Hello,
I’m looking to use a limiter, (Waves L3-16) for a track. This will be the only process/effect I use for the track. Does it make any difference if I use this limiter in the Effects section or the Final Effects/Dithering section before rendering?
No difference, unless you use the Resampler or any other processing after the dither such as the faders in the Master Section or the previously mentioned Resampler.
Are you working in the Audio Editor or Audio Montage?
Thanks for the reply.
I’m working in the audio editor, see the screenshot below. I’m not sure what you mean, “any other processing after the dither.” How would I know if a process is being done “after the dither?”
Either way, in my case it does not matter where I use the L3-16 plug-in, correct? Can you give me an example when you would want to use a plug-in in the Final Effects/Dithering section instead of the Effects section?
Your scenario looks OK.
The “Final Effects/Dithering” slots would be useful if:
You’re using the Resampler in the Master Section, in which case you’d want to turn the dithering OFF in your limiter, and apply dithering last in your processing chain which due to the nature of the master section, would be after the main Effects slots, and Resampler in the Master Section.
For some reason you’re setting the faders in the Master Section to something other than 0.0dB, then you’d want to use one of the “Final Effects/Dither” to dither to 24 or 16-bit from the floating point audio.
WaveLab has a built-in Bit-Depth Meter, which can be helpful to show you what’s going on, and what you might be doing or need to be doing in terms of dithering/bit-depth.
The reason there are two “Final Effects/Dithering” slots is because since Resampling can increase the peak levels by a fraction of a dB or more, so some people may want to insert a true-peak limiter to prevent any levels spilling over 0dB, and then dither AFTER the Resampler and true-peak limiter.
Got it, thanks for all the helpful information.
