Manual

81 FINALIZER Desktop Application User Manual
12.8.1 Limiter in Detail
Over the past two decades, as the Loudness Wars have raged, it has become clear the abuse of “loudness maximizers” in mastering can signicantly reduce audio
quality at the end-listener.
When levels get squashed against the digital ceiling, 0 dBFS, reconstructed intersample peaks in Digital-to-Analog converters and audio le codecs (e.g. MP3 and
AAC), may be higher than the level that consumer equipment was designed to handle. We call this level “0 dBFS+”, and often there have been no limiters in music
mastering preventing such peaks from happening.
The limiters in the Finalizer are designed:
1) to continually measure if your signal is contaminated with 0 dBFS+ peaks
2) to remove them
The Finalizer’s combination of the True-Peak and Loudness numerical descriptors – always operating on the full-track signal – provides the best possible support for
making optimal decisions of dynamics, head-room and loudness level in your master. As a further aid, the PLR and its corresponding bracket in the Main Meter will
provide a tangible indication of how much dynamic compression and limiting you are applying.
The Finalizer cannot prevent destruction of dynamic range from happening at earlier stages in the production process (e.g. at your DAW master bus), but it will detect
when this is happening, and issue a warning in the Prepare module.
12.8.2 Precision in Level and Time
The Finalizer limiter operates with extended precision in both level (innite headroom) and time (5 times oversampling). The Finalizer PPM level meters and
descriptors are upsampled in order to identify intersample and 0 dBFS+ peaks on Source track (A), as well as Processed track (B). Therefore, the meter scales are
extended to +3 dBFS because excessive level normally falls between 0 and +3 dBFS, and most consumer equipment already exhibits distortion at +0.5 dBFS. When
the limiter is turned o, the Finalizer does not protect against 0 dBFS+ peaks from occurring.
When monitoring and listening one nal time to the processing of your track, before Export, make sure that:
1. Loudness Compensation is OFF (in Monitor)
2. Unity Gain is enabled (in Monitor), unless you have setup a calibrated Reference Level.
3. Compare is set to “B”, i.e. the processed output
4. Focus Mode is disabled (i.e. the entire processing chain is active).
12.8.3 Soft Clip
Soft Clip is a bandwidth limited distortion eect, not unlike analog tape saturation. Soft Clipping can add loudness to a signal at the price of distortion. You may want
to trade a bit of the limiter’s dynamic gain reduction for a bit of soft clipping (which is instantaneous).
The Soft Clipper Amount will intelligently set the threshold of the Soft Clipper, corresponding to the selected Soft Clip Type, so you directly dene the maximum
amount of soft clipping (in dB) across the full track. This approach prevents any nasty surprises, such as an unexpected high amount of clipping in the last chorus -
because it happened to be a little louder.
12.8.4 Operational Hints
• Master Limiter: Normal operating procedures involve rst setting the Limiter Gain in order to reach the desired Output level.
• Loudness Limiter: Set the output Loudness Level and let the Finalizer automatically set the limiter threshold.
Use the Gain Reduction meters in the Limiter Edit View, and your ears, as guidelines to when it is time to stop adding more Limiter Gain, or if the Output Loudness level
is maybe set too high. For not-previously limited or -compressed signals, as a rule of thumb, be careful if exceeding 8 dB of gain reduction, if not for artistic reasons. If
the signal is already dynamic range compressed, less drastic limiting treatment is indicated.
We recommend ne-tuning the limiter parameters, in combination with parameters of any dynamic compressor earlier in the module chain. Experiment with dierent
Release times, Limiter Proles and Soft Clip settings to nd the type that best compliments the material. When used in combination with the Dynamic Limiter, Soft
Clip can produce a louder and denser impression than the dynamic limiter by itself. If mis-used, excessive Soft Clip may lead to an ear-fatiguing sound.