Limiting vs Compression in Mixing Explained

hello everyone and welcome back to mix best TV mixing and mastering tutorials on YouTube I'm your host David and if there's something I'd like you to walk away from this video with is donee use a compressor when you need a limiter so today we are talking about the differences between limiter and compressor I know so I want to dig a bit deeper in what seems to confuse many newbies the compressor attack specifically slow attack settings this might be a little too basic for the more advanced guys well we have a lot of new subscribers and I wanted to touch on this because it is something that seems to confuse many of the less experienced people so first of all welcome to the many new subscribers we have thank you guys for spreading the word about the channels sharing liking and commenting please keep doing that now let's get to the subject don't use a compressor when you need a limiter don't try to use a compressor to do the work of a limiter that is not only not gonna work but will leave the less experienced guys confused about compression and specifically about the attack settings okay so when I say limiter in the context of this video I mean brick wall limiters like an l1 l2 I want to specify this since a lot of compressors like V 1176 are labeled as limiters but that's not what I mean here by limiters I mean digital breakwall limiters so what's the difference between a compressor and a limiter and when to use one or the other the differences are many but at least the most important ones first a limiter as zero attack time zero a compressor has an attack time no matter how short and matter how fast it has an attack time so this brings us to the first important point if what you want to do is to reduce the peak level of your audio without changing the envelope you need a limiter that's it is that easy that's what you use a limiter for that's what they were created for to not let any part of the audio exceeding the threshold and to do it in the most transparent way possible all the other tasks all the other situations in which you wish to change the dynamic the envelope of your audio belong to other dynamic processors compressors DSS gates and so on so once you have this premise it's easy to understand when you want to use a limiter instead of a compressor you want to reduce the peak of your audio in a transparent way without any part of the transient pass you use a limiter don't want that you want to enhance the attack making it snappier bring up the sustain at color make the track bounce use a compressor I'm making this very simple there will be many more situations to take into account when deciding but I'm trying to keep this as simple as possible so not only the breakworld limiter has zero attack but it has a fixed infinite ratio and it goes to zero to eleven instantaneously it's so fast that we don't perceive any change in the envelope of the transient except for the transient being attenuated don't a bit depending of the limiter you use and if you go too far you also get distortion of course but some even use special algorithms to deal with the dole you know the transient to avoid that side effect and they work if you don't go too far a compressor on the other hand as a curve to follow according to what according to topology attack settings whether or not the compressor has variable program depending attackin behavior a curve to go from zero to whatever gain reduction and we perceived that that's part of what we call the sound of compression and what's the problem with trying to use a compressor to do the work of a limiter well is that attack time if you try to use a compressor when you need a limiter so to tame the peaks this is how you end up most likely you set the attack as fast as possible but here lies a rub you still have an attack time you still have a curve but here's where some confusion starts when we describe a compressor controls we say the attack is the time the compressor takes to start compressing the material after the signal exceeds the threshold that's not correct in reality we say that to simplify things as a habit the truth is the compressor starts compressing immediately let's say we have a 10 milliseconds attack 10 milliseconds is the time the compressor takes to reach the full ratio to reach the full gain reduction but it starts immediately so if we set the attack time fast enough we are able to stop that peak because the compressor start compressing right away immediately when the signal exceeds the threshold with fast attack settings the curve is so fast that we don't perceive any part of the transient passing but the result is the material sound choked let's hear an example of this let's try this on the whole drum bus the differences are going to be much more apparent with the superfast settings on these compressors meant to emulate what a limiter does so super fast attack fast release ratio infinity the artifacts are gonna be so obvious and let's hear the drums without anything with the limiter with the stock ProTools compressor with the api so you here with the limiter the sound doesn't change that much like I said before is a little more splatty the transient is squashed a bit is dulled a bit but with the stock compressor there's distortion happening there's artifacts it takes away a lot and it start to sound hazy with the API the action of the compressor because it's a very character color compressor it's even more obvious in the envelope in its action okay and that's because you know unless you go for that super compressed sound that's not really what a compressor is meant to do is not meant to do the work of a limiter and that's pretty much the whole point of the video brake were limiters are okay to be used in mixing and I know this will sound very basic to most of you but you wouldn't believe how many people are scared to use limiters in mixing because the internet told them that you don't use limiters for mixing limiters are only used to catch occasional Peaks and only in mastering and that's they were originally designed to do that but modern mix and make them a very common tool that is used across many tracks in today's mix it sometimes even not so subtly so don't be afraid when you need a limiter use a limiter now this takes us to the other part that confuses some people slow attack on compressors why should I use a slow attack on compressor use a slow attack for many reasons on percussive material like kick and snare you use low attack to enhance the attack to make things punchy er how by contrast even if you don't use make up gain you let the transient pass while reducing what comes next the sustain and with slow attack times especially on percussive material you don't need to match the make up gain to the gain reduction necessarily the advice that you usually see around because part of the transient is passing so if you match let's say six DB of gain reduction with 6 DB of make up gain and you do it trying to compare with and without compression at the same level you're not really doing that because the initial part of the transient is passing with a slow attack so you're gonna perceive the compress audio louder than the non compressed audio when comparing because is actually louder you will need to compensate a bit still because what we said before about the compressor starting to apply gain reduction immediately but not match in DB by DB we can do that we don't need to because we already created contrast between the initial part of the transient and the sustain now our brain perceives the material as being more paunchy already so let's hear what the slow attack does to the snare and how we can create that contrast by using a slow attack on a snare let's put it in you it's more obvious and we keep the knee hard stuck at n little s ratio compensate a bit okay now even if we don't compensate for all the honey almost 12 DB of compression of gain reduction I'm compensating just about 3 DB now and we can hear the contrast already the initial part of the transient passes and making the snare more snappy if we go 30 milliseconds [Music] okay as opposed to attack all the way down [Music] but that's just an example we also use the slow attack settings on vocals bass guitar synths to make the action of the compressor less aggressive more natural and to let the element who we are compressing not sounding choked obviously the opposite is true we use a fast attack when we want the element to be squeezed to be sitting back to tame wild dynamics and Peaks but the difference in this case is we do want to hear compression we want to hear that sound with the limiter you don't have that or better you have the limiter sound if you push it hard enough but it's totally different than the sound of the compression that's the whole curve the envelope that is not in the limiter remember a limiter only affects the sound one is working and only on the part that is processing in this case the peaks a compressor affects everything all the time and even I consider in color release as also a curve and depending on topology different compressor can sound very different at the same settings at the same release settings sound and behave very differently in fact on some compressors you see the option for logarithmic release and linear and also many compressors have a variable release and/or a program dependent release that changes as the material changes all these variables give you different sounds different envelopes and change the sound of the material somehow a limiter we can say it doesn't or at least it tries not to it tries to be completely transparent while a compressor even if it's meant to be transparent by nature changes the envelope that's what it's meant to do the limiter is very easy and straightforward it does one thing it has one sound and zero variables it reduces the nominal level of Peaks as transparently as possible that's it and since we talked about release many people might not be aware of this but one of the main differences between fat and opto compressors is the release curve let me show you this waves did a great job with their Arkham presser in capturing the different behavior of the release between opto and fat they call it electro in electro mode as the gain reduction approaches zero it gets faster in optimal as the gain reduction approaches zero it stomps on the brakes we say so it gets slower let me show you that look at the gain reduction meter now looking up to see so at the same release settings the fat electro mode it goes faster as it approaches zero in optimal stomps on the brake start fast get slower now I put the release very slow so you can hear the difference but yeah you see and again with the limiter you don't have all these variables but I digress in the point is limiter don't have all these variables that change the envelope they meant to be transparent now on a related subject to the slow attack on compressors many newbies run into the following problem when they try to use a compressor to make their drum snappier by using a slow attack they set the attack let's say at 10 milliseconds they like the sound they want more of it so they either use a make up gain or the fader to boost the sound that is now snappy kou what happens they clip oh but if I lower the level I can't hear the snare music is too loud and this is a very easy fix lower everything else your gang staging is that's why it's important to have your gain staging right that's why it's important not to care about the level loudness of your mix if you start your mix with everything close to red obviously when you try to boost something you will clip you should be able to boost a lot of things by a large margin and now to clip that's why you need a correct gain staging and a lot of headroom when you start mixing but yeah is that simple you have one element that is not loud enough and you cannot boost it because it Clips everything else in your mix is too loud that's it it's that simple and I know again this is gonna be very basic for most of you guys but you know here and there I think it's fair to take a break from all the advanced stuff we usually do and cover some basics I hope you guys don't mind that so this is pretty much it know your tools and know that everything in mixes is interconnected you have your gain staging wrong it's gonna be hard to use your dynamic processor correctly you have your gain staging wrong it's gonna be hard to use or saturator x' correctly use the wrong tool to do something and everything else will become an uphill battle and that's wrapped this is it for this video I hope it was informative and I hope you liked it if you did please don't forget to click the like button and share it around if you have any questions leave it in the comment down below join us on Facebook and Twitter to stay in touch with us and get all the news about the channel upcoming videos in serious and access to 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Channel: MixbusTv

Views: 66,716

Keywords: limiting vs compression, limiter vs compression, mixing with limiter, mixing with limiting, fast attack compression, fast attack compressor, how to set fast attack, compression attack explained, mixing for loudness, mastering vs mixing difference, limiting mix mastering, when to use limiter compression, limiting loudness best, loudness setting compression, limiting vs compression made easy, limiting vs compression explained, limiting vs compression for begineers

Id: PT1kUE4ns7I

Length: 17min 45sec (1065 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 05 2017