Compression vs Limiting vs Clipping

these three knives are the key to understanding compression limiting and clipping and how you can use these tools to craft better mixes let's Dive In [Music] this is a chef's knife larger Chef's knives are used for cutting meat dicing vegetables and chopping herbs this is a serrated knife it's typically used for slicing bread cakes and other baked goods and this is a paring knife you can use this for carving slicing and chopping fruits or vegetables among a few other things now all these knives cut but each one can be used in different ways and for different purposes depending on the scenario the idea is the same with compressors limiters and Clippers they all manage Dynamics but there are some different scenarios and different reasons for why you may want to use one tool over the other so today we're going to take a deeper look at each tool then I'll open up a session and show you how I used each of these tools in a mixing context so you can start to use them more effectively and confidently in your own mixes first limiting a limiter won't let the sound get any louder than the threshold and you can use this to fully control the Dynamics of any individual track in a more transparent way for example the top track is a drum kit without any limiting and the track just below it is the same thing with limiting and you can just visually tell that the Peaks get squashed down by the limiter clipping does something similar but instead of squashing the Peaks down it actually chops the tops right off and Clippers are great for controlling the Dynamics of things you want to maintain their punch like drums and percussion you just have to be careful with clippers because if you push them too hard they can create this Distortion which might not really be that desirable depending on your goals for example here's what our drum track looks like with clipping instead of limiting and you can tell again visually just by looking at the waveform that the Clipper affects the signal differently it's very obviously chopping off the Peaks rather than squashing them down like the limiter the compressors are like limiters just a little bit more flexible because you typically have access to ratio among other parameters depending on the compressor it can be great for controlling Dynamics in a more subtle way for example here's our drum track with some fast attack compression applied at a four to one ratio and I want you to notice how the Peaks aren't brick walled like they are with limiting or completely chopped like they are with clipping and that's because limiters have that super high ratio typically Infinity to one but with compressors you can dial in lower ratios which can allow for more subtlety and more Nuance in the way the signal is processed now with compression you also typically have control over your attack settings so with a slower attack you can actually accentuate the transients for example by slowing down the attack time and turning up the makeup gain notice how the Peaks are actually higher than the original track which can have the effect of sounding punchier different compressors have different tonal characteristics as well which can also make them great for just adding character or vibe to the sound but before we open up the mixing session to take a look at that and a few other practical examples I put together a PDF that walks you through each of these Dynamics processing tools side by side you can access it by clicking the link in the description below just enter your email on that page and I'll send you the PDF so you can use it as a quick reference when you're mixing your own material so if you want to do that just quickly pause this lesson now and go and grab it now let's open up a session and I'll just quickly walk you through a few examples of how I use limiting clipping and compression inside of this mix just so you can get a better understanding of how these tools might be used in context so first example here let's take a look at this chorus base right we can see by the waveform that it's kind of fluctuating in and out and in and out of the arrangement right I'll turn off the dynamic control plugins here it's quieter there starts getting louder there right so kind of a disorienting effect I wanted to control that a little bit more instead of using a compressor I use delimiter foreign [Music] just to give you an example of what that actually looks like in terms of like visually on the waveform here I'll bounce that in place and you can see what it's doing right instead of all this kind of dynamic fluctuation happening here I'm really squashing the signal here and providing a nice solid foundation a nice solid low end that's not kind of dipping in and out of the arrangement now sometimes you might want something like this that actually fluctuates but it was just kind of my call as the engineer to have this be a little bit more solid and have it provide more of a foundation for the rest of the Sonic Spectrum to kind of be built upon and I used a limiter to accomplish that next here's a scenario where I actually used a Clipper right on these drums check this out instead of allowing these drums to just kind of Spike at different volume levels and things like that see we can see that this Peaks up here at minus 8.6 I want this to be nice and consistent I don't want it to Peak above a specific level so I used a Clipper here to chop off the tops of the transients and notice what happens here on the meter no audible difference in level however now instead of peaking at -8 we're peaking at -12 almost minus 13. so that's four or five decibels a Headroom right there that we're saving by using a clipper and no real audible difference happening here right and if there is it's negligible nobody's going to notice that in context right [Music] and look at how that volume level is just kind of peaking here right it's just flat it's being brick walled right at the top we're chopping off the tops of the signal not too much otherwise we'd be creating Distortion and unwanted saturation and things like that because that's that's how a Clipper works so one more example here where I used limiting instead of compression vocals right now these chorus lead vocals already came in pretty tight we already did some editing on the front end but instead of using compression to squeeze these vocals and take care of kind of some of these Peaks here and there just use the limiter so first without Jesus [Music] [Music] and you can see the gain reduction happening especially on this part of the track right here you know a couple decibels of gain reduction just kind of tapping the limiter here and there just putting a roof over the top of this signal so it doesn't stray it doesn't peek up [Music] you know not smashing it or anything like that just taking care of the transients taking care of the Peaks hold it hold it a little longer well I think uh probably a better example here since this already came in pretty dynamically controlled in the first place better example would be maybe these harmonies all right let's take a look so you can see that these are a little bit more sawtoothy they're a little bit more Peaks happening here and then quieter sections Happening Here Right let's check out what the limiter is doing there didn't it be sold it until you're mine no longer thinks nice consistent vocal let's listen to it without re-hold it to your heart no longer be so late until you're mine no longer thinks hold it till your hands along a shape hold it into the uneasing the seasons to Quake then hold it till your hands along a shade hold it until the uneasing the seasons to Quake then hold it hold it a little longer all right now I want you to take a look at this meter down here this is without a limiter do not re hold it till your heart no longer be look at how this meter is indicating the volume jumping up here to What minus 15 and then living down here right kind of all over the place hold it till your hands [Music] uses to quit and now we're going to activate the limiter here we go [Music] right I wanted more control over that vocal and this is how you I got it with limiting a brick wall deck so now that it's sitting at a consistent volume level I can easily kind of place it wherever I want in the mix now I might not be this aggressive with every single vocal right this is a very important lesson I want you to take away this isn't something that you know you just do you don't just do this for every single vocal or anything just in this very particular scenario I wanted more control I wanted to be able to place this vocal easier in the mix so I control the Dynamics with limiting and then I swung this vocal out to the left I did the same thing with this harmony here no longer be told all right I just think they're a little bit easier to place if you control them dynamically and uh typically back in vocals I like to control pretty aggressively when it comes to Dynamics again just because they're a little bit easier to place do you always have to take this approach for every single vocal no I just want to be very clear about this this isn't like something you should do I'm not telling you do this every single time for every single backing vocal or anything like that as now would compression be a little bit more of a subtle way of controlling these Peaks sure right but honestly in context I didn't really hear the difference and the limiter just gets the job done then I did some serial compression on the vocal to bring up the quiet Parts a little bit more bring out some more of the detail and just add a little bit of character and vibe first without [Music] right just brings up the energy brings up the detail makes this vocal sound smoother silkier even kind of draws more attention to the air of the vocal one more time then [Music] [Music] hold it hold it a little longer just brings in some subtlety and some nuance and some energy that really seems to bring this vocal to life so hopefully this lesson was helpful and you come away from it with a better understanding of Dynamics processing tools and how to use them in your own mixes here are your action items for today first I want you to mix a full track using only limiters and Clippers no compressors allowed this is a fun exercise next join our free community by following the link in the description below then create a post inside the community sharing your mix and what you've learned from this exercise we do get a lot of questions about compression specifically because it's a little more complex than limiting and clipping so if you want to dig a little bit deeper on that make sure to check out our lesson titled three levels of compression just follow the link in the description that's all for now see you in the next one

Channel: Mastering․com

Views: 12,583

Keywords: audio, mixing tips, mixing, audio production, mixing tutorial, music production, music producer, logic pro, fl studio, ableton live, ableton, audio engineer, audio engineering, musician on a mission, mastering.com, rob mayzes, jake kodweis

Id: 5pKbIRxhxIw

Length: 14min 20sec (860 seconds)

Published: Wed May 24 2023