Why should you limit your master?

I got this question:

"Would there be any benefit to temporarily putting a limiter on the master in order to highlight any issues in the mix (I mean would it highlight anything too loud in the mix or annoying frequencies)?"

This is a good question, and I'm happy to answer this. Even if you're not that interested in mastering, this can be useful, because it can kind of give you some feedback on your mix.

First, quickly in a nutshell about what a limiter (also known as maximizer) does: it removes peaks from your signal. This allows you to make the signal louder, because after the peak removal, the signal can be normalized louder, i.e., its level can be raised without peaks going over the ceiling, which'd cause the signal to distort.

So as for the original question then!
It can be good practice to try and limit your master so that it's as loud as your chosen reference songs.
Pick some songs that sound good and are as loud as you prefer. Then use the limiter to raise the loudness where it matches with that of the reference song(s).

Once it's loud enough for you, listen to the signal:

• Is it distorting?
If it is, some of these may apply:
-you're trying to to go too loud,
-you'd need another limiter for extra help (see bottom of post),
-there's too much bass,
-the low-mids are too chunky,
-something in the signal is too loud, e.g., some sound that occurs every now and then plays too loud (if it only happens every now and then)
-the kick may be too long and it overlaps with bass (keep your kicks as short as possible: long bassy tails often cause trouble with limiting).
TIP: some limiters such as Invisible Limiter have a Unity Gain feature, which doesn't raise the level when limiting, so you can try and push it till you hear the sound starts to get a bit too distorted – then you just dial it back a bit, and that's prob as much limiting that limiter can do. When you disable Unity Gain, the signal gets loud.

• Is it softening the signal?
In some cases, when a limiter is pushed too much or if it's kind of overworked, it gets soft and the drums can get a bit mushy. This is why always use two limiters or the help of a clipper (only when going rrrreally loud though…a clipper can easily cause extra harm and loss of dynamics).
Also sometimes if the bass does some sudden level jumps, this may make the limiter act a bit soft. Try two limiters, or tame those jumps in the mix (e.g., every now and then I may use a very slight limiter or compressor on the bass track in mixing) OR use a multiband compressor or such to tame that jump.
Also, if your mix is really transient-heavy, you may want to soften that a bit: just don't make the transients so sharp, use oekSound Spiff to make them a bit rounder, or use a clipper before limiter to tame the transients a bit.
BTW, do check out my video on clipper vs limiter differences!
FWIW, I seldom use a clipper.

So in a nutshell, when you use a limiter (and especially two) to make your song as loud as good commercial masters, and if it distorts or the sound breaks, the mix will need some work. So in this way, limiting your master gives you some feedback on your mix.

Lastly, two VERY important points!

1) when you want to do really good limiting, I advise you to use two limiters to share the heavy lifting, and you'll get a much cleaner result than with just one. There may be cases with some less loud styles where one limiter is fine, but with things like DNB etc., two limiters are needed.

2) DAW limiters cannot handle good master limiting. Period. Pretty much any DAW limiter will make the master soft or mushy (while they're ok for some peaks on tracks in mixing, should you care about that).
For good limiting, you'll need a good third party one (Izotope Ozone Maximizer, AOM Invisible Limiter, and DMGaudio Limitless are some I can recommend)

Any Qs? Hit me up!

🥁 PS: I've been creating some drumsounds, and will link you to some SOON! 🥁