Analog/Hardware Brickwall Limiter for Digital Mastering

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KuruPrionz
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Re: Analog/Hardware Brickwall Limiter for Digital Mastering

Post by KuruPrionz » Fri Jan 14, 2022 8:26 pm

MoreSpaceEcho wrote:
Fri Jan 14, 2022 3:54 pm
Trying to make a showing in the loudness wars with cheap analog gear is knife-to-a-gunfight stuff.

20:1 isn't going to do it. Digital brickwall limiters are like 1000:1, and they use algos specifically designed to somehow sound good doing this insanity. Even if a cheap analog limiter is actually fast enough to catch the peaks, it's going to be so, so, sooooooo much grungier than any of the current digital limiters.

I get not wanting to deal with a computer, but the tunes are going to have to go on a computer at some point if Snarl's ever gonna share them with anyone, it'd be simple business to set up a default REAPER session with a limiter (the stock one will probably work fine) on track one, drop the new mixes onto the track, adjust levels into the limiter, export masters. And there's probably some script so you could do this with like 2.2 mouse clicks.
I read your post and wondering what you were on about I took a look at the link in the OP. That does throw a bit of perspective on this thread.
He asked a question here about under -$500 analog limiters and to a limited extent I answered it. There are other options but not much for stereo and I don't recommend anything I haven't owned and used.

I just use the VLA II for tracking and just enough to tame some minor peaks when tracking. Most of my peaks are cured with technique. Multi-unit condo so I don't get real loud, ever.

Like the OP, I'm a "record myself at home" sort of studio rat.
We have way too many people already in Bellingham trying to make a buck recording other people, that market is glutted. Like many, I make do with what I can afford to spend on what is essentially a side hobby to support my songwriting habit/hobby. I've a good number of limiter plugins but I haven't gotten around to using most of them and the OP didn't ask about them anyway.

And I have zero interest in the "loudness wars", I thought the streaming sites put more or less an end to that for music with LUFS standards. Just a television commercial thing now as far as I can tell. I like dynamics, just not peaky "overs".

If I had $5k to buy a high end analog compressor, I'd put it in a Roth IRA, buy some stocks and let it make some money instead. It would certainly do better than another studio in this town.

Just my 2 cents, on to the next... :D
Last edited by KuruPrionz on Sat Jan 15, 2022 10:40 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Analog/Hardware Brickwall Limiter for Digital Mastering

Post by vvv » Sat Jan 15, 2022 9:13 am

Sounds to me that what he might want is a compressor/limiter with a "look ahead" feature.

Reading this, I could figure out how to set it up analog for mixing, but not recording:
https://www.mixinglessons.com/look-ahead-compression/

The only hardware I know of is the TCE M5000/M6000, found by googlin', but it's <US$1K.
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Re: Analog/Hardware Brickwall Limiter for Digital Mastering

Post by jimjazzdad » Sun Jan 16, 2022 4:44 am

Aphex Dominator. I've had one at the end of my analogue chain for years. Takes a bit of fiddling to get it set right, but once dialed in for your particular AD conversion, you never have to look at it again and, more importantly, never have to worry about overs. Used as a limiter, without trying for colour or crunch, its absolutely transparent (at least to my old ears). Can easily be found used for <$500.
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Re: Analog/Hardware Brickwall Limiter for Digital Mastering

Post by Scodiddly » Sun Jan 16, 2022 10:34 am

TC Electronics Finalizer Express? Digital, but TC always made good sounding boxes with digital innards. And the "Express" version is going for under $500 all over the place.

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Re: Analog/Hardware Brickwall Limiter for Digital Mastering

Post by numberthirty » Sun Jan 16, 2022 3:08 pm

Scodiddly wrote:
Sun Jan 16, 2022 10:34 am
TC Electronics Finalizer Express? Digital, but TC always made good sounding boxes with digital innards. And the "Express" version is going for under $500 all over the place.
From memory, it also has a "Soft Clip..." section that seems like it might address the issue as described.

That said, Reaper pretty well has you covered for sixty bucks.

https://reaperblog.net/2012/09/js-effec ... t_clipper/

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Re: Analog/Hardware Brickwall Limiter for Digital Mastering

Post by Nick Sevilla » Sun Jan 16, 2022 6:05 pm

MoreSpaceEcho wrote:
Fri Jan 14, 2022 3:54 pm
Trying to make a showing in the loudness wars with cheap analog gear is knife-to-a-gunfight stuff.

20:1 isn't going to do it. Digital brickwall limiters are like 1000:1, and they use algos specifically designed to somehow sound good doing this insanity. Even if a cheap analog limiter is actually fast enough to catch the peaks, it's going to be so, so, sooooooo much grungier than any of the current digital limiters.
In the digital domain, they can absolutely use something called "looking ahead" at the audio file, and customize the response of the brickwall limiter to do as much or as little as you set it up to do, without crazy digital overs. That's what that Waves L2 box did, and why it was so popular in mastering studios for so long. It converts to digital, applies crazy amounts of limiting that don't sound horrific, and then converts back to analog on the output side.
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Re: Analog/Hardware Brickwall Limiter for Digital Mastering

Post by MoreSpaceEcho » Mon Jan 17, 2022 9:16 am

Snarl could try and find some old L2 hardware (they're going for around $1400 on Reverb right now), and while that would be loads better and more appropriate for what he wants to do than an RNC or ART or TC whatever, it's still basically outdated junk and he'd do way way way better using the $60 plugin I linked to earlier.

Absolutely by far the best way to do what he wants to do is use modern plugin clippers/limiters. Instead of spending $500 on some analog whatever, for that same money you could set up a basic mastering chain that'd be state of the art. Literally the same stuff pro ME's use.

I say this as a veteran mastering engineer.

You'd be crazy to try and do this with cheap analog gear when modern digital gear is so much better and way less expensive.

As I said earlier, I get not wanting to look at music on a computer, but it'd be so simple to set up a basic 'mastering' template in a DAW where you could essentially just drop in your mixes and automagically make them louder.

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Re: Analog/Hardware Brickwall Limiter for Digital Mastering

Post by drumsound » Mon Jan 17, 2022 9:57 am

MoreSpaceEcho wrote:
Mon Jan 17, 2022 9:16 am
Snarl could try and find some old L2 hardware (they're going for around $1400 on Reverb right now), and while that would be loads better and more appropriate for what he wants to do than an RNC or ART or TC whatever, it's still basically outdated junk and he'd do way way way better using the $60 plugin I linked to earlier.

Absolutely by far the best way to do what he wants to do is use modern plugin clippers/limiters. Instead of spending $500 on some analog whatever, for that same money you could set up a basic mastering chain that'd be state of the art. Literally the same stuff pro ME's use.

I say this as a veteran mastering engineer.

You'd be crazy to try and do this with cheap analog gear when modern digital gear is so much better and way less expensive.

As I said earlier, I get not wanting to look at music on a computer, but it'd be so simple to set up a basic 'mastering' template in a DAW where you could essentially just drop in your mixes and automagically make them louder.
Plus, the majority of the time wouldn't be looking at a computer. It would almost be an afterthought, like running backups.

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Re: Analog/Hardware Brickwall Limiter for Digital Mastering

Post by MoreSpaceEcho » Mon Jan 17, 2022 10:01 am

Right. Except anyone doing this will quickly realize they need an eq before the limiter, and probably a de-esser, and....welcome to mastering.

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Re: Analog/Hardware Brickwall Limiter for Digital Mastering

Post by digitaldrummer » Mon Jan 17, 2022 3:00 pm

or just slam the Waves L2 plugin on there and welcome to home mastering in 2001! (more points if you use a cracked version)
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Re: Analog/Hardware Brickwall Limiter for Digital Mastering

Post by digitaldrummer » Mon Jan 17, 2022 3:08 pm

but seriously... a PC or laptop. Mac/Windows. Doesn't even have to be modern to run one or two plugins on a stereo master. You could use a 20 year old computer to do this job. All you need is 2 channels of input on a decent interface. But as MSE and other mentioned, the digital rackmount gear could do "a job" and it might be "good", but it won't be "better" or "best", and it will probably cost more.
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Re: Analog/Hardware Brickwall Limiter for Digital Mastering

Post by MoreSpaceEcho » Mon Jan 17, 2022 3:29 pm

...and be more of a pain in the ass to use.

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Re: Analog/Hardware Brickwall Limiter for Digital Mastering

Post by Snarl 12/8 » Wed Jan 19, 2022 3:57 pm

Hi,

I want to thank everyone for discussing this. I'm always surprised when wanting to be off the computer is controversial. I hate that I essentially function as a troll on the internet at times, but I feel like I am sincere about this. Oh well. I'm pretty committed to figuring this out. I'm assuming the diode thing will make my Allen & Heath sound like a rat pedal if I use it, but I love the idea and it has given me another out of the box idea that I want to try. I'll report back if it works.

I should have mentioned a few things, but I forgot to since I felt like the original post was getting a little long and rambly.

1) I tried two of my cheap compressors in this role already. They helped a bit, but not with these momentary overs. I think they're just not fast enough. That's why I was hoping (and assuming) that there were boxes built specifically for this role that I didn't know about. I usually embrace technology right when it starts coming up in price again after falling totally out of favor. I keep thinking I can pick up amazing boxes for really cheap from all you guys that live in the box now, but that hasn't quite happened yet. Waiting for the "just look in the dumpster behind the studio" era of analog compressor limiters.

2) I'm a total heathen. I actually like the sound of digital overs! I've been super into embracing the glitchiness of my vintage and newer gear. If some compressor is glitching and cuttng in and out, I'm likely to plug a guitar in, or something, and groove to the glitchiness for hours. I love fucked up sounds, but some of the people I have played shit for in the past have complained about "noise".

Who am I going to share my stuff with going forward? Perhaps no one. But it's been making me happy to just sortof jam with myself in the evenings. I'll record a drum beat and a bass part and then just play guitar to that for an hour or two, usually not bothering to record the guitar part. The solid state recorder gives me an easy way to record these "jams" in case I want to hear it back later. I'm not really finishing anything, but I'm feeling the urge to do more, try to collaborate with people, etc. So I'd like an easy way to get a file that I didn't have to dick with on a computer afterwards. maybe I'd share more if I could do that?

I guess I do sound like I live under a rock. But I am aware of DAW's and plugins. I know they can do almost anything right now, but not for me. The more I try to do audio on the computer (and I did try for decades) the more I hate it. After moving to computer from Analog 8-track in high-school and college my musical productivity just slowly nose dived to nothing. I've had several ITB setups, starting with Bias Deck on Mac in the 90's. Through Reaper and DAW's I can't even remember. The OTB thing is an ADHD life hack and it's working for me. What good is all that power if my brain just glazes over at the thought of all those options? I'm much happier getting off my ass and physically strapping something across my mix buss than I am picking a plugin from an endless list.

That Dominator sound perfect. I'm going to keep my eye out. Thanks so much for the suggestions. Keep 'em coming if you know of similar units.
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Re: Analog/Hardware Brickwall Limiter for Digital Mastering

Post by Scodiddly » Wed Jan 19, 2022 4:45 pm

Some dbx comps, including ones that are going cheap these days such as the 1066, have the "Peakstop" function which claims to be an instantaneous clamp on the signal. Maybe you've even got one in your garage?

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Re: Analog/Hardware Brickwall Limiter for Digital Mastering

Post by vvv » Wed Jan 19, 2022 5:04 pm

Another idear is to embrace the digital ...


... but not onna pooter - something like the recorder I use, the Zoom R16, perhaps.

It operates like a tape deck, and is self-sufficient with onboard compressors and reverbs, etc. (I don't use the onboard stuff - it's a multi-track recorder for me to be used remotely, or for living-room jams.)

I am sure there are other modern Tascam units, etc., or you could always look at a Boss BR8 or even an older VS unit.

They are made to be somewhat flexible, and easy to use ... you might even find one with a limiter. EDIT: the R16 has a limiter.

Here's the manual:
https://www.zoom.co.jp/sites/default/fi ... /E_R16.pdf
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