Hello, I’m Jooyoung Kim, an engineer and music producer.
We’ve discussed various processors that control dynamics. Today, let’s talk about limiters and clipping.
Let’s dive right in!
Limiters
A limiter is a type of compressor. Generally, when the ratio exceeds 10:1, we call it a limiter. When it reaches ∞:1, it’s often referred to as a brickwall limiter.
Limiters are processors that aggressively compress sound to prevent it from exceeding a certain volume level. A simple example of this would be guitar effects like distortion or overdrive, which are types of limiters. In mastering, limiters are used at the final stage to ensure the volume doesn’t exceed a certain level.
Any limiter, when viewed on a waveform, shows the top and bottom parts being cut off. This truncation introduces strong harmonic distortion, known as clipping, which we can perceive as a distorted sound.
Distortion-type limiters result in noticeable clipping, producing a heavily distorted sound. To minimize such distortion, some compressors/limiters include a feature called soft clipping.
Clipping / Soft Clipping
Soft clipping gently smooths out the sharp edges of clipping. When a sine wave undergoes limiting with soft clipping, the result is a waveform that doesn’t have the abrupt cuts seen in regular clipping.
While soft clipping still introduces distortion, the sound is smoother compared to hard clipping. Using limiters or soft clipping helps to increase the overall loudness of a track. The reason for boosting volume is that people tend to perceive louder music as higher quality. However, equal LUFS (Loudness Units relative to Full Scale) values do not always mean the perceived volume is the same. For example, in vocal music, if the vocals are prominent, the music may seem louder even with similar LUFS values.
Even if you’re not mastering your own tracks, considering these aspects during mixing can help you create better productions.
Next time, I’ll explore reverb effects like delay. See you then!
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