Hey,

I was looking at some reference tracks in my daw and noticed that some of my favorite tracks doesnt seem to be limited. They are still quite loud though. Crest facror around 3. This is hardcore punk music.

I was wondering if its a normal practice to skip the limiter and just use compression on pro masters?

Well... just for the record. It seems like there are more unlimited masters than you'd think. Vinyl masters aren't limited.. and there seem to be alot of masters that isnt brickwalled/clipped or have its peaks "brutally" shaved off.

I think those seemingly unlimited masters sound really good. Would be nice to learn more how to go about that from seasoned ME's.

Like everything in audio, its program based, but if anyone has ever done some masters without a limiter i would be very interested to learn about the processing involved. Especially saturation and compressing techiques.

Please chime in with a couple of cents.

All the best, Kenneth

Compression is limiting, it just has a higher ratio setting. So you just use what ever works for that song. There are no standard settings and no standard things to use.

If you are mastering a genre that has a good dynamic range, then you need to respect it and use what ever it needs to keep it form clipping while keeping the dynamics of it.

Thanx! That helps my mindset alot!
Really appreciate it CJ!