Mixing into limiters

Anyone tried mixing into a limiter, if so what were the results.

You are quite the prolific poster :wink:

I’ve done it both mixing into a limiter and not (but never tried both ways on the same song as time is money and all that jazz). If you have the time, try both and see how it works out but mixing into limiter or not isn’t going to ruin your work. Let’s be honest…in this age of LUFS and streaming, you really want to be aiming for a more dynamic mix and some would argue (rightly) that for most genres running your finished mix into a clipper is going to be a better bet.

For an example of an excellent clipper: https://www.airwindows.com/adclip-7/

Thanks I’m currently working on a project and I’m doing it all myself but trying to experiment at the same time.

Interesting, it seems to be a thing that many engineers do even pro engineers but I do reference my mixes through a limiter but I at times I have a hard time turning it off, it does help me to get a feel of how the master will sort of sound like and I can tweak things as I go.

I don’t think there’s a right way or a wrong way. If I was forced to pick a method I personally would get my very dynamic mix sorted (no limiting) then print to stems or stereo mixdown and only in the mastering stage apply per-song limiting as appropriate. I’m probably a little old-fashioned but I was always taught that you want to give the mastering engineer the most dynamic mix you can (with a decent amount of headroom to boot). However, I can appreciate that there might be certain modern genres that probably do well being mixed straight into a limiter.

I personally advice to avoid mixing into limiters (or compressors) because it can end up with you painting yourself into a corner with your mix. Because you lose the sense of the actual balance between the elements once the limiter starts getting pushed, it can cause problems WAY late into the mix with things starting to sound mushy, or elements affecting other elements that you don’t want etc.

Of course you can do it and it works for some, but… I don’t see the benefit.

What I DO suggest is having your limiter and compression and saturation and whatever mastering chain you want ready in your master so you can toggle it on and off to check how your mix will sound.

I understand both of your perspectives, I think I will just test how it would sound using a limiter here and there so I can optimize my mix because I have at the end of the mixing stage out on a limiter and I notice at times certain elements get out of place based on how the limiter affects the music.

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