when to use a limiter instead of compressor?

[jesse_baccus]

Limiting is an extreme form of compression where the threshold is set 10:1 or higher.

Brick wall limiting is usually 20:1 or higher with a faster attack and release (hard knee) fast attack times on limiting will give you more of a clipped sound.

So anytime you would want to have more extreme compression use limiting.

indeed, compression and limiting are the same beast, forms of a leveling amplifiers. However, I disagree with the mindset of use limiting when you want more extreme compression, not a dis to TW, but he brings up what I consider to be a mis-interuptation.

True, if you feed the same signal into your box as a compressor , then switch it to limiting, its process will become more aggressive, however what a limiting function allows you to do when you back the input gain down, or the threshold up is when gear becomes versatile.

I use limiting over compression if my compressor will not respond fast enough and has a fixed attack time or a signal needs a great deal of control.
For an example, some overly resonant information when i need to gain control... by backing off the gain of the signal hitting the device (without being ridiculous), you allow yourself to find the balance between headroom and noise floor which your signal needs to work happily through the devices electronics. Now the waveforms attacks will move freely, allowing the detection circuit to work more efficiently.

This can be good practice with compression as well as long as the threshold is kept in mind- but works very nicely for limiting because your ratio is set aggressively and you can finesse the threshold to control the signal you want to control (often keeping it very high to only effect wild signal), while keeping other waveforms dynamic.

This also makes attack and release time very very very important.

Every tool has its use, and there are so many because they take a different approach to the same job, much as any tradesmen does. Its important to listen to your leveling amplifier and learn its characteristics. Leveling amplifiers are dynamic processors like everything else, so knowing what you're out to achieve by using it allows you to set it for that purpose.

Practice in listening to how fast a tom transient is (for example), will allow you to set the attack of the LA to miss the waveforms' attack, retaining slap- and a high ratio (via a limiter) can give you the aggressive amount of leveling needed to control the boom that follows. Thusly giving you a nice even, controlled envelope, and a happy everyone.

This is a huge topic, so I hope I didn't meander about too much in order to answer your question. Hope it helped!

[Judas Jetski]

I limit when I've got sharp transient peaks to knock off, but I don't want to mess with the tone much.
Someone already said this.
For instance, when tracking bass.
Someone already said that too.
Or, when I'm tracking my own vocals and there's no one else around to watch meters/levels/etc. That's what I like to do with limiting. It's nice. Sometimes.

Some other times it makes my voice sound as though my head was made of silly putty. As easy as compression is to overdo, limiting is easier. But if you're super-super-conservative with limiting it can be pretty subtle.

Somebody probably already said that, too. I'm going to bed.

[wedge]

as though my head was made of silly putty.

Well, it is, you know...

[Judas Jetski]

as though my head was made of silly putty.

Well, it is, you know...

Actually, that explains a lot.

[David Piper]

The original poster asked for examples, and these came to mind...

Lately I've been recording lots of mandolin. I use a limiter with a high threshold, fast attack, and fast release times when I do this, because I want to get rid of all the spiky, sudden attacks that poke through the mix, but want it to sound pretty natural and open like an acoustic instrument still - not colored at all by compression.

On the opposite hand, I use an 'opto' limiter a lot when I want to smooth something out and really color the sound. This probably means very slow attack times, a very small ratio, and a really low threshold. I may be really 'digging in' to the original sound wave, but because I have a slow attack and small ratio I'm able to do this and still only end up with a reasonable amount of gain reduction. I did this lately with a singer who had a wonderful, unique, gravely sounding voice but was very much untrained. The slow attack leaves his articulation in place, the low threshold evens out the discrepancies in volume between his higher notes and the lower ones, and the long release time brings up all the cool character and subtleties of his voice.

I'm not sure it's entirely accurate, but opto compressors make things sound older to me in a sort of golden age of radio (50's-60's) sort of way.... DJ's could yell into the mic, and it created a sort of tension where they were trying to be loud, but the compressor was always tugging them back. Because the attack and release times are slow, it's sounds like they are riding on the compressor's rises and falls, instead of having it surgically cut into the sound. There's some clips of in Martin Scorsese's Blues documentary of Rufus Thomas on radio station WDIA that I always think of in terms of this sound (I've watched the clip a few dozen times because I use it as part of a unit I do in school general music classes on the blues). I also think it had to do with the bandwidth limitations of AM radio, and the stations needing to make sure that they were not overmodulating their signal, so they would compress things pretty hard.

Some old Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin stuff that has a similar thing going on, in terms of long release times and the sort of 'bloom' that they impart to the sound. Maybe this isn't exclusive to opto limiters, as much as just long release times, although I'd think there were plenty of opto limiters in use on those albums. I hear a similar thing - in a more modern hi-fi way - on a lot of Lucinda William's "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road" album. I digress, but thinking of examples of that opto limiter sound is fun. I'd be curious to hear people smarter than me elaborate on this.

Oh! I've also used a Pendulum Opto limiter on a jazz organ trio record I did, to run the stereo mix through, because the client said "I feel like I hear every little thing, it doesn't need to be so hi-fi". It glued things together, and got him a little closer to - again - that sort of older sound he was used to hearing on old Grant Green and other Blue Note records.

That's when I use a limiter instead of a compressor.

[Waltz Mastering]

Some old Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin stuff that has a similar thing going on, in terms of long release times and the sort of 'bloom' that they impart to the sound. Maybe this isn't exclusive to opto limiters, as much as just long release times, although I'd think there were plenty of opto limiters in use on those albums. I hear a similar thing - in a more modern hi-fi way - on a lot of Lucinda William's "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road" album. I digress, but thinking of examples of that opto limiter sound is fun. I'd be curious to hear people smarter than me elaborate on this.

A bit off topic but "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road" is an album that was mastered by Hank Williams that sort of has that bloom sound as you mentioned. I always liked how that master sounded. You could definitely here the sound of the limiting working but it was in a very cool way. Turns out they had the album remastered with Greg Calbi for the deluxe addition in 2006. I guess it would be cool to a/b the two version as I haven't heard the latest.