LOUD – BUT AT WHAT COST?

For the moment, we’re going to continue focus on Limiting as the main source of adding loudness to a mix. It’s not the only tool that’s used, but it’s the most available and the easiest to understand…

At first, when you crank up a limiter to give your mix some volume, it can be very exciting to hear the results. This is partly because, as I’ve mentioned before, we tend to be predjudiced towards louder sounds. The only way to really know what’s happening to a mix as a result of blasting it with a limiter is to take away the volume the limiter is adding.

What?

Make this Rack:

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What we’re doing here is using a Utility device to subtract out the additional volume being added by the Limiter. This allows you to do some A/B comparison of your mix with and without limiting – at the same volume – so you can really hear what’s going on.

To do the comparison, just use the Rack’s Activator switch to turn both devices on and off simultaneously.

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