So, I’ve been following some discussions here in the community regarding the use of LIMITERS to more or less protect from overloading in the live scenario. I just grabbed the TDR limiter and so far, it seems pretty neat.
What I’m curious about is, how does everyone else use the limiter in their chain(s) to prevent any issues? different on every song? Or do you have in your Global Rackspace and simply send every song to it per default? What kind of settings do you use? harsh? noticeable? or so transparent you don’t know it’s there?
No, put the TDR in global Rackspace as final plugin before audio out and route all your rackspaces audio to the global rackspace with the resp. internal plugins.
There’s only one setup of the TDR limiter needed which prevents the DACs of the audio interface from clipping.
You still have to balance your sounds and keep your gain structure clean!
I use a limiter in my Global Rackspace right before master volume out just to smooth out volume discrepancies between patches on the various songs. If I have a solo, I may bypass the limiter for the solo sound if needed.
Yes, I’m pretty OCD about making sure my sounds are not going into the red on my audio interface. They barely creep into the orange to be honest, because I wanted to stay away from overloads as much as possible.
As much time as I’ve spent over the years as a studio engineer, it’s incredible how much I DON’T know about live sound. I’m probably overthinking it, but I’m actually trying to figure out if it’s better to have all the sounds LOUD and hitting the limiter pretty good, or having them stay well into the orange and not challenging the limiter at all. Either way, it’s going to be an OVERALL balance from song to song. And I have about 40 of them in my set.
This is a cool thread. im only about 2 months in with GP and have got 45 songs (Rackspaces) created. I have a 16 band GEQ in the Global RS but didn’t think of adding a limiter as well. Might get TDR before the next gig.
We use an XR18 mixer and I have the iPad that controls it on my keyboard, so I do keep an eye on things and none of my sounds go in to the upper orange, let alone red, but I guess I could have a bit more presence in the mix if I was to use a limiter.
I know what Limiters/comps do, but im always weary of messing things up when I use them, as I don really hear what they do most of the time. I know they say it’s working well if you can’t hear it, but to my ears everything sounds ok. Ive balanced everything to get close to how I want them to sound but im thinking the TDR would be like the icing on the cake. Certainly I like the high Freq limiter feature, as I find my Brass can get a bit piercing sometimes.
What I do find is my Wiring can sometimes flash red. This has caught me out a few times. It’s mainly Piano’s from Halion. That’s still a work in progress.
