Hissing when using certain plugins (Especially Limiters)

Hello guys,

 

I noticed that I experience a quite annoying hissing while using certain plugins in my Mastering Bus, for instance while using some boosting ones (for instance, Waves IM Pusher) or especially when using limiters. I can understand that limiters introduce gain and therefore some distortion, but there also are crucial for making a track loud enough to compete with commercial standards. And sometimes you find yourself using quite a bit of gain to make it so.

Is there any way to fix this issue and therefore have a loud track with no annoying hissing added?

not having ever experienced that... are you sure you have no plugins that are running as demos? (some demos introduced periodic noise to remind you they're demos).

 

and/or are you pushing the limiter hard? have lots of high-end content? something is happening, but not sure it's the limiter that's causing it. anyway, will be useful to hear what others (smarter, more experienced than myself) have to say.

No demos at all.

 

It's a pretty hard and "in your face" kind of track but I noticed that the hissing goes away when disabling limiters or other kind of enhancing plugins.

right, so what content is the limiter enhancing? and promise you're only using ONE limiter on the main out....

Here, these are my Mix and my Master buses put one beside the other.

wow... what? you have gain after 'final compression'... plus, too many plugins; you're wreaking havoc on your mixes.

 

really, someone else needs to jump in, and discuss this. i master outside of logic (ozone9 advanced), but occasionally, master something in logic... with one eq, and ozone's maximizer, on the mix out.

 

no harm in imagers, enhancers, etc. but i think you're overdoing it.

 

anyone else want to dig in here?

Which plugin, when enabled, produces "hiss"? Or is it that with a whole amount of compression and gain raising, you have a noise floor that's becoming audible (eg, you're using audio from hissy guitar amps, open mics etc that are all noisy, and that's being amplified significantly).

 

Or are you using plugins that introduce noise as part of "analog emulation", like Waves channel strips, and you're amplifiying that up to super audible degrees.

 

Honestly, when it comes to this kind of stuff (like you other thread), you really need to develop some mixer troubleshooting skills to identify which channels audio is coming from, what plugins are doing, and how to solo out stuff and follow routing to figure out what your audio is doing - it's really difficult for other people to follow people's often crazy complicated mix setups remotely and blind.

 

As to the "hissing", can you describe this more? Are you talking about noise? Harsh EQ frequencies or sibilance in certain frequency ranges? Distortion? What plugins are doing this? Is the hissing happening when no audio is playing? All the time? Only in the quieter parts? If you're struggling to diagnose these kinds of problems, at least provide some info for us to follow here, it's very difficult with vague/general statements to really see what's going on remotely...

 

 

I can understand that limiters introduce gain and therefore some distortion

Fwiw: Limiters are distorting your audio, but it's not because they are adding gain, it's because they are reducing the peaks...

The hissing I am experiencing is a subtle one, like a distortion/saturation kind, but still it can be annoying. I have the fear it's kind of inherent of the midi track itself how it was recorded. Because I cannot get rid of it with a gate or some noise suppressor plugin. The hissing is happening only during playback.

I checked and no, it's actually due to something going on on my mix or master bus, because when I playback the track I hear the hissing, but if I solo the first track (which is a solo synth as intro) the hissing is gone. Can't figure out how.

I can understand that limiters introduce gain and therefore some distortion...

 

You are right about this.

 

Is there any way to fix this issue and therefore have a loud track with no annoying hissing added?

 

You can reduce it, but not totally eliminate the artifacts.

 

Long answer: Every limiter produces different artifacts, no one limiter sounds the same. Often, even the same limiter has 3-4 algorithms within it that you can choose from: in Izotope Ozone for example, it even has several of IRC modes and styles.

 

What you're looking for is a more transparent limiter, and every limiter comes with a manual of how to make it more transparent sounding.

 

For example, I use ToneBooster Barricade as my main limiter (coz its the cheapest I could afford) and there is a transparent mode within it. Within that transparent mode, I can chose for auto attack and auto release, OR set my own attack and release.

 

The difference is with auto, I get more transparent sounding master but at the price of losing some loudness.

 

Remember that loudness is psychoacoustic. Brighter master will sound louder, we just don't want to overdo it with too much artifact and find the right balance.

 

So what I think may help you, assuming that it's the limiter that produces most artifacts in your case, is for you to:

 

1. Read your limiter's manual. Find out how to make it more transparent.
   
2. Choose the most transparent sounding algorithm within your limiter's setting.
   
3. Use manual attack/release to manually control the artifacts/distortion. Auto attack/release can sound more transparent but also can sound 'weaker' lacking punch/loudness.
   
4. Dithering. With so many dithers to choose from, choose one that is suitable for your bit depth (16bit/24 bit) and see whether a noise shaping / less audible dithering will help it sound more transparent.

 

That is assuming it's the limiter that produces the most artifacts/distortion in your master. It could also be other things.

I checked and no, it's actually due to something going on on my mix or master bus,

 

Ok, so it's always there, no matter which track you solo? If yes, then it's not a track thing, it's a mixer/buss thing.

 

because when I playback the track I hear the hissing, but if I solo the first track (which is a solo synth as intro) the hissing is gone.

 

This is contrary to what you concluded above. If you solo a different track, which is also going through your bus processing, and you don't get it, then it seems it's not being caused by the bus processing (although this might depend on the source track you are soling. Again, I can't advise here, unless you post audio clips/screenshots/videos of the problem).

 

Turn off all your master/mix plugins - they are just complicating the process of fault finding. Listen to your source tracks, and identify if it's a problem with a recording on one particular track. If so, then you've found the issue and can best decide how to deal with it.

 

If all the tracks are clean, solo one, and start to enable your bus plugins one by one until you hear the problem. Then investigate that last plugin and what it's doing.

I was using Waves L3 Ultramaximizer and now trying out Ozone Maximizer, but even with transparent setting the hissing still occurs. I am starting to think it could b due to gain increase all over the mixing project. Also, I find out that many times, the signal going into my limiter isn't really hot as I would expect.

There should be no hissing whatsoever.

 

Try Logic's adaptive limiter. What is the level of your audio signal at the input of the limiter? How much gain do you apply with the limiter?

Unfortunately it still happens even with Logic's Adaptive one.

I think it could be a problem of the signal not being hot enough when hitting the limiter.

I always need to crank the gain knob up too much, which obviously isn't good at all.

Cannot understand why the signal going into the limiter is always so low even if it seems ok during the mix process.

Any advices?

You don't need the signal to be hot enough when hitting the limiter. Cranking the gain knob brings the signal hotter to compensate for the signal not being hot enough. Assuming your Stereo Out and Master faders are both set to 0, if your limiter is the last plug-in on your Stereo Out channel strip then the signal hitting the limiter is the same as the one that is metered by the Mixer's stereo meters when you don't have the limiter inserted.

 

If you want, share a screenshot of the levels you're seeing so that we can explain further.

Cannot understand why the signal going into the limiter is always so low even if it seems ok during the mix process.

Any advices?

 

I've given you a range of troubleshooting steps to work through which will help you home in on the problem. Perhaps you missed them?