Does the limiter lookahead catch the very first transient? [RESOLVED]
When I mixed down a track that had the limiter applied with some lookahead on the group bus I got a warning about clipping transients. The only audible clipping I could hear was on the very first beat that opens the track, so I'm wondering if that was missed by the lookahead feature of the limiter? Does the track need to be playing for the lookahead to do its job? If yes then transients at the very start of the track may be missed.
Comments
I’ve ever had this warning. What did you have the ceiling set at?
Increasing looakead shold do the job.. if not then ideally if you can post short example (i mean archived NS project, without external instruments, just small "example") with where it will be possible to reproduce this - worst case it can be some strange bug in limiter.
But - until it's just visual peak on VU meter and you don't hear any noticeable click, then you don't need take a care about this .. It will not affect in any bad way your mixdown export
I get this kind of weird clipping sound as well when playing songs sometimes actually. It happens with Zeeon these days on my first song I am making with NS2, on its first note in the track. So far, I attributed that to my 3rd gen ipad core audio problem.
@Nyanko - is it something which happens always ? Or just sometimes ? I mean with same project.
Your limiter is on master ? If you remove limiter from project, is there stile some audio spike ?
I don't have the limiter on. But it happens whether my tracks are on high volume or not. Zeeon is on the right side so I wonder if it doesn't have something to do with stereo clipping. And yeah, it doesn't happen all the time but usually it's on the first note played on a track.
So it only happens with Zeeon ?
@richardyot
Few questions, trying to found what could be issue here
1/ did you try increase "lookahead" parameter to max ?
2/ happens this always with this project ?
3/ if 2/ yes then, happens it only first time you load project, or everytime you hit play from beginning of song ?
4/ Can you please try localise from which channel this peak comes ?
And then
4a/ try solo this channel
4b/ put limiter with same settings directly on this channel (and disable the one at master )
4c/ if that channel is slate, try mute all pads and leave unmuted just pad which is source of that peak
is that peak still there ?
One more weird question but it makes sense to me
Any chance that you use in your project Obsidian patch "Noise crash" ?
OK I went back to file to see if there was anything that could have caused the issue, and it turns out one of my tracks was sitting outside the "Main Mix" track group. I dragged it back in and re-rendered the file and there was no warning this time, so that was obviously the issue.
It's user error obviously, although I'm not sure how I dragged the track out of the group (actually it's really easy to do this accidentally when you're re-ordering tracks in your timeline), but it would be simpler to avoid this kind of mistake if it was possible to just add effects to actual Master Bus rather than the Main Mix group (which is basically just a track group).
@richardyot Glad you got it sorted. I still think some confusion lies about what the main Out bus is, as opposed to the Main mix group.
I believe the the output bus is for the hardware out.
The main mix group is as you say, just a group (but is also a flexible master bus) and I agree that you can inadvertently drag a track outside of the group without realising.
Maybe hardwiring everything to the master bus may be an option to negate that problem, but I’m sure somebody will come up an explanation as to why that wouldn’t be a good idea, and I’m sure Matt would have had his reasons for doing it that way.
Cheers
@richardyot Great ! I'm glad it solved itself :-)
There is small trick how to find if everything you want to have inside some group is really inside that group ... go to mixer, at "master mix" channel click at icon
it minimalises all child tracks - now you immediately see if there are some track not inserted under main mix - you can then quickly drag'n'drop them to right place
That channel at right side, always displayed, is not actually "master bus" - it is HARDWARE OUTPUT of your device. It's primary purpose is monitoring of what is going out of your hardware output.
Such thing is present in most desktop DAWs (at least Cubase and Logic Pro X) , If you would connect sound card with multiple outputs to your iPad - you would see there small level meters for ALL physical outputs on this "channel".
Btw. just small hint - i know that it doesn't cover case when you inadvertently drag a track outside of the group without realising, but in cases when you do realise it - just hit UNDO and your channels jumps nice back where they were before ;-)
Thanks I appreciate the hints, however I would just point out that if I add effects to a Master Bus in say Auria (or any other DAW really) then I don't have to worry that some channels might be excluded.
When an app does things differently to what's considered "standard", in this case NS2 not having a Master Bus that you can add effects to, then there has to be a very good reason for that design decision. In this case though I can't see the benefit, and in fact I inadvertently fell into a gotcha situation, which makes me question this design choice.
I'm sure other users will fall into exactly the same trap that I did, because it's really easy to accidentally pull channels out of the "Main Mix" group, in fact if you drag a channel to the bottom of the list it's actually harder to keep it in the group than it is to accidentally drag it outside. Couple that behaviour with the lack of a proper Master Channel and you have a recipe for problems - and it's not the user's fault if they have to watch out for strange or unusual design decisions!
yes you point is definitely valid... we will discuss your ideas at some point, after few initisl bugs and most requested features will be solved.. definitely it's worth to think about things you mentioned ! thanks for feedback !
I kind of agree. I mean every song is going to have a master bus/track. Maybe a settings option to have that routing setup as default? Wouldn’t interfere with the grouping flexibility, just save people having to make a master group and remember to keep everything inside of it?
I somewhat agree with this one. It’s a recipe for confusion. Hard wiring to a Main Out (with FX), unless specifically changed is a good idea. I would also hard-name this Master to avoid confusion.
so, you are talking basically about limitation like this
every project would have top level channel, fixed, not possible to delete
it will be not possible to add another channel on same level of hieratchy like that top level channel - most too accessible level in mixer hierarchy for new added channel would be child-level of this top cgannel
it will be not possible to drag child channels out of this channel
it will be always hard routed to HW out 1/2.
and named "MASTER" with disabled rename tool
Is that precise descriptiption of solution for issues described here ?
btw. funny, that's probably first time in history when users of some app are asking for more restrictions
(don't get me wrong, actually that above what i wrote i just copy pasted from my text file with notes for mixer, wich is dated to beginning of previous year.
)
Personally I can do everything I need to with groups and sends ‘below’ a Regular master channel. Never felt limited by this in other daws or physical mixers..
I don’t really see any limitations tbh -
Why would anyone ever delete the master bus?
Why would anyone need to rename master?
why would it always be routed to hardware 1/2 like you say? Master can normally be sent out of any hardware channels in my experience?
why would you need to drag child channels out of the group? Everything ends at master in any case, just send/rtn it wherever needed when you want it to do other stuff along the way?
This was my question:
Just simple YES/NO (in case NO then please what is missing) is enough in this case :-)
@number37 @richardyot please read my proposal and reply if you think this would solve all confusion with master channel, thanks !
That was your question, yeah I know. But I was talking about your implying that people were asking for limitations. You don’t see that? Yes/no?
Your reply is just really rude and ignorant.
Dude you HATE getting called out.
i cannot be more chilled
i just point to this - thing i proposed above is actually something i WANTED too
Still think it’s great idea ... so you’re knocking on opened door
if my post feels rude for you , sorry , it’s obvious i’m not native speaker with limited english skills and i come from very different culture background so ... here where i live healthy amount of sarcasm is fully socially accepted
Make your mind up!? You like it how it is currently and feel change would have significant limitations. Or you don’t. You can’t vote both ways
You’re contradicting yourself...
I think the proposed idea would work for me.
@richardyot great, thanks !
Un-said
It would be great to stay on topic in this thread (and other where some very specific bugs or features are discussed) and leave personal issues aside. Let's keep things move forward.
Thanks.
..
Yeh, this sounds about right except, the routing should still be to what is now Main Output. Unless you’re proposing to remove that.
Technically it’s an addition, not a limitation.
all the rest of the functionality is still as-is, just with the Master channel permanently assigned before the Main Out.
@flockz I saw absolutely nothing wrong with @dendy’s reply. I found it rational, helpful, and understood the ironic humor in it. It’s easy to misunderstand in the internet and across cultural and language differences. Chill out man.
✌️
Just noticing a few patterns appear.
Yeah we are talking about same thing. Just bear in mind that in case you connect multi-output soundcard to your iPad, that "thing" at right side will contain level meters for ALL it's physical outputs.
So i was just trying to exactly describe that Master Chanel would not go to "Main Out" at all, but to "Main Output channel 1/2". In case you have just iPad or soundcard with just single stereo output , it's same thing.
(in other words I'm just fucking nerd coder, trying to name things very exactly - in software development it's often very crucial thing for proper implementation, to be "term nazzi" is my everyday business
)
Limitation can be form of addition
It's like improving user experience by reducing level of freedom. Steve Jobs was using this approach with Apple all the time.
Good to know it was sorted out. It doesn't clear my issue with Zeeon on the ipad pro speakers though. All my channels are routed to the main one. I will wait until the core audio fix is live from Apple and if it still happens, I will post again on the forum.