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anonymous 13 January 2006

I was just wondering? do a lot of you (ROers) use limiting during recording vocals ?

Just recently I did some mic testing and realized that my Limiter was limiting at 0db. when I would just talk into the mic it sound robotic a little, or just wierd, than I took the limiting threshold up to 10+ it sounded smooth. .so I figure that I would leave the limiter around 15db, enabling me to get a good signal with out going beyond the track lines on my software. so I'm just wondering if this was a good thing to do?

Comments

David French Sun, 01/15/2006 - 14:15

In digital recording, each bit provides about 6 dB of dynamic range. So, in 16 bit you have about 96 dB of dynamic range. This makes in important while recording subtle sound sources to record fairly hot in order to maximize the usage of the available bits. In 24 bit, you have 144 dB of dynamic range, and this is more than enough for anything, largely eliminating the need to record hot.

Cucco Sun, 01/15/2006 - 16:50

I typically don't limit voice whilst recording, but I do often compress. If I don't compress while tracking, I will patch it back out into a compressor and back onto its own track. In situations where I feel I can bus the voices to a stereo outboard compressor, I'll avoid compression altoghether until before final mixdown and then bus them out and back in onto their own tracks and then begin mixing.

I find that this is far more time consuming (okay, maybe 4-8 minutes depending on the length of the track) but is well worth it. I don't have to worry about getting stuck with the wrong sound.

J.

Kev Sun, 01/15/2006 - 18:37

for those doing live recording or recording voice for drama (video work) a limiter may be used.

however it is likely the limiter is only activated during unexpected peaks and will spend most of it's time not limiting at all.

for example ...
:roll:
a host mic during a fireworks display
...
motor racing perhaps

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