- Home
- /
- Masterclass
- /
- Mastering
- /
- Loudness
If you are already subscribed and you can't log in, try clicking the "Refresh" link below (do not refresh in your browser, but click the link)
Loudness
INFEKTDubstep production, Thoughts & more
INFEKT
Unlock with Patreon
2 replies on “Loudness”
Hey Infekt I’ve been recently been trying to integrate gainstaging in order to have a better foundation for mastering. Is there any significant penalties/differences between using a clipper (I typically use glue comp with soft clip on with none of the compressor parameters touched) or a limiter on the master bus?
Hey! Yes there’s definitely a significant difference, a clipper is much more transparent: It will cut off anything that goes above 0dB. You will notice if there’s something wrong right away because it will sound very distorted.
A limiter however doesn’t show you when something is wrong, because it will just turn your track down so it doesn’t go above 0dBs (and because it turns it down you won’t hear any distortion).
Personally, I prefer a transparent solution (clipper), so I can tell when something is wrong (and sounds distorted), and then I can go back into the individual elements and fix it there. Most of the time I clip heavily first, then apply a very gentle limiter to get the last little extra bit of loudness. (I talked about this technique in the other Mastering classes if you’re curious)