter Used to Protect Amplifier? New to the forums, hope I got this in the right area . . . I've done a lot of live mixing / recording and am pretty confident in producing a good pleasing sound but I've been asked to put together a medium sized PA system for a new church plant, so now I'm dealing with the hardware behind the scenes, like near the amplifiers, not my area of expertise. So this guy who runs alot of live gig's hooked me up with equipment that has a limiter prior to entering the amplifier. His theory is that it will limit the signal entering the amp and keep it from burning up the amp by pushing it too hard. Don't I do the same thing by keeping the amp knobs at say 75% and not clipping the thing out? Interested in your thoughts. Here is the current chain : Mackie 1604VLZ -> dbx 223 Crossover -> DoD 231Q EQ -> Behringer Autocomm Pro Limiter/Compressor -> Mackie FR-2500 Amp -> FOH Speaker/Subs Can I safely eliminate the Limiter? Thanks in advance! Lancer

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15th April 2008	#2
stuntbutt Gear maniac Joined: Dec 2004 Location: St. Louis Posts: 261	I'm pretty sure that your EQ is before the crossover right now. Do you really need a limiter protecting the amp in a church situation? Probably the only time my house limiters have kicked in is when a some yahoo band thinks it's cool to drop a 30Hz tone on their backing track.

15th April 2008	#3
nathanvacha Lives for gear Joined: Dec 2005 Location: Orlando Posts: 1,231	yeah... running through a behringer limiter is not gonna help you as much as crap on your sound. run the amps wide open, provided they're matched somewhere near correctly to the speakers and don't push the master fader into clipping. and the processing does look backwards. if your eq and limiter are after your crossover, you're only processing half of the signal. anything you want done, i'd do before the crossover.