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Author Topic: Scrollworks Peak Slammer  (Read 10878 times)

eightyeightkeys

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Scrollworks Peak Slammer
« on: May 11, 2004, 04:42:07 PM »

Not that I want to contribute to volume wars in any way, but, I was wondering if anyone is/was using this plug-in ?

Ethan Winer turned me on to this extremely inexpensive little gem and it works beautifully and without compression or limiting in the traditional sense.

If you haven't tried it or if you think it can't be any good because of the price you should really give it a chance.
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Dave T.
D&D Music

prozak

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Re: Scrollworks Peak Slammer
« Reply #1 on: May 12, 2004, 01:57:34 PM »

Great. I love the discussion about the pro's and con's of various peak limiters. Its like discussing what gun is most suited to shooting oneself in the head.

Sorry for the rant, but today I have again ruined a beautiful recording with a paek limiter, the second this week and it is only wednesday. When the mixing engineer's face turned like he had just bitten into a lemon (and somebody held a plate of shit in front of his face), I knew that I had done the right thing: The clients will love it.

Sorry bro, I know you spend many hours on these mixes to make them dynamic and open sounding, still with plenty of energy -after all it is Punk Rock, but hey who can argue with a client whose reference is something that has been proudly impaled in NYC?

Maybe this is a way out of the loudness war.. just piss of the mixing engineer enough so that he can utilise the months he spends with the band and producer to inducing some sort reason?
In the couple of hours I spend with them there is no hope, and everytime I spoke nicely and explained and did not squish to death I had to "fix" it later for free
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Tim Lengfeld
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prozak

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Re: Scrollworks Peak Slammer
« Reply #2 on: May 12, 2004, 02:00:18 PM »

PS Thanks for the tip. Am d/l as we speak
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Tim Lengfeld
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eightyeightkeys

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Re: Scrollworks Peak Slammer
« Reply #3 on: May 12, 2004, 02:40:31 PM »

You said quite a bit there and I don't understand too much of it at all.

Did you ruin a mix by over limiting it with.......what ?.......Peak Slammer or another Limiter ? I've never ever ruined a mix with Peak Slammer because it's completely transparent up to the limits that I've used it.

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Dave T.
D&D Music

prozak

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Re: Scrollworks Peak Slammer
« Reply #4 on: May 12, 2004, 02:57:14 PM »

"I've never ever ruined a mix with Peak Slammer because it's completely transparent up to the limits that I've used it"

Nah, I used another limiter. I don't mean to say that using a (any) limiter will necessarily ruin a mix. However, at the amount of limiting required to make some clients happy any limiter will ruin the sound (at least until Waves releases the L3 <g>).

Locally, it is usually the not-yet-established acts that insist on ye olde splatterfest, probably from the fear their album will look pussy against the bad examples imported from overseas.
The established acts don't seem to give a hoot if there album is "soft" - their fans will buy it anyway (and I guess for the same reason the big A-List acts don't care if everything is squashed to shit.
Oh, and I forget to mention the producer who thinks that Johnny Cash's "America IV" is the most brilliant master known to mankind.
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Tim Lengfeld
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Ronny

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Re: Scrollworks Peak Slammer
« Reply #5 on: May 12, 2004, 04:29:04 PM »


Loudness wars are not bound by the borders of different countries. It's more of a genre thing. The heavy metal tunes from Europe are typically going to be squashed more than the jazz songs from the US and vice versa. However, more and more genre's have bowed down to the God of Gain and the jazz and country songs of today can often have 5 to 6dB less RMS, than they did 5 years ago. It is a disease that has crept out of the mastering suites and is spreading across the genre spectrum to mix engineers.


Can't blame the limiters for this. The knobs don't tweak by themselves. Where's the url to this Peak Slammer? I want to chain 10 of them, so that the speaker excursion will stay extended on the positive phase.  Laughing
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eightyeightkeys

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Re: Scrollworks Peak Slammer
« Reply #6 on: May 12, 2004, 06:55:38 PM »

Peak Slammer works as if it was "re-drawing" the highest peaks in the pre-master by a user-defined amount. Set it to -4.4 db and it reduces the highest peaks by that amount and then Normalizes the remainder of the track to full scale. You can achieve "louder" Masters without compression/limiting.

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Dave T.
D&D Music

davidc

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Re: Scrollworks Peak Slammer
« Reply #7 on: May 12, 2004, 08:03:10 PM »

d&d wrote on Wed, 12 May 2004 23:55

Peak Slammer works as if it was "re-drawing" the highest peaks in the pre-master by a user-defined amount. Set it to -4.4 db and it reduces the highest peaks by that amount and then Normalizes the remainder of the track to full scale. You can achieve "louder" Masters without compression/limiting.



d&d,

What makes you think this is not a limiter?

David C
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eightyeightkeys

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Re: Scrollworks Peak Slammer
« Reply #8 on: May 12, 2004, 11:00:01 PM »

http://www.scrollworks.com/products/slammer/

It tames the rogue peaks without altering the sonics or the proportions of anything else in the mix. The elements of the mix that are supposed to be further back remain further back and I like that.  It's not a compressor.

Another thing comes to mind, it doesn't exhibit any of the transient "softening" or smearing that, for example, the L1 imparts on deeper limiting. Some kicks and snares just end up mushy/wispy after L1 limiting.

It's not harsh. In fact, it has no "sound" of it's own that I could detect.

Also, I don't really want to go into every pre-master and find the hottest peaks and have to physically re-draw them and that's basically what this thing does with a minimum of artifacts......in fact, none that I can detect that's why I was curious if anyone else has detected or noticed any drawbacks.
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Dave T.
D&D Music

jazzius

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Re: Scrollworks Peak Slammer
« Reply #9 on: May 13, 2004, 01:36:37 AM »

The loudest peaks carry the waveform for softer sounds, so reducing these peaks will also reduce anything else at that moment.....there's no way round this.....also, a limiter that doesn't soften transients?.....it just doesn't make any sense....!.....having said all that, i'll try it at the studio later today to make sure it isn't magic....cheers

Innominandum

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Re: Scrollworks Peak Slammer
« Reply #10 on: May 13, 2004, 02:01:13 AM »

I did a search on it, a website said it works something like this... it normalizes the peak & all information between the two nearest zero-crossings before and after it. ????
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Ethan Winer

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Re: Scrollworks Peak Slammer
« Reply #11 on: May 13, 2004, 11:17:35 AM »

David,

> What makes you think this is not a limiter? <

The main distinction between PeakSlammer and a compressor or limiter is that it has no time constants - there's no attack or release time settings. That's why it's transparent when used in moderation. Like D&D I generally use 4 dB of level reduction, though I've used as much as 6 dB a few times without getting any artifacts. However I do not use the "Normalize" feature because it brings the level all the way up to 0. So I instead normalize manually afterward to -0.1 dB because some CD players can't handle a signal that reaches exactly 0 dB.

If a track is already pretty constant and there are no single peaks that stick out, then PeakSlammer is less useful. In fact, I've used it many times with classical music where a single huge tympani hit at the climax, or an equivalent loud peak somewhere else, forces the entire track to be many dB softer than it could be otherwise.

--Ethan

OTR-jkl

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Re: Scrollworks Peak Slammer
« Reply #12 on: May 13, 2004, 02:47:26 PM »

Quote:

also, a limiter that doesn't soften transients?.....it just doesn't make any sense....!

Sounds to me like it looks at all peaks that exceed your selected max and then does a "volume redux" of each of those peaks from the zero crossing immediately preceeding to the zero crossing immediately after each peak. In this way, the shape of the peak waveform is essentially un-altered - just lower in value now. Any deformities caused would be way down in amplitude value.

It will, as stated b4, reduce all other material in that region of time along with the peak. If the peaks are few in number, you probably wouldn't notice it.

Also sounds like the same function as "look-ahead" limiting...
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jazzius

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Re: Scrollworks Peak Slammer
« Reply #13 on: May 17, 2004, 07:38:15 AM »

ok, tried this plug......actually it's pretty cool....what it does (that i like) is preserve the velocity of the leading edge of transients (yeah, i know this is un-technical but this is the best way i can explain it)....compared to the L2, which kills the attack more....but there's no free lunch....the Peak-slammer distorts quicker then the L2, 'specially noticable on material where there is already distortion present....

eightyeightkeys

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Re: Scrollworks Peak Slammer
« Reply #14 on: May 17, 2004, 03:58:52 PM »

jazzius wrote on Mon, 17 May 2004 12:38

....but there's no free lunch....the Peak-slammer distorts quicker then the L2, 'specially noticable on material where there is already distortion present....


It distorts "quicker" ?

Do you mean that it distorts more/quicker when applying deeper "limiting"  ? I'm not quite following there.

And when there's "already distortion present" ?....as in, heavily distrorted electric guitars ? or when the pre-master itself is distorted ?

I have to say that I've it only sparingly. That is, up to -4.4db but I found it to be completely transparent.
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Dave T.
D&D Music
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