FabFilter User Forum
Audition Limiting - How to use it
Hey all,
I just recently began using the Pro-L 2 limiter, and am impressed by the Audition Limiting feature (as well as many other features). However, when changing around the settings, I'm not sure what I should be aiming to hear when Audition Limiting.
I watched quite a few videos and users seem to set it so that they don't just hear popping sounds, but actually hear part of the music when Audition Limiting.
I understand that it's essentially the sound (i.e. gain reduction?) that's added by the limiter in order to achieve the louder levels without peaking/clipping, or is it the opposite? The sound/gain that's being removed in order to allow my master to be louder?
Thanks for your help!
Ryan — May 20, 2019
Honestly... the auditioning feature is great for getting a general idea of what parts of the signal is being affected. However, it's not very useful for gathering detailed information. It is far more important to hear the entire signal while limiting than it is to hear the auditioned signal. This is much like using the solo function on an equalizer. It gives you an idea of what you are doing but offers such an extreme contrast to the actual sound that it offers almost as much confusion as it does useful information.
Listening to this signal for distortion can also be very misleading. Just understand that what you hear when you use this feature is the difference between the original signal and the limited signal. Meaning that what you are hearing is either what is being added or what is being taken away.
I don't personally use this feature much but I would say that it doesn't hurt to check it to hear how much the limiting is impacting your audio source but it should never be how you actually decide the settings. It is supplementary in my opinion. Anyway, hope this helps.
A useful piece of advice here...
These tools in almost every case are meant to help us avoid having to re-record our audio. A perfectly recorded track is one that needs no processing. So don't spend so much time studying a tool that you waste the time it was designed to save you. Otherwise you might as well have saved your money and recorded it over again.