Solved ...fellow LMMS or Hydrogen users here? (Amplitude Limiting = yes)

[909mjolnir]

UPDATE: SOLVED. Yes, "Hard Limiter" (LADSPA) can be loaded on the master track, and/or individual tracks in LMMS for amplitude limiting (compression). Also, as LMMS supports saving a project default template, you can make this feature a default.

Please disregard my previous misconceptions in this and my subsequent intermediate post...

I'm currently grooving on LMMS and Hydrogen and I'm wondering if anybody here uses either? 
If so, do you know of any way to add an amplitude limiter to the WAV export or in the project at the master fader? 
I'm hoping to put effects on the output rather than as an FX insert. 

Both of these programs are excellent but seem to have left out such a function. 
I'm thinking maybe they were just a bit ahead of their time and didn't yet think of it. 

For that matter, what's a good LV2 stereo master limiter to use?

 

[Tritone]

I've tried them both, but I'm not using then anymore. I used to experiment with music creation suring my Windows time. I used MuLab and Magix Music Maker, but it was a very short period of time.

 

[909mjolnir]

I just recently purchased MuLab. I am liking it a lot!

 

[JasKinasis]

I use Ardour and Reaper, but I’m more of a live music guy, recording live instruments. I sometimes program drums using Hydrogen if I can’t be bothered to record live drums for demos. But I haven’t done a lot with it recently.

My studio PC is about to undergo an overhaul. The old graphics card in it is no longer supported by Blender (which I use to render animated title sequences for videos edited in Openshot). I’ve bought an Nvidia RTX 4060 for it, but now I need to upgrade the power supply! :/

 

[Tritone]

I just recently purchased MuLab. I am liking it a lot!

As far as I remember it was very beginner friendly. It worked great under Wine, as well.

 

[KGIII]

Like @JasKinasis said, we're recording live instruments. I tend to stick to the more simple stuff where I can just use Audacity but the we have Bitwig Studio in the studio. I can muck about with it and generally get what I need from it but the missus is much more adept with it than I am. I've spent a bunch of time in real studios but my job was on the other side of the glass.

 

[909mjolnir]

Yes, MuLab runs on WINE. That's how I'm using it. I even use FL Studio's ASIO driver in it instead of the default MME. Apparently there's no WASAPI, but that's okay, ASIO works alright.

I still use REAPER too, but I couldn't wrap my brain around Ardour. Something about Ardour's interface just confuses the pants off me.

I also like OpenShot, but don't have any current video ideas.

Even though I don't really do "live" stuff, I sure wish I had a live drummer.
I could really spice up my electronic music with a live drummer, albeit samples of.
For now, I'm using downloaded breakbeats from time to time, and programming my own too.
I really like the mixture of studio drums with drum machine style drums.

Like I said earlier, I'm still wondering if anybody knows of any way to easily amplitude limit the outputs of Hydrogen and LMMS? Mabye there is no solution? Clipping is a potential problem it seems.

 

[JasKinasis]

I’ve never experienced any problems with clipping from hydrogen. And I couldn’t comment on lmms because I’ve not really used it much.

 

[909mjolnir]

Thanks for the replies.

UPDATE: (April 25th, 2025)
Limiting works just fine in LMMS.
I hadn't been doing it right the first time, but the recent attempt works alright.
A youtube video helped set me straight.

Turns out I was wrong about what I said here:

I checked out Hydrogen again and although I'm able to load a Hard Limiter and make adjustments, all of the FX in Hydrogen load in parallel instead of series, so the limiter has zero effect on the master bus. 
Also, there's no pre- or past- fader switches for the channels so you can't mute out everything except for the FX sends. 

It would be nice if they could just add one slot on the master bus for limiting. 
That would really make it shine.  But I guess I won't hold my breath. 

The problem in LMMS is nearly identical. 

Even if I use the FX sends, there's almost no point in putting a limiter on a send instead of an insert.  And I guess neither program has FX inserts, only FX sends (for reverb).  I don't mean to make fun of the programmers, but it's as if they didn't fully understand common recording engineering practices as they modelled some in their "mixers".  But maybe I'm being snobby about it.  Sorry. 

Clipping isn't always a problem as it's program material dependent, but it could happen. 
In Cockos REAPER, I always have a limiter on my main master stereo bus and it helps a lot. 

It's getting to be kinda nutty on my system. 
I have several DAWs installed and I don't fully like any of them. 
Each one has something that the others lack, but none of them has ALL the features. 

I'll try not to complain too much. 
Does any of this ring a bell with anybody else?

 

[f33dm3bits]

Yeah I use Hydrogen every day, I drink a lot of H2O.

 

[KGIII]

Yeah I use Hydrogen every day, I drink a lot of H2O.

After all, it is the most common element in the known universe.

That said, is it worth it to try Hydrogen?

 

[909mjolnir]

I find that Hydrogen is similar to LMMS's beat step editor, but I think the one in LMMS is easier to use and probably more versatile. However, I could be wrong.

The nice thing about both of them is that you don't have to just use drum sounds--you could load up any WAV's and sequence them.

 

[KGIII]

you could load up any WAV's and sequence them.

I think I'm going to have to play with this. I like experimenting with music and I'm not one of those stuborn people who thinks that the instruments need to be analog.

 

[909mjolnir]

OKAY, I THINK I WAS WRONG...

I was studying this youtube video...

And that guy knows LMMS better than me and he uses the LADSPA "Declipper" as a limiter in LMMS right off the bat in a fresh new project. I think this is the solution! The video shows this at 2 minutes 29 seconds onward...

I peeked at LMMS, and the loaded declipper effect has a W/D (wet/dry) effects balance control, as usual with the other effects, and so that's where theoretically you set it to 100% so that you only get the amplituded limited version without any amplitude clipping. It's a little bit counter-intuitive in practice, but it seems to work. It also worked with the LADSPA "Hard Limiter", which I rather prefer.

OK, to sorta summarize, you could load up either the "Declipper "or a more traditional limiter such as "Hard Limiter" on the master channel and set the dB limit to "-0.375" decibels to be just below clipping via the "controls". Nicely, this also works on individual channels. Be sure to fiddle with the "W/D" control set to either side so that you know you're getting the effectiveness.

anonymous upload picture

I had hoped that this same approach would work in Hydrogen, but it didn't work on my system.
However, since both LMMS and Hydrogen have a step editor/recorder that function similarly, I'm going to mark the first post as [SOLVED] and link to this post. Hydrogen users that need the limiting function could make the switch to LMMS and it'd be okay.