Wish Brickwall limiter block

At some point to make this the true Swiss Army knife of all amp signal chain modelers, some additional compressor options may be warranted. Similar to types offered in Logic for example. The basic flavors are 1176 (which is kind of what we have in studio compressor), La-2a and La-3a, dbx 160, Fairchild, SSL buss, Distressor, etc. I agree a dedicated brick wall peak limit or that stops everything cold at a set level not to exceed would be nice.
 
+1... a limiter block at the end of the chain would be super helpful, since the only clipping possible anywhere is at the converters, it doesn't really matter then what the levels are doing between [input] and [output] blocks, one limiter at the end of the chain would be an easy set-it-and-forget-it way to dial away and not worry about output clipping the outputs.
 
I use a Universal Audio brick wall limiter plug-in in recording over stereo bus that is transparent and peak-wise nothing gets through to distort ( does not add sustain like compressor does - hard limit peak). In theory it could be great to have this so when you add drives and layer gain stages that increase a presets volume It would but a hard stop at -.01 db and never ever clip digitally... haven’t tried to configure out studio compressor block to do this yet but it may be possible, the knee is important to set right as hard knee...
 
austinbuddy said:
I use a Universal Audio brick wall limiter plug-in in recording over stereo bus that is transparent and peak-wise nothing gets through to distort ( does not add sustain like compressor does - hard limit peak). In theory it could be great to have this so when you add drives and layer gain stages that increase a presets volume It would but a hard stop at -.01 db and never ever clip digitally... haven’t tried to configure out studio compressor block to do this yet but it may be possible, the knee is important to set right as hard knee...
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Which UA limiter? Not all are True Peak limiters (e. g. precision limiter is not)
 
The ratio set to infinite works great. It'd be nice to get more character compressors actually like the distressor to get that extra layer of saturation going. A clipper (Kazrog Kclip, JST Clip) would be nice too.
 
AlbertA said:
Umm I would think RMS shouldn't be used if you want a limiter.

I tried the following settings for a limiter:

Threshold: -0.1 dB
Ratio: Infinite
Attack time: 1.0ms
Release Time: 10ms
Auto Att/Rel: Off
Look-Ahead Time: 2.0ms
Knee Type: Hard
Auto Makeup: OFF
Detector Type: PEAK
Sidechain: Block L+R

But it's not working as I would expect it too....

I would expect this to brick wall at -0.1dB - but VU meters say otherwise.

It seems the levels are not quite right?

This is the example chain I have going on:
View attachment 47232


Here I increase the amp level to test the limiter, but even though the VU meter is already in the reds.. the gain bar in the compressor block does not move until the amp level is pretty high.

It's almost like the level the compressor detector is seeing is way lower than what the VU meter reports.
Click to expand...

You have to remember that the internal meters are not "real" they are some internal scale that is then scaled by the output knobs to determine what hits your DAW.

Out 1's scale appears to be about +12dB. If you want to prevent clipping with your output 1 knob fully clockwise, you have to set your threshold to below -12dB. So, for me, I set to -13dB and it *almost* works, except for the fact that the limiter is not a true peak limiter and it still lets some stray overs through.
 
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So, I played with it a bit tonight; set the ratio to infinite, but there are a ton of other settings and I'm not finding the right combo to get what I need. I really need some sort of guide to make the Studio Comp into a brickwall limiter. I'm still getting clipping over the -0.1 limit I've set. i don't need any comp, per se, just a tool to make sure it's as loud as possible without going over 0.0dB (or -0.1dB, either way).

So yeah, I still think there needs to be a clear cut setting, mode, or entire block for the/a brickwall limiter.
 
decreebass said:
So, I played with it a bit tonight; set the ratio to infinite, but there are a ton of other settings and I'm not finding the right combo to get what I need. I really need some sort of guide to make the Studio Comp into a brickwall limiter. I'm still getting clipping over the -0.1 limit I've set. i don't need any comp, per se, just a tool to make sure it's as loud as possible without going over 0.0dB (or -0.1dB, either way).

So yeah, I still think there needs to be a clear cut setting, mode, or entire block for the/a brickwall limiter.
Click to expand...

Here are a few notes that may help:

1. lookahead v. attack : your lookahead needs to be longer than the attack or it won't work. Max lookahead is 2ms, and min attack is 1ms, use those values.

2. threshold vs. output level. You need to find out what output level clips your outboard gear. This depends on the position of the hardware "OUT n" knobs on the front of the Axe. One approach is to max out the OUT knob and then make sure you don't clip. This will give you save levels for any rotation of the OUT knob.

In my case, it seems that I need to hold the internal OUT1 level in the Axe to -12dB in order for Out1 not to clip my Apollo Quad when OUT1 is fully clockwise. So, I set my threshold to -12.3dB (I like to run 0.3dB under when I'm maxing things out).

3. As noted in a previous post, you will *still* clip. I'm guessing the occasional true-peak escapes the INFINITE ratio. If that is a problem, keep reducing your threshold until you don't go over.

4. gain staging : I don't like the end-of-the-line limiter to be working very hard, just catching the odd peak. So, watch the gain reduction meter and set it to be only occasionally working (unless you are trying to use limiting as an effect in itself).

5. don't forget to remember! : you will get seemingly strange behavior from your patches if you forget you have this limiter engaged. Turn up the amp, no increase in volume. Remember it is there and periodically check to see that #4 is still as you want it (i.e., infrequent limiting).

Hope this helps...
 
fractalz said:
Hope this helps...
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It doesn't, but I appreciate you taking the time to try. I don't get why it's impossible to find a setting that simply won't allow the signal to clip, but I'll digress. I'm sure someone with more clout will eventually request it and it'll be implemented. Just a matter of waiting. I mean, it's ALMOST there with the comp, but still frustrating seeing it clip above the 0 regularly. In any case, it's good enough for my purposes, and I know that the occasional clip above the 0 isn't a big deal.

BTW, i'm running SPDIF; so my biggest concern is getting the loudest, strongest signal without internally going into the red. But again, it's pretty close thanks to yours and others' help, so this'll do for now. Thanks!
 
I also didn't a good result with the above settings.
So I tried the Dynamics Processor.
After some experimenting I got some good results with the following settings:
Threshold: 12,0 dB
Dynamics: 2,20
Attack Time: 1 ms
Release Time: 10 ms
Look-Ahead Time: 2 ms
 
MisterE said:
I also didn't a good result with the above settings.
So I tried the Dynamics Processor.
After some experimenting I got some good results with the following settings:
Threshold: 12,0 dB
Dynamics: 2,20
Attack Time: 1 ms
Release Time: 10 ms
Look-Ahead Time: 2 ms
Click to expand...
Thanks for posting your settings I’ll give them a try:)
 
I'm not familiar with compressors at all but after reading about this I experimented a bit.
I set the amp level so that it tickled the red on the output.
Sometimes, when chugging on low chords, it went a couple of dB over.
What's confusing for me, is that I assumed that the threshold level was supposed to be set at 0dB as to limit the peaks to 0 dB.

I then read a bit about settings the levels in DAWs and found that the settings of the threshold of the compressor actually corresponded more to the levels in my DAW.
When recording without compressor engaged, the levels were around -12 dB with peaks up to around -8 dB (see first waveform)
I then set the compressor using the following settings:
Threshold: -16 dB
Ratio: INFINITE
Attack Time: 1 ms
Release Time: 10 ms
Look-Ahead Time: 2 ms

As you can see in the second waveform, the peaks are greatly reduced:
Reaper - comparing compressor settings.jpg
 
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