Question

I've been noticing with Studio one's stock limiter, that it tends to add extra high frequency by itself thereby changing the sound even at a non-limiting level. By testing, this unusual effect is not because of the limiter limiting at it's max level, but that even without limiting at a lower volume, it is "Changing the nature of the sound".

By testing with Fab filter L 2, Waves L1,L2, none of these 3rd party plugins seem to be changing the nature of the sound when they are not limiting.

To test this out this glitch/bug, Have a track whose maximum level is well below 0dB. Now add the stock limiter and see that even though it's not limiting it has changed the sound by adding high frequency to it. (like a high shelf)

Answer 1

I just checked and it's kind of weird. It not only sounds a bit louder, it's output reads louder than Fabfilter L-3 that I'm using right before S1's limiter. I put both on k-12 with 0 gain and the read outs aren't close. It doesn't matter if I disable L-3 or enable it, the results are the same. It seems S1's limiter is adding gain even when gain is set to 0.