FabFilter

I'm preparing stems for live that were delivered by an engineer who used limiters that have no side chain function, so he was unable to produce properly mastered stems.

I've dropped his unlimited stems into a session and adjusted their gains so their balance is similar to that of the final mix without peaking. I then proceed to recreate the mastering chain (which, luckily, he described to me in enough detail). No, not the chain I expected, but if that's how he did it, that's how he did it.

I get everything sounding pretty damn identical to the final mix, then I bypass the limiters and print a ghost mix. Drop the ghost mix into the session, null output, and set the limiters to target it for sidechaining.

Here's the problem:

The limiters are letting peaks through and only taking off perhaps 1db at most. Wtf is happening here? Why aren't they reacting to the target mix the same way they did to the summed stems?

Hi Eric,

I believe you're working with Ralph on this issue trough e-mail. We'll look into it after we've received the session from you.

Cheers,

Maarten

I am also having a very similar issue. I cannot for the life of me figure out how to successfully use the side chain on the limiter for stems. I am also having the issue of peaks going through and clipping despite the limiter being set to -1.0. I would love some help or clarification on this issue as well.

Thank you.

Greg

Unfortunately there is an issue with the latency compensation inside Logic Pro, which results in the input and the side-chain of Pro-L 2 not being in sync. Unfortunately at the moment it's not possible to properly set up stem limiting.

Hi there,
I also recently spent hours trying to figure out why my L2 was going past 0Db even though I has was set to not go past -1 when trying to master my stems using the side chain input.
I’m currently using the latest version of Logic (10.7.9) and the latest version of L2. Can you please let me know if Apple or if Fab Filter are trying to resolve this issue and if so, when will it be fixed? The L2 is often quoted as being able to do stem mastering and it’s one of the reasons I decided to use it.
Hope to hear from you soon
Thanks

This means we have to either wait for Apple to release a hot fix release like 10.7.9.1 or the next major upgrade to Logic Pro 10.8.

When Apple released Logic 10.6.4 the release notes stated that the issue with side-chain latency compensation was resolved, but unfortunately it is not completely fixed yet. We've let them know multiple times. If you are having issues please create a ticket with them so they are aware it's not working correctly yet.

Unfortunately there's not a lot we can do about this. A plug-in simply has to report its latency to the host, but the host has to do all the compensation.

Please also note that with stem limiting it is normal that some stems have a slightly louder peak value than the final combined track.