Raiser provides powerful limiting options with a very flexible release section.
With its Raiser plug‑in, Cubase Pro can raise hell with your drum sounds!
For users of Cubase Pro, one of the more intriguing additions bundled with v12 was the Raiser plug‑in, which brought us some new limiting options. Indeed, Raiser has a number of interesting features. For one thing, the real‑time graphic display provides very clear visual feedback on changes to the overall waveform due to the limiting and the amount of peak gain reduction that is occurring. Also, the DIC (Detect Intersample Clipping) button ensures your peak signal level does not exceed the maximum output level (even between samples) specified by the Ceiling control. And engaging the Compare switch allows you to hear the processed waveform (with the limiting applied) but at a volume that’s comparable with that of the unprocessed (bypassed) signal, making it easier to judge whether the limiting is introducing undesirable artefacts.
Sweet Release!
The various release modes allow you to customise the release behaviour in some interesting ways.However, arguably Raiser’s key feature is its release section. Operation is pretty intuitive: as you raise the input gain the signal level increases and, eventually, you’ll push the peaks up against the ceiling, thus triggering limiting. But the release controls provide some very cool options to configure the limiter’s behaviour and can strongly influence the perceived loudness you’re able to achieve. This includes the ability to configure very fast release times, which means there’s lots of potential when dealing with sounds that have a strong transient element, such as drums.
There are two elements to the fast release behaviour. First, you can select different release modes (the options are shown in one of the screenshots), and these combine with the release time knob to control the overall release behaviour. Second, a Fast button lets you toggle on/off an initial, very fast release phase that occurs before that defined by the main release control. Steinberg’s documentation suggests this be engaged for percussive material, and in all that follows I’m going to assume that this is turned on. So, if you’d like to make your drums loud and proud, let’s explore just how far Raiser can take them.
Getting Your Bearings
As with any dynamics processing on drums, there are multiple points at which you can insert Raiser in your signal chain. Perhaps the most dramatic impact on your overall drum sound comes from using Raiser on your drum bus or, for parallel processing, as a send effect from your drum bus. However, it makes a lot of sense to start by getting yourself accustomed to the controls, and processing a single drum such as a kick or snare will make it easier to appreciate both what the various controls are doing to your signal, and how they interact.
A composite screenshot showing how varying the gain and release time result in both increases in average loudness and also a change in the waveform shape for individual drum hits. See the main text for an explanation of each panel.In the first of the audio examples that accompany this workshop (https://sosm.ag/cubase-0523) I’ve done exactly that, and panel A of the final screenshot demonstrates the effect on five snare hits. The release time was constant (30ms using Restricted Max mode) but the gain varies from 0dB (the first hit) up to 18dB (the last hit). Initially, adjusting the gain control simply increases both the peak and average loudness of the individual drum. However, once your peaks hit the ceiling, limiting kicks in, and any further increase in gain produces average loudness increases without any further peak level increases. For each individual drum hit, you can see the difference between the original waveform (light blue) and the waveform after limiting is applied (darker blue). You can, of course, use this processing to raise the perceived loudness of the drum (making it seem more prominent in the mix) while retaining control over its peak level. However, as with any limiter, if you add more than a few dB of perceived level in this way, you might well start to negatively impact the character of the sound, so you have to listen carefully.
Panel B shows a composite of a similar set of five hits but this time I’ve kept the gain fixed (at a whopping 18dB!) and changed the release time from 500ms (first hit) to 5ms (last hit). Again, you can clearly see the changes this induces on the waveforms. There are a number of key takeaways. First, longer release times can produce a very natural‑sounding result, but too long and the release from one hit won’t be completed before the next hit, and it can therefore change the latter’s sound and impact; your release time setting may, therefore, be influenced by the tempo of the performance and the frequency with which the drum is hit. Thankfully, Raiser’s waveform/gain‑reduction display makes this easy to visualise, so it’s easy to configure on a single drum channel, but as I’ll explain shortly, where Raiser is being used on a bus you may need a pretty fast release to allow a full release between every drum/cymbal strike.
Second, the higher the gain settings and the faster the release times, the greater the shift in emphasis from the transient to the ‘tail’ of the sound, something that’s made obvious by the changes in the waveform. For the snare used in the audio example, this means you gradually hear a shift away from the initial ‘crack’ and into the ‘rattle’ of the snares themselves. If you audition the audio examples, you’ll also hear a resonance of the drum (which you may or may not like) become more noticeable. There’s no right or wrong here; you just need to be aware in order to have control. You can think of it as an additional creative option to customise the sound of your drums after the fact!
Third, and perhaps most significantly, Raiser lets you achieve some considerable increases in average loudness before these sorts of audio artefacts become really obvious. With instances of Raiser placed on each individual drum channel of a full drum mix, the second audio example illustrates this pretty well. Your mileage may vary but, to my ears at least, because each limiter is only having to manage a single drum sound, you can achieve some considerable increases in average level before the overall drum mix starts to take on a ‘slightly trashy’ flavour.
Taking The Bus
Whether for convenience or simplicity, or out of necessity (working with stereo drum loops?), you might prefer to use a single instance of Raiser on a stereo drum mix/bus or as a parallel send effect. So how does it fare in this role? I’ve included a couple of audio examples to illustrate this approach, each of which runs through the same four‑bar drum performance a number of times, using gradually more extreme gain and release time settings. However, panels C, D and E of the final screenshot show how the release time may need to be shorter when Raiser is placed on a bus. In each case, gain is set to 12dB but the release time varies: 300ms (A), 10ms (B) and 2ms (C).
Again, there are some key takeaways. First, and particularly true for busier or more up‑tempo drum performances, you need to be using Raiser’s options for a fast release (for example, a sub‑10ms release time), and the combination of the Fast switch and the Restricted Max mode is a good starting point; this allows you to get any limiting out of the way quickly between individual drum hits. Second, the converse can also be true; slower release times (50ms and longer) can run the risk of robbing some energy from the performance (transients might get caught up in limiting triggered by the previous hit, as in C) despite any increase in level. Third, as long as you’re content with modest increases in average loudness, you can achieve a surprisingly natural‑sounding end result.
Fourth, if you do choose to push things a little harder, the sound can begin to get a bit ‘gungy’ (for example, open hi‑hats, ride and crash cymbals can become very splashy). But while this may not sound so natural, in the right musical context it may provide just the character you require. Finally, this grungy element is incredibly easy to dial in if Raiser is used as a send effect rather than being inserted on the drum bus, as you can drive Raiser as hard as you like, then alter the blend to taste by automating the fader levels on the (clean) drum bus and (trashy) send track for different sections of your song.
It’s worth me pointing out that while I’ve focused on acoustic drums in these examples, precisely the same principles apply with electronic drums — though, depending on the musical genre, you may find that you feel rather less constrained about keeping things ‘natural’. With that thought, I’ll leave you to raise hell with Raiser!
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