One of the areas that was highlighted heavily in my AST feedback was that I had been “heavy handed” with the L2, and as a result had added distortion to the tracks. Following this feedback, I feel it is important that I address this issue by learning to hear what distortion from limiting sounds like.
Above is a little picture of the beloved waves L2 – an exceptionally powerful mastering plug in used widely in mastering processes across the world.
I am using this limiter for my listening, as it is the limiter I use the most in the mixing and mastering of my tracks.
Using the dual fader control function, I listened to the effect that the limiter had on a stereo track while keeping the output level constant. This allowed me to hear exactly when the L2 was degrading the sound quality and causing digital distortion.
Although the screen shot did not capture it, at this point the L2 started to attenuate the track ever so slightly (between 1-2 dB when the kick or snare hit). However, this did not add any audible distortion to the track, so I continued to pull down the threshold.
As the limiter reached between 3-6dB attenuation, the kick and snare started to suffer, and suffered from a effect that sounded similar to transient smearing. There were slight hints of distortion when the kick hit.
Going beyond this, the track started to suffer from pumping, as the track was being attenuated so much when L2 was reacting to the loud kick drum. At this point, distortion is fairly apparent, in the form of a nasty digital fuzz present particularly on transient hits.
Going from this listening test, I feel that when using the L2 on a master channel, anything more than 3dB attentuation and you are in danger of adding unwanted distortion to tracks. The genre of music dictates how much you can get away with really – an acoustic track would sound awful with even slight distortion, whereas a synth driven pop song may mask the distortion a little, so can get away with higher levels of attenuation.
samuellewis5515 