Quote:
Originally Posted by BoxOfSnoo
...He used the MDA limiter, with limiting cranked way up "to see what's ducking the mix".
I don't quite get this. Could you explain? Is it a viable technique?
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I'm just guessing, but I think he meant he was using a limiter with aggressive settings to figuratively "see" what the dynamics or low end were like because he could not trust his ability to "hear" the dynamics or the low end.
There are a few clues that a limiter could give someone in such circumstances. For one thing, limiting artifacts in the higher frequencies (that the speakers CAN reproduce) can reveal what's triggering the limiter in the frequencies that you CAN'T hear. For instance if the cymbals and vocals abruptly suck down every time there's a kick drum hit, then you might have either too much kick drum, or a kick drum that is unbalanced or overly bass-heavy, e.g. if you can hear it clearly well-balanced in the mids but if the low end is obviously causing major ducking, then the lows might be disproportionate.
Similarly he may have been using the limiter's meters and filtering controls to see the "spaces in between" the audible music, to see how the measured signal level differs from what the signal sounds like. Looking at a "limit" indicator or gain reduction meter in conjunction with an ordinary signal level meter can tell you a lot about how the compressor or limiter filters and responds to the input signal. If you already KNOW how the limiter works, then looking at those meters could theoretically tell you something about the program material in terms of how it sounds, especially in terms of how much/what aspects of the sound make it "through" the limiter or compressor and cause more of a jump in output level than they "should."
We're getting way, way ahead of the ground I've covered so far in terms of metering and technical operation, but those are ways that a knowledgeable engineer might try and chase shadows of sounds that he knows he can't actually hear. Either of them could have actually revealed to me that there was a problem with the example file I posted, but I never bothered to check anything like that.
Is it a "viable technique" for getting around the problems of bad monitors? No, not unless you consider eating dead people and tree bark a "viable technique" for camping. People in desperate and demanding circumstances must do what they must do, and some of them make it through in inspirational ways. Are you trying to be an inspirational story, or to make good recordings? (hint: the latter has a much lower rate of tragic failure).
If you need to save money, sell an instrument. Don't eat out for three months. Make your own coffee. Cancel cable. Quit drinking or smoking. But splurge on monitors. Even if they are just the cheapest monitors actually sold as "monitors" they are probably better than anything in a department store, when it comes to monitoring.