#14 Ableton Tips: Pad and atmosphere limiting.

We all know that dynamics and dynamic control is an integral part of building a groove and mixing. But a lot of producers only apply compressing, clipping and limiting to obviously transient elements such as drums and synths with bright attacks.

But when you have, say, a beautiful pad part with a different number of notes playing each chord, or an atmosphere that stays quiet but nonetheless changes dynamics and you lose some of the sounds, limiting can be of help.

So, what you can do is load up a limiter on the channel with you pad or atmosphere, we will be using Pro-L 2 from FabFilter since it makes the waveform really obvious but pretty much any other can do the job.

In Pro-L 2 hold Alt and drive the gain up, this will automatically adjust the output loudness to the same level. So, with a high gain and a big lookahead the pad is now limited without audible distortion. What is the point? You now have a sound which carries the same information and function, but isn’t as overpowering in it’s louder moments and it’s more consistent dynamically, which can really be a boon with complex synth parts and layered productions

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