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It's really not a good idea, though, to rely on this as a means of 'limiting' the peaks of your recordings or mixes. If you're recording live performances (as opposed to rendering predictable MIDI parts), then - provided you've got a good quality soundcard - you should always deliberately set your levels to 'under-record' by about 6dB below your expected peak signal level, just to give yourself a safety margin.

When it comes to mixing, deliberate 'clipping' by pushing your levels up high should almost always be avoided in preference to using a purpose-designed limiter/maximiser plug-in - your DAW may well include a suitable one.

Cubase's Multiband Compressor, for example, has a soft-clipping function that works well, although you should avoid the limiter in both the VST Dynamics and plain Dynamics modules, as it has a bug affecting overall levels. IK Multimedia's T-RackS mastering suite also provides limiting and soft-clipping modules and there are several limiter/ maximiser plug-ins downloadable from the Internet for free, too, so there's really no excuse for not using one.

Maintaining stereo imaging

If you had one loudspeaker set louder than the other, then obviously you'd know that there was something wrong with your equipment setup. However, a surprising number of people - even software plug-in developers - often don't realise that exactly the same holds true for compressors. In a stereo mix, it's clear that there will be moments when instruments in one speaker are louder than the other. Under those circumstances, you'd never want to turn down just that one channel, since the stereo image of the entire mix would immediately shift to the other speaker. Instead, the level of both channels must be turned down by exactly the same amount.

What's worse, there are some multiband plug-in compressors that also process stereo channels independently. This is dreadfully wrong, since it means that the tonal balance between channels becomes inconsistent as well, leading to every element in the mix losing its focus, with parts migrating randomly across the stereo image in highly undesirable ways.

When selecting a compressor plug-in to use on your final mix - whether it be multiband or single-band - it's essential, then, that you make sure it can operate in a so-called 'stereo linked' fashion. If it doesn't offer this basic function, then don't even think about using it on your mix - it'll ruin the stereo imaging completely.

Practice

Ultimately, the quest for maximum loudness seems to be a war without end, and it can often make you feel like throwing in the towel completely - after all, it's certainly true that all of these complicated techniques do compromise the sound to some degree, especially when compared with the simple task of the listener just turning the volume up on their system.

Unfortunately, though, if you try to duck out of doing battle with the big boys, you'll find that your final bounces will sound embarrassingly quiet compared to commercial releases, so these days it's pretty much essential that you adopt some or all of these techniques to some extent. Follow our tips, put in a bit of practice and you'll soon have your mixes banging along with the best of them.

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