i think you missed the point here... i agree the title can be misleading but the real topic here is to help understand what kind of eq moves should be done pre-compressor and what eq moves should happen after. This being said, eq's all also add slight THD (leading also to aliasing) so you'd always be better with fewer than more.. cheers and thanks for your contribution

Totally right ! Tbh if it was a real track it would have received much more processing to give it some movement (for example filter moves and decays automations). I didn't plan to add that sound but while recording the video I felt like also showing how two sounds can be first panned then merged in a group and processed together to fit better in the stereo field. The whole loop here is in fact pretty rough and unmixed. Just talking about stereo approaches ;)

@a.d.5649 thank you! Glad you enjoyed the content :)

@@forse.music96 thank you! It's definitely coming;)

My goto clipper when i need one 'cause... I own it and do not remember why 😅.

@@forse.music96 totally! I didn't use the second stage (output) on purpose to compare similar things

Several reasons : 1) If everything is mastered accordingly, you don't need to touch the gain and your tracks will all blend together smoothly (in terms of loudness) 2) Many dj mixers are digital, if you clip the input by pushing the gain (in the analog domain before the conversion) to add a lot of unwanted THD. Years ago mixers were all analog and could take less cautious manipulation and a bit of overdrive, in the digital world this is a very delicate aspect and i think it's best actually dj's stay away from the gain. 3) if you have a louder track and want to match the next one (quieter one) and need to push the gain to match the previous one's loudness, as everything is peaking close to 0dBFS you'll end up clipping the quieter track A LOT!!! 4) staying away from the gain knob is also avoiding the sneaky risk of willing to push things louder from track to track (it's a natural process that happens even more if the dj is insecure) and every time you feel a bit risqky during a transition you'll end up pushing that gain a lil bit more, until you're maxed out (believe me i worked as sound engineer in Fuse Club brussels for over 3 years and it's something that happens even if the dj's should not have to touch the gain). 5) Club and festival PA's have limiters to protect the sound system, so even if the dj was to use a rane or xone analog mixer, if the PA is close to be maxxed out, by pushing the gain of a "peaky" /higher crest-factor track, those peaks will end up being clipped/limited by the PA's protection circuit. Trust me a properly limited master will always sound better than those "protection limiters" Hope this helps understand the reason why it's still relevant in this case and why playing with gain to match tracks with different loudness is not a good option.

These are all familiar points, and I trust your experience. But it all boils down to not trusting DJ’s as capable professionals. If setting up gain staging between the line input and the fader is already too much.. oof! You’re probably right, but it feels weird to prepare a master for amateur DJ’s as the main audience. I’ve heard good DJ’s (not talking about myself!) mix records from the 60ies with loud club masters on the usual DJM mixers, it is still possible to do that perfectly smooth.

@@LYFoulidis sadly "gain" control is indeed an aspect that is often overlooked (or badly understood) by many... yet even with high attention and care if you try to match the loudness of a very dynamic 60's track on vinyl with a cd from something like actual EDM, if ever you have enough gain on the mixer to get the same loudness ballpark, your peaks would kill any DJM mixer :p (and don't even get me started on the more than ultra shitty curve of gain progression on those a$$ DJM mixers :p ) cheers mate and glad to see another "spaghetti lover and knobs fiddler" here ;)

Ha, talking about gainstaging the spaghetti is on a whole other level with its lack of standards 😉 Thanks for your thoughtful answer :)

@Hasan-bl3fo IMHO the beauty of LimitOne is the blend from transparent to a more gritty sound that is just another layer of "texturing"(or not) your sound in a very smooth and progressive way. I don't see it as better or worse I see it as a tool to grab if ever the mix received is a bit too sterile and your usual coloring tools don't get the job nailed, it's another tool in the toolbox to go towards a desired goal

@BoringVic my pleasure mate! It's of course just my point of view and always looking to be confronted in order to grow :)

indeed subject is deep and rules are meant to be broken it's just interesting to think that if you don't do things carefully (understand paying attention to the phase) tuning might in fact add more problems than when not tuning. Writing this down here i realise this should have been said more clearly in my video :p Thanks again for your kind words and support in regard of this channel! cheers!

finally it appeared :)

i've to admit i totally skipped on this one.. semmed to me like a proL2 (clipper into limiter) with the exact same features (lookahead, attack/release) but without the modes proL2 offers. Curious to hear your impressions and why in your opinion it is superior to it! thanks!

Thank you for mentioning and you're totally right Ursa Dsp Boost is an amazing piece of gear but works totally differently (upwards instead of downwards as the traditional limiters) hence not being featured here but indeed in the quest of loudness it's an very interesting piece of gear! In fact i started years ago with parallel comp/limiting on my masters to get some extra dB when needed, then switched to waves MV2 (just a touch as it can sometimes behave weirdly), later i just used Ozone maximiser for the upward part (not the clipper and limiter) then i discovered Ursa Dsp Boost and it made its spot in my chain, again only when mixes have a very high crest factor and the genre of music (electronic played by dj's) requires to fit in a specific loudness ballpark.

@@incidence.studio even my answer here keeps disappearing. Whatever. Who knows how this algorithm works

@saardean4481 thanks for the feedback and you're totally right about me just scratching the surface with limitless. It was the basic default setting when loading it. Same goes for Pro-L2. Indeed they offer a very broader palette and playing with the modes, lookahead, attack/release times are making tremendous differences... so big that it becomes a headache to try comparing them... I had in mind doing one day a video where I try to get them to null or to really squash some masters and see how far I could push things without adding too much disto but I don't know how relevant this is. I think having a general idea of where a tool goes is the starting point and while using it you fine tune your use. For example I noticed elevate can be cleaner and more respectful of the transients than proL2 but then somehow with heavy bass material it kinda eq's out the lows changing the tonal balance. It this kind of case I had better results with klcip3 multiband before hitting proL2 keeping more the tone and the punch, yet limitless does this naturally and in a very clean way, but then sometimes that little grit is what gives more character to a track... how to put all this in a shootout? If you have some ideas I'm all ears as at the end it's a path of continous trying and learning :) Thanks for your interest !

Part 2: While i have tested most these limiters i think it would still be an interesting video. You could make it in a „how far can each tool go?“, try them before filming and then prepare the video with only the essential parts-conclusions since you will not have to find out while filming. This might save you video time and make it more interesting and less fatiguing to watch. So i imagine you will have your notes for each plugin and then in the video show-do a quick run-conclude to WHERE you ended with the settings and WHY you chose them-what do you hear. In my experience the limiters fall apart at different points and in different ways so people would find it interesting. I would find it interesting. You seem like you have aa very competent ear and you are down to earth and admit your flaws. That is meant as a compliment.

@@incidence.studio my comments keep disappearing. I cant for the love of God post the first part. I love YT . Really annoying

@@saardean4481 weird indeed i saw your comment on part 1 as notification and as soon as i clicked it disappeared :(

@@saardean4481 thank you very much for the thorrough feedback, much appreciated! I totally agree about being more "efficient" / catchy for the "youtube game". To be honest not only is it an exercise that is totally new to me but also i wanted to jump on the spot trying LimitOne and felt like "not cheating" while just shooting the whole video. I still wonder what's best, making "editorial choices" and just showing my conclusions or giving content on which people can make their own conclusions... Because at the end no-one is holder of the absolute truth and life is a path a (self)learning while both straightening and breaking previous beliefs and assumptions :) Again thank you very much for your attention and kindness, it's very touching!

Hi, and thx for your interest! As per the manual "clipping parameter controls the balance between Pufferfish and Hedgehog. Move this parameter closer to 100 for harder clipping characteristics. Default setting is 0." When it comes to listening to the delta it's not what the plug-in removes from the signal it's the difference between processed and unprocessed. The difference is both what is removed and what is added (mostly distortion). It's a common practice to monitor the delta in order to clearly hear what/how a clipper/limiter alters the signal. Is the delta clean and "spiky" or dirty , are only the transients altered or also the body of the sound, does the low end in the delta remains clean/clear or does it become saturated. Ultimately you make your final decisions listening to the audio not the delta but it's a very handy starting point to use as kind of magnifying glass to know what to pay attention to when listening to the resulting processed audio.

​@@incidence.studiodelta is indeed the "difference", which means what the process adds and what it removes - and a limiter is of course known for "removing peaks" (while also adding distortion to some extent). I do not understand how this would be a way of comparing limiters out of any context. As for the clipping, that sounds like what I wrote :)

@@lastboxofsparklers i think you must have misread the manual... "pufferfish" is the limiter mode and "hedgehog" is the name they give to their clipper... look they even phrase it like this on their website "Variable control over the balance between softer limiting or hard clipping" ... when you look at the signal path it enters first the (soft) limiting then feeds the hard clipper. As for the delta you might think it's irrelevant, that's up to you but companies like fabfilter and izotope are integrating this in their limiters for quite some time as monitoring the delta is a nice magnifying glass of what happens to your signal. For a same given amount of gain reduction it makes it easy to hear how much distortion the plugin is adding to the signal, how clean (or jittery) the transients are removed and if the remaining low end you hear is "pure" or distorted. Again final decision should always be made while listening to the resulting audio (hence the fact the second part of the video is made while listening how the resulting audio sounds but i stand by my point that monitoring the delta is a great starting point to know easily what to pay attention to. cheers