Limiter on Outputs for IEMS

[NorthernLights]

I’m looking for suggestions on how to set the limiter on the outputs (going to IEM’s) of my CQ 20B to protect the ears of my bandmates from cracks and pops that could occur from cable insertions, and other extraneous loud noises. I’m fairly new to mixing, and know I should probably have limiters set on the outputs, but I’m not sure what they should look like.

Any advice out there for a newb?

[NorthernLights]

Man this place is dead. Makes me wonder if this board should go back to Amazon if I can’t get a simple question answered.

No chime in from the one employee I see up here?

[G]

Limiters on IEMs can sound pretty bad if you are too aggressive with the threshold. Start by turning the limiter on on one of your mixes and opening the threshold all the way (clockwise). Then either have the band play or play back some multitrack recordings while listening to the mix mentioned above. while listening back watch the limiter graph and slowly bring the threshold down until you see its just barley suppressing the loudest peaks. Thats likely a good place to set it. But I’d also just go wild with it and experiment to gain a better understanding of how it behaves. Hope that was helpful.

[G]

Also maybe try to get in the habit of just muting inputs when they are being patched and unpatched.

[Brian]

Man this place is dead. Makes me wonder if this board should go back to Amazon if I can’t get a simple question answered.

No chime in from the one employee I see up here?

Well it’s because the real answer is for feature is likely never coming to the CQ. If that’s a deal breaker for you, then yes you should return the device and purchase shifting else.

[Anonymous]

Man this place is dead. Makes me wonder if this board should go back to Amazon if I can’t get a simple question answered.
No chime in from the one employee I see up here?

Yes, send your mixer back and stop sound mixing immediately… sound engineering requires very often working with others and for sure better relationship skills than you are showing here.

[KeithJ A&H]

@Brian

The CQ does include a limiter on every output, mainly for this application.

@NorthernLights

Apologies for the delay, but I will point out this is a user community and for support we can be contacted directly through support.allen-heath.com
To answer your question though, I would recommend using the fast setting on the limiter and setting threshold to 0dB to begin with. You will want to adjust the threshold so that the limiter is only very occasionally triggered. It’s just as important to set the levels going to each output so you have a good signal level that isn’t peaking, then adjusting the output level for the overall level.

Thanks,
Keith.

[Author]

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