Lintel

Lintel is the last thing on your master. It looks 1.5 ms ahead and measures between the samples at 4x, so nothing passes the ceiling, even the peaks that only appear after conversion. It brings the gain down smoothly in time for each peak, so it gets loud without clicking or crunching.

The controls

Input

How hard you push into the limiter: this is your loudness control.

Ceiling

The highest the signal will go, measured as a true peak. -1 dB is safe for streaming.

Release

How quickly it recovers: fast is loud and dense, slow is smooth and open.

Stereo Link

100% limits both sides together, keeping the image steady; lower allows a little more level.

Best for

• The master: final loudness with a safe ceiling
• Stems and bounces: a ceiling so nothing clips
• Live recordings: catch the odd stray peak

Starting points

Load Lintel, set these, then adjust by ear. In the plugin, Level match helps you judge the sound, not the loudness.

Hints and tips

• Push the Input until you hear the drums lose their snap, then back off 1 dB.
• Most streaming services turn loud masters down, so the extra squeeze buys nothing. Aim for a master that sounds good, then add loudness.
• Put Kerb just before Lintel: the clipper takes the sharpest peaks so the limiter works less.

Chains it works best in

Every Original works in a chain with the others and with members' hardware. These are good places to start.

• Trifold then Kerb then Lintel: the modern loud master: density, clip, limit
• Mortar then Lintel: bus glue, then a safe ceiling
• Lathe then Lintel: tone first, then level

Watch out for

• A Ceiling of 0 dB: some players and encoders will clip. Use -1 dB.
• More than about 6 dB of limiting on a full mix: it flattens the life out of it.