Revelation wrote on Sat, 11 February 2006 08:05 |
compasspnt wrote on Thu, 09 February 2006 12:54 |
UnderTow wrote on Thu, 09 February 2006 12:27 |
But hey, if you are going to stick with the L2 without comparing with the (cheaper) competition, thats fine by me.
|
Or the (better) competition, regardless of its cost.
|
Hey thats not true. Right now I am in the middle of paying off debt that I have. So I am very careful on what I buy right now. Wavelab 6 is the first thing I need to buy and some money I am making in the studio will pay for it. Only $399 since I already own Cubase. The L2 has given me great results for years (and many others here) and it has a decent dither built in. So I am not going to jump on every thread about new great gear and just start buying stuff. After Wavelab 6, and a matched pair of mic's for acoustic guitar, then I will look into things besides the L2.
In regards to the Sony Limiter, I could not even try it if I wanted to, becuase I run Cubase and don't have a Powercore card.
|
I've seen a lot of L2 trashing on the mastering webboards but nobody (probably on purpose) seems to be explaining how to use it. The "secret" is that it works very well if you only use 1.0 to 2.0 of the threshold setting.
Now you are going to say that you can't get the program loud enough. So in order to use the L2 very lightly, one has to get the gain hot enough before the ADC so that the L2 is not over used.
I can't speak for plug-in mastering guys but I get my volume by stepping up through 3 to 4 units of high-end tube gear (usual culprits, Manleys, Tubetech, Requisite), hit an analog peak limiter and get competitive volume with more dynamics.
If I need a little more help, I'll use my Weiss DS1 in parallel or straight compressor mode, say a 2.00:1 ratio with 1 db of gain reduction. I can also add a bit of compression with any of my tube units. Unless its the latest emo/screamo, my approach is to finess the levels upward.
I used to be a plug-ins only guy in the early days and also over did the L1/L2, thus causing distortion as described.
However, hitting the L2 lightly, it sounds just as "transparent" as my TC 6000 Brickwall limiter and for loud music, is almost always my first choice.
I have hitched my horse to Mac so I am envious of those of you with choices that only work in the PC environment but using the L2 as described above works very well for me and many other experienced mastering engineers.
Andy,
Silverbirch Productions