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Mastering Limiter Lookahead time
Hi Dana, I wanted to ask you about your approach to lookahead in fab filter pro l2. I find that it kills transients quite a bit if pushed beyond 0.3 ish, but on the other hand yields cleaner sound around 1.5ms. Do you have a preference what to go for?
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1 Reply
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Daniel!
Such a keen observation, man. I notice the same thing and for YEARS I avoided using the lookahead feature for that very reason. However, that has changed in recent months as I’ve found the lookahead is really quite useful! (Albeit not my go-to initial setting)
My Pro-L2 “user default” setting, called DN START, has pretty much no lookahead enabled; attack around 2:30; release around 9:00. I raise the gain/threshold as high as I can push it until the mix starts to break up, then back it off slightly to a more reasonable setting. I often hold the Shift key while finding this “break up” point so that the output volume remains constant and I can easily keep an ear out for compression artifacts and distortion without being fooled by loudness.
Once I have the gain set I preview all the different modes (transparent, dynamic, punch, etc.). Each of those modes sounds quite unique and I find that for each song I find one that feels like magic and helps the mix in some way.
This would be my baseline ideal setting. If the mix sounds awesome and is loud AF and punchy and awesome then I’m done! But … if it’s not loud enough and starts to distort or crumble when I add more gain, THAT is the point at which I start messing with attack, release, and/or lookahead.
I might turn the attack faster, say 9:00, and see if the crumbling distortion artifacts disappear. If not, I’ll slow the release, say 3:00 or whatever feels appropriate for the tempo of the song so that the gain reduction returns to 0-ish by the next snare or kick.
If those adjustments fix the crumbly artifacts yet I feel I’ve lost too much transient punch and snap, THEN I’ll crank up the lookahead, say btwn 9:00 and 12:00, while increasing the attack time as much as possible — back to 2:30 if possible, or more — to recover those transients. I’ve been happily surprised by the result!
By following this process I get to keep my precious “loud AF” volume, without crumbly compression artifacts, while maintaining most of my glorious snappy transients.
Give it a try and lemme know whatcha think!
🕺🏻⚡️🤘
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