Master Rig Limiter V2 in Wavelab Pro

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Master Rig Limiter V2 in Wavelab Pro

hello everybody Andrew Blake from thedigitalaudiomanual.com today we move onto our second video as we continuediscussing the limiter of the master rigin wavelab Pro but before we start Iwant to remind you that there's a linkbelow to the free content navigationguide which is an easy to navigatewebpage with links to all the content onthis channel and besides that in thenear future I'm going to begin addingtips and other bits of information thatwill only be available there you knowthings like simple steps that will getyou started and up and running quickthings that are in the videos but arewritten down in simple steps that serveas quick reminders when you needinformation down the road if you'reworking with programs like wave lab orCubase plugins or the cable guys shaperbox and many many other projects thatare in the works then I know you'regoing to find just like I have that thisis an invaluable study Aid and the otherthing I want to make sure you understandis that this is not a simple PDF this isa constantly updated page that has anyinformation that is new or anytimevideos are changed really anythingupdated and once you have it you willalways have the latest informationconstantly updated so if you haven'tgotten it already go to the link belowclick on it and save it to yourfavorites it's my gift to you and it'sabsolutely free Okay so let's getstarted so we started our discussion ofthe limiter of the last time we lookedat the balance and transients got somebasic understanding of what's HappeningHere but today let's talk about theharmonics now why do we have a harmonicsection in a limiter and even more sowhen do we get to limiting I mean wehave all these things where we balancethe mids and the sides we can mess withthe transients and now we're doing theharmonics we haven't even touched thepart where this thing actually does anylimiting so obviously this device has alot more to it than the basic operationof a limiter when we come to a sectionlike harmonicsfor me personally I always think somekind of saturation and that's what Ithought this did for the longest timeand it does to a certain degree but onceagain I'm thinking what do you needsaturation in the limiter for well itturns out this particular set ofharmonics actually begins some of theprocess of doing the limiting the milderform of soft limiting and you're goingto see in a minute I'm going todemonstrate it before the Peaks actuallyget to the limiter and then are stoppedat whatever ceiling is set so let's lookat what this thing actually does to thesound of the Audio Waves so I brought inthis vocal sample the bloom samplesand if I turn on the harmonics whileit's playing[Music]I'm going to turn everything down tozeroand one more thing to notice if we goover into the limiter section at thispoint I'm going to make sure the limiteris totally inactive I'm going to turnthe optimize all the way down I'm goingto turn the output completely at zero sowhen we look at our wave up herenow the first thing to pay attention toand understand so you're not confusedwhen you look at these controls you havea second harmonics and a third harmonicsand in the middle you have this thingthat says the drive if you startadjusting these second harmonics andthird harmonics with the drive being atzero they will have no effect at allin other words these don't even start tofunction until you turn the drive up letme demonstrate that first watch The Waveup here and listen to it I'm going toturn the second harmonic up all the way[Music]and there's no change whatsoever I go tothe third harmonic turn it up all thewayforeignno change whatsoeveron the other hand if I kick this driveup all the way[Music]I think we have a change[Music]and as you can see up here it's prettymuch Flatline the wavewe have something on the bottom but nomatter how you look at it this wave hasbeen significantly reduced let me bringdown the second harmonic and watch whathappens to the wavenow it's more even kind of clipping orlimiting or whatever you want to call it[Music]let me turn the second harmonic back upand I'm going to turn the third harmonicdown[Music]look at that now we have this big dipherewe've still reduced on the top from theoriginal[Music]and you can definitely hear thesaturation in thereI'm going to turn the third harmonicsback upand I'm going to start to bring thedrive down a little bitand you can see the wave starts toexpand fairly quickly back to almostnormalI'm gonna bring it down a little bitmore[Music]I'm going to turn it off[Music]not much difference there whether it'son or offso what conclusion can we draw from thisis this strictly a saturation module isthis only here to add saturation intothis limiter we don't get a lot ofinformation about it that's kind ofinfer that this part of the module isadding some soft clipping and some kindof gentle limiting which is exactly whatit does unless you crank it up all theway and this is not exactly so gentleit's very obvious what it's doing andfor sure depending on whatever materialyou're using this on it could be a verynegative effect in terms of actuallychanging the sound of you know youroriginal material and other kinds ofaudio this could be a very desirabletype of sound but if I was to throw outthe best kind of analysis I can based onwhat I'm seeing here and what actualvalue this is providing I'm going toturn down the volume completely on thewave so we don't listen to it we canjust look at it for a minute I'm goingto start to play it again I'm going toturn everything up all the way I'm justgoing to bring these second harmonicsdown so we have a real flat lineso from my experience when you have apiece of music typically you're going tohave some kind of Peaks on the top andthe bottom that obviously when you gostraight to the limiter the limiter isgoing to go to work on those Peaksdepending on how you set things on theother hand if you're enacting somethinglike this this harmonics module andallowing the saturation to Firstbasically start to shave those Peaks offand smooth this wave out before it evenhits the limiter in essence if you weretrying to gain a louder mix it logicallyseems this would be one way to achieveit because once again as the Peaks thatstart to kill things when you'rebringing it into the limiter and ifthere's no Peaks you could in essencebring the total volume or amplitude ofthis wave up much louder for any actuallimiting starts to occur now once againdepending on the kind of material youdon't want to color it this way you knowif this was a symphony orchestra you'reprobably not going to want to do thatsomething that's a little moreaggressive where you're going for volumeand you're trying to make it loud thismay be just a ticket to kind of rainthings in allowing you to bring thatamplitude up before you even get to thelimiter now again you would have to playwith this to definitely find that sweetspot between turning this into somethingthat's just completely distorted tosomething that's basically rich insaturation and has been smoothed off butthat's the experimentation you wouldhave to do but I can see where somethinglike this a harmonic section in alimiter could serve some kind ofvaluable purpose but you woulddefinitely have to know what you'redoing to maximize it let's move awayfrom this Bloom wave and I'm going to goto a song Something Like Thisnow again I'm going to kick theharmonics out for a minuteno real change of course everything'sturned downI'm going to bring up this drive all theway[Music]again I'm not seeing a huge differencein the wave at this point even with thedrive up all the way as long as theharmonics are down there is a changebecause if we were listening to thebloom vocal we'd be hearing itlet me kick it off[Music]yeah again as I turn it on and off I'mnot hearing a great difference now let'sstart kicking up the harmonics I'm goingto bring up the third harmonic[Music]obviously we have changed it and look atthe wavebut look at the limiting this is causingon this weight minus these particularPeaksI'm going to bring the dry back down onthis[Music]that still sounds pretty true to theoriginal I'm going to kick off theharmonics[Music]yeah I've got it pretty extreme so I'mhearing it still come inbut if you notice when it's inthe wave has gotten smootherthickerthe Peaks aren't so spikyI'm gonna bring down the third harmonicbring up this second harmonic[Music]in a way that increased the Peaksand you can hear the Distortion veryheavy I'm going to turn the drive allthe way up[Music]yeah that pretty much decimates it[Music]turn it halfway downthe third harmonics back up[Music]so there you are you'll have to drawyour own conclusions but I would have tosay one use of these harmonics would beas a kind of a pre-limiting before youactually get to the limiter it could bea very effective way if you spend alittle time to dial it in exactly theway you wanted to definitely smooth outyour mix before it actually hits thelimiter all right it's gonna wrap it upfor today as always if you haven'tgrabbed your navigation guide be sure tograb that from the link below this videoit gives you a quick easy access to allthe content ever growing and free to usedo yourself a favor stop working so hardget it add it to your favorites and thenjust use it whenever you have a questionso there you are the harmonic section ofthe limiter we are actually going to getto the limiter next time see what effectthat has on the final signal but asusual you can see that this limiter hasa lot more to it than just the limitinghopefully when it's all said and doneand you go to start changing some knobsyou'll have a little bit clearerunderstanding of what effect you'reactually having as always it's great tohave you guys here and I'll see you onthe next video