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[The Town Halo]

I've had some revelations through my experimentation...

1) DeNoiser takes too much away from the original sound. When applied, there is not enough air around the instruments and vocals. Results are best when exclusively using the DeClicker (with a mild setting). DeNoiser is best left for tape hiss and FM issues. It's best to leave a little surface noise when transferring vinyl.

2) After going through the DeClicker, the SLIGHTEST amount of boost of high end from Spark's One Band EQ seems to really open the sound back up again. I used to stay away from EQ manipulation, but I'm quite pleased with the sound through my B&W speakers when tweaking the high end ever-so-gently...

3) I see why people love using a Limiter. I'm hooked! Again, another great Spark plugin (Native CL) is yielding outstanding results. I set it at -.01, find the hottest sections, and boost the input so it's only rarely hitting -.01, not needing to cut off too much. The dynamics are improved beyond belief!

4) DSP Qattro has an amazing setup for running all of these plugins WHILE recording! What a time saver! The only thing I have left to do after recording is dither down to 16-bits, create the playlist, and burn!!!

5) It's nice to know that former Spark programmers work on DSP Quattro, that the main programmer still loves those old plugins, and that the new ones that they're working on should be of similar quality!!!

[Ronny]

The Town Halo wrote on Sun, 14 August 2005 00:36

3) I see why people love using a Limiter. I'm hooked! Again, another great Spark plugin (Native CL) is yielding outstanding results. I set it at -.01, find the hottest sections, and boost the input so it's only rarely hitting -.01, not needing to cut off too much. The dynamics are improved beyond belief!

I've never owned a limiter that improved dynamics, they always decrease dynamic range, this is not an improvement, IMHO. What you are likely hearing as an improvement is the louder is better phenomenon, when you increase input your dynamic range is lessened, but because you've limited the peak transients and raised RMS, the louder version naturally sounds better. If you really want to hear what a limiter is doing, A/B with the original source, but lower the gain on the limited version so that you hear them at the same perceived level. The limited version will than sound like it has less dynamics than the original version not better dynamics from being louder.

[The Town Halo]

Ronny wrote on Sun, 14 August 2005 05:59

I've never owned a limiter that improved dynamics, they always decrease dynamic range, this is not an improvement, IMHO. What you are likely hearing as an improvement is the louder is better phenomenon, when you increase input your dynamic range is lessened, but because you've limited the peak transients and raised RMS, the louder version naturally sounds better. If you really want to hear what a limiter is doing, A/B with the original source, but lower the gain on the limited version so that you hear them at the same perceived level. The limited version will than sound like it has less dynamics than the original version not better dynamics from being louder.

Yeah...it must be due to being "louder"......but if I'm not really pushing too hard, isn't it only cutting off inaudible sections? I'm trying to find the easiest way to take care of everything WHILE recording, instead of manually looking for the peak and raising gain each time. Isn't the limiter only compressing when it goes above -.01? Also, I hate when one track peaks 2 or 3 db's louder than the rest of an album...I don't want to have to manually add gain for each track.....I thought maybe this would be the best solution. However, SOUND is the key. If finding peak and adding gain really does give me the best SOUND, then that's what I'll go back to doing.

[Ronny]

The Town Halo wrote on Sun, 14 August 2005 10:05

Ronny wrote on Sun, 14 August 2005 05:59 I've never owned a limiter that improved dynamics, they always decrease dynamic range, this is not an improvement, IMHO. What you are likely hearing as an improvement is the louder is better phenomenon, when you increase input your dynamic range is lessened, but because you've limited the peak transients and raised RMS, the louder version naturally sounds better. If you really want to hear what a limiter is doing, A/B with the original source, but lower the gain on the limited version so that you hear them at the same perceived level. The limited version will than sound like it has less dynamics than the original version not better dynamics from being louder. Yeah...it must be due to being "louder"......but if I'm not really pushing too hard, isn't it only cutting off inaudible sections? I'm trying to find the easiest way to take care of everything WHILE recording, instead of manually looking for the peak and raising gain each time. Isn't the limiter only compressing when it goes above -.01? Also, I hate when one track peaks 2 or 3 db's louder than the rest of an album...I don't want to have to manually add gain for each track.....I thought maybe this would be the best solution. However, SOUND is the key. If finding peak and adding gain really does give me the best SOUND, then that's what I'll go back to doing.

The limiter starts compressing when the signal reaches the threshold, if it's at -3dB, the limiter comes on at -3dB, if you set output gain at -.01dB, it has nothing to do with when the compressor is activated, as this gain is set after compression is applied. You can set output gain to -.01dB and threshold to -5dB and the limiting will be activated at -5dB. The amount of gain reduction varies from -3dB to -5dB, but the output gains are the same.

[The Town Halo]

Ronny wrote on Sun, 14 August 2005 16:49

The limiter starts compressing when the signal reaches the threshold, if it's at -3dB, the limiter comes on at -3dB, if you set output gain at -.01dB, it has nothing to do with when the compressor is activated, as this gain is set after compression is applied. You can set output gain to -.01dB and threshold to -5dB and the limiting will be activated at -5dB. The amount of gain reduction varies from -3dB to -5dB, but the output gains are the same.

Ah....so as long as the output gain doesn't push the levels up to the threshold too often, I won't get a whole lot of compression, and can really benefit from the overall boost in volume....?

[Ronny]

The Town Halo wrote on Sun, 14 August 2005 12:13

Ronny wrote on Sun, 14 August 2005 16:49 The limiter starts compressing when the signal reaches the threshold, if it's at -3dB, the limiter comes on at -3dB, if you set output gain at -.01dB, it has nothing to do with when the compressor is activated, as this gain is set after compression is applied. You can set output gain to -.01dB and threshold to -5dB and the limiting will be activated at -5dB. The amount of gain reduction varies from -3dB to -5dB, but the output gains are the same. Ah....so as long as the output gain doesn't push the levels up to the threshold too often, I won't get a whole lot of compression, and can really benefit from the overall boost in volume....?

Output gain doesn't push levels up to the threshold, input gain determines the level at when the threshold gets exceeded and turns the compression on. As long as your output gain at the DAC is under 0dBFs you won't clip. Levelers like the L2 link input, threshold and output gain parameters so when you turn threshold down, gain to the output section rises, however the final peak output remains fixed. The RMS has been raised and you hear it becoming louder. Because these parameters are linked, when you turn the threshold down to say -5dB, you'll get about -5dB of gain reduction and an increase of perceived gain of about 5dB by just adjusting the threshold control. An older type limiter where you have to manually set input, output and gain reduction will lower the gain on the signal as the threshold goes down and you have to manually turn up the output gain to get a louder perception. In this case you can clip if output gain exceeds -0dBFs at the DAC, but because threshold is lowering gain, you can boost output by the amount of compression applied, so although output gain knob reads above 0dB on some limiters, you won't clip until you exceed the make up gain range. Output gain on the newer L2 types can't be set above 0dB, because make up gain isn't manually determined by the user and is automatically linked to the threshold parameter.