This is putting asi the fact that I will very likely make the choice to invest in one just for not losing one channel. But putting that point aside for a seconds, I wanted to ask–is there a significant jump in quality from dedicated limiters and such pseudo-mastering gear for live sets when compared to what one can achieve within an octa’s t8 master channel option?
Like, let’s say for example I hypothetically got a gig and wanted to play live set. Could I get away with playing my tracks where I can just use seven channels generally speaking or can comfortably resample some two channels into one? Or would it be better to just wait a little bit so I can afford a physical limiter and save myself the time it’d take to resample some tracks for a live set that will anyway be of less polish that one after I have bought a physical limiter?
Am interested in how much physical limiters up the audio quality of performances, especially because while yes, I can admit that it sounds slightly “old school techno”, I still believe my octa+minilogue stuff already sounds pretty good even when raw (not even t8 mastering, I mean). Thanks.
Mastering is IMHO not as crucial as a good mix, and with a good mix you can get 99%* of the way there, I guess the question is how much monetary value do you place on a 1% improvement?
*Stats
Stats are not real world examples, but hopefully you get the point.
Also worth serious consideration…
The venues sound system.
Again, a sexy limiter wont make any difference at all if the sound system is pony, or the venue acoustics are awful.
Basically the answer is no, an external limiter wont improve the sound quality for live shows.
It will do its job, which is catching peaks the signal doesnt exceed the ceiling.
I’m in the same boat as you op, being new to live gigs but having a first one on the horizon. I’m personally currently leaning more towards getting good in-ear monitors for that amount of money instead of a limiter. I have an adequate compressor (FMR RNC) but I think I’ll leave it at home too. I think our live sound will be way too big and rough to really be helped by the nuance of a compressor. Or that’s my current thinking… Anyone please do tell if you disagree
All the gigs I did with a laptop had a limiter on the master.
All the gigs I did with OT and other gear (no laptop) had no limiter.
You know what the only difference was? I had more fun with the OT. The audience danced/didnt dance regardless. Mostly I got more curious faces poking over the stage to see what the little black box with flashing lights was.
I tried doing a comparison between an Alesis 3630 in a slow attack/fast release/low ratio and threshold setup and the compressor in the OT to see if I could get a close match, and I definitely preferred the Alesis, just sounded more pleasing and less ‘grainy’ somehow. That said, in general you should make the most of what you got, and the OT’s compressor will be fine 9 times out of 10.
I played 2 shows at the same venue pretty close together recently. Mostly the same material. At one, I had the OT master track on, with compressor settings carefully tuned for each track. At the next, I played with no master compressor.
It sounded better without. More dynamic - big surprise, right? I think it might be best to trust the venue’s own limiter situation, at least if it’s somewhere with a decent PA setup and engineer. Two layers of compression can really suck the life out of some sounds.
Not sure I agree with the “no compressor is fine” and “nobody will hear the difference”.
Compression and limiting seems to be confused a bit in this topic as well. Sure, limiting is a form of compression but the goal is quite different.
Compression as a way to glue a mix together can really enhance a groove in a positive way. Making the low end tighter and more groovy. This won’t control your peaks necessary though as most often a slow-ish attack is used here. If then you signaling being limited on top of that by the club’s system or sound engineer, well ya it will sound messed up. And yea gain staging into the compressor should be controlled. Can be done with practice even when fully improvising.
To me this is exactly why you’d want to control this yourself so that you can be more certain in how it will translate on a sound system. Bad acoustics or shitty systems included. That will only make things even worse. Not a reason to not control your output imho…
When it comes to limiting I’m not sure the octatrack’s compressor is sufficient enough on its own though. I’m going to check this out sometime though with an overdrive or distortion after that (low-fi fx or filter) Basically what I try to achieve by using a combination of compression plus saturation is that I can play a bit louder and match the djs output a bit better without my sound being squashed to bits completely. High dynamic range is one of the most powerful things about playing live and people actually enjoy it a lot more that squashed mastered tracks that djs play.
However if you’re not controlling your peaks two things can happen: the sound engineer will try to do this for you which can basically destroy what you’ve build if you’re in bad luck. Or your set will sound dynamic as hell but way softer than other acts/djs. And yes this does have a big influence on the dancefloor and yea people on the dancefloor do notice this even if they’re not aware why this is.
I’ve been searching for a good solution to this and actually created a series of videos about this topic that is till on going. No chin scratching here but just my observation and preference to create a sound I like :). It’s really a combination of finding a type of sound plus controlling peaks.
To me it’s a combination of glue compression (which is simply something that enhances my low end in a pleasing way infinite) and peak control. And for the later I prefer to use a form of subtle (or not so subtle) saturation rather than a brick wall limiter.
INCREDIBLE OTO Boum - Dawless Mastering Chain part #3
FLEXIBLE Elektron Analog Heat // Dawless Mastering Chain part #2
STUDIO GRADE Doctron & Stimming Instant Mastering Chain // Dawless Mastering Chain part #1
And planning more on this series with other devices. AHFX as well of course.
Context matters, right? If you’re going on inbetween a bunch of DJs and no tech/hands-off tech, yeah you’ll be quiet without adding yr own compression/limiting. If there’s someone behind the desk who actually knows how to use the limiter/compression on the desk, different story.
I’d also separate this whole issue out from the question of creative compression for bounce, glue, side-chaining etc… I feel the OP was worried more about the practical than the creative element.
Point is to take that uncertainty out of the equation as much as possible.
Context definitely matters but my story above still applies in most cases.
And as I point out above both the creative and practical can be combined here. I’m sure with comp + one of the distortions on octa it might be possible to achieve this. So I’m not advocating that more gear is needed. i mean all this as a counter point to the posts stating that it doesn’t matter, not as a state of fact but just from my experience.
Can’t believe I’m attempting to post after Dave in this topic, but just because I haven’t seen this perspective mentioned yet: I think the OT compressor is pretty bad. imo, it’s like the opposite of the magic sweetening master compressor that most people think of: just turning it on makes most things magically sound worse, unless you are very careful.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s fine as a utility effect, but I would not assume that putting it on the master is going to “glue” or sweeten anything. Unless you’re gonna go super scientific like Dave the first goal is to avoid doing harm to your signal by making assumptions.
I haven’t played live with my setup, but I’ve been enjoying having an AH mk1 at the end of my chain lately because 1. it gives you a master volume control, and 2. as mentioned, saturation is a much “safer” (harder to screw up) way to sweeten your signal than glue compression (where imo there is a profound danger to overdo it).
Point taken, thanks for countering. I’ll consider it - I think I definitely would need to rely on a compressor with good visual feedback if I’ll use one - hearing the difference in bad acoustics will probably be difficult for me! My RNC has nice visual led feedback though.
If it’s your first live gig I still wouldn’t bother with compressors and limiters, unless you’re really really fluent at playing your stuff already and/or compression is integral part of your sound, and have ample soundcheck time to listen at full blast whether your processing actually makes things better or worse. Chances are you ll want to first get a feel of how a big PA in a club room sounds before adding these mastering steps.
All compression introduces distortion. Some distortion good, some distortion bad. So I think the answer is yes, you should definitely buy a three grand, 20 kilo mastering compressor to lug around with you.
(there’s probably a happy medium)
(I agree with Dave Mech unsuprisingly - the more “controlled” and “finished” the signal you send the desk the less you ask of the engineer and the less you rely on him, right?)
imo OT compressor is decent but i prefer to use an outboard compressor/limiter to save that slot for an additional performance effect. recently i’ve been getting some mileage out of EHX Platform, not to colour, but to utilize it as a “safety” limiter more or less and maybe subtle glueing. but my plan is to get an Analog Heat +FX, which ticks all the boxes for me.
not all in-house engineers are that “friendly” but if there’s possibility for a soundcheck, i usually tell them to leave everything as neutral as possible, i chain a varied mix of patterns on device and just tweak the venue graphic eq a bit to make it sound as close to as i’m used to front of the house. it’s not massively useful since an empty daytime venue during soundcheck vs a populated venue at night resonates very different, but eventually you get better at estimating that difference.
What do you want the “master” compression/limiting to do? If you want it louder, you can fix alot in the mix as Darenager said. If you use sampled drums you can compress the sample. That change how much compression you need on the master. I sometimes like some kind of limiting on the master for some effect buildups. So i can increase feedback on the delays and make then “take over”, but not go into pure distortion. Easy to go overboard though.
Re the OT compressor specifically - IMHO it is best used and probably mostly designed for use at individual track level, sure it can be ok across a mix as long as the mix is well balanced and you are not using too drastic settings.
If you play live sets between djs a limiter will improve your life. Loudness in clubs is definitely an issue when you are competing with djs and more often than not the sound engineer will not solve it for you.
If it’s a great venue with a great system that does not push the db level of the djs to the maximum legal limit then not having a limiter actually sounds better in most cases. Or if it’s in a context where loudness isn’t an interesting issue obviously.
However, if you are performing in a club together with DJ’s then this issue is something you have to deal with at some level.
Personally I would prefer that everything was just kept at more reasonable loudness level. Then it’s no issue to turn up the live sets so that it’s at the same perceived volume and the music sounds better as well (both the DJ and the live performer). But that’s just not how most clubs do things.
You can probably make good use of the OT comp but I was personally never really able to get the desired result when I was using it this way.
