Ad Limiter ballpark typical settings?

Would anybody be so kind to give me some ballpark settings when using the ADAPTIVE LIMITER in Logic 9? I'm bouncing down songs to stereo for iTunes & radio submission and could really do with some further advice as to how best to go about this. The songs I am intending to submit could be described as 'Catchy Guitar Pop' & I'm attempting to get them to some kind of professional overall uniform level. Trouble is, I'm REALLY not sure what these levels should be! (EG: What are the optimum levels required by radio stations when submitting music??)

 

I currently have my 'OUT CEILING' knob set to: '0.01' but, typically, where should I be setting both the 'GAIN' & 'INPUT' levels using the Ad Limiter? Like I say, ANY ballpark figure suggestions would be MUCH appreciated as that will enable me to go off and experment further to try & get my songs sounding better level-wise. At the moment I don't know what levels I should be hitting and, by comparison, when I bookend my songs between commercially released songs there's a considerable drop in volume where my music is concerned. (NB: I can provide sonic examples of this if required! For example, one of my songs is currently getting airplay on LOCAL radio. It's a strong song (though I say so myself!) BUT it just sounds really lame level-wise compared to the other tracks they play on the show!)

 

I've hit a 'brick wall' this end and would really appreciate ANY help on this matter as it's becoming quite a problem for me to be honest. In general I'm fairly happy with both my songs & my mixes but they're just not standing up volume-wise against other records on the radio (nor on my iPod - I have to keep turning the volume up when I arrive at one of my compositions in shuffle mode!) I just need to get past this so I can move forward this end. Like I say, any suggested/recommended settings to be going on with would be very much appreciated!

what you are talking of is a profession of it's own and it's called mastering. You cannot do it quickly and properly just by adding a simple plugin. You will never compete agains commercial productions on iTunes. If it's a serious project (and I have no doubt it is I would read books and learn more about mastering or ... to move on quickly ... just send the track via server or dropbox to a mastering engineer. They are often around 50;- per track for an unsigned project. (just Google)

this all comes down to your mix.... spend a LOT of time getting your mix just right. there are no specific settings someone can tell you to use on the limiter because every track is different. it's going to be different just based on your tracks headroom. but if your mix is super good, you don't need much as far as mastering goes. you really can sometimes get away with just a limiter. i would REALLY suggest you get a better limiter than the adaptive limiter. it's ok if that's all you have, but it's nice to have something that gives you a little more information than the adaptive limiter does. you really want something that is going to give you information and read-out on the amount of gain reduction. typically in mastering, you want somewhere between 2-4 dB worth of gain reduction on peaks. i've seen some that have like 6dB worth of gain reduction and still sound clean though. so use your ears. the adaptive limiter doesn't tell you how much gain reduction you're getting. this can also be kind of a good thing though honestly..... it forces you to use your ears a bit more. but essentially on the adaptive limiter you would set the input scale to a point where it doesn't go "over" you'll see that turn red if it does. then push the gain a bit until it starts to sound bad. set your out ceiling to something like -.1dB it's best to do a small touch of some sort of mastering compression before the limiter as well. make sure it's a decent master bus compressor. it'll just sound better. i LOVE the waves SSLComp. there's WAAAAAAAAY too much detail to go into about mastering and loudness for this thread, but just know that most of you "loudness" will come down to your mix. you can push your limiter a little harder if your mix is really well balanced and tight. having something that tells you your RMS levels is helpful too. usually something around the -4 to -9 RMS levels will yield you results that are "commercially" ready. it's best to use a reference track when you're doing this as well so you can try and match that. use a track similar to yours that you can A/B with to be able to easily hear and adjust things about your track compared to the professional one. you just don't want to hear distortion..... distortion is bad. hopefully this helps a bit. i'd be more than happy to go into more detail if you want/need.

Incredible replies - THANK YOU (so much!)

For a cheap software limiter that is more transparent than Logic's AdLimiter, I'd recommend ToneBoosters' Barricade:

 

http://www.toneboosters.com/tb-barricade/

 

€19.95 is a bargain.

 

Where you park the input gain knob (with Logic's AdLimiter too) depends entirely on the level of the mix. If it's peaking at -12dBFS before any gain is applied, then I'd add around 11dB.

 

As for what level you limit to, I tend to go for between -0.3dBFS and -0.5dBFS.

 

If I can hit between -10dBFS and -15dBFS RMS for a final level without noticeable distortion, I'm happy. That's around the kind of level you'd expect from a rock CD from the 90's. I'm not a fan of the extreme brickwall limiting modern releases tend to have.

 

Here's a short video about dynamics and the "Loudness War":