Plugin for protecting my precious ears...

[Buddy]

Yeah well, i don't really need a discussion about it. my workflow works fine, and btw i know a few engineers touching the volume knob all the time, so no problem there. you work your way, i work my way, all fine.

Already said I'm not judging you and you're free to take your own approach. Pointing out that there is an established solution to the problem which may benefit you and anyone else dealing with the issue.

Also feel a strong responsibility to reiterate that feeling pain (or an extremely unpleasant feeling, as you later walked it back) at 0dBFS means your monitors are set too loud. Further, not calibrating your max monitor output to a safe level at 0dbFS + allowing yourself to alter the monitor output level arbitrarily sounds like a perfect recipe for volume creep and ear fatigue by the end of the session.

If you're spending any amount of time working with audio, you really need to be calibrating your monitors to a safe maximum level, otherwise it's very possible to go over recommended exposure limit for the day which can result in permanent hearing loss. Extended exposure to levels that will not necessarily feel unpleasant can nonetheless be damaging. Worse, your ears habituate to volume so what might have seemed loud initially will become comfortable quickly (but will still be damaging).

Pushing the point for my own conscience, feel free to take it onboard or no. Going to call that good enough.

 

[ceemusic]

BTW someone on fb posted these dl links for ice9 yesterday.
Here

 

[meradium]

I have had a similar issue in VEP as well. I tracked it down to be a problem of accidentially activating too many channels at once, switching them to auto-record / arm. This would cause a massive spike. Strg+A is no good to clear out a template. Since I know this I make sure I only activate/select a few tracks at a time. Maybe related?

 

[Nico Schuele]

Ice9. I've even updated the Cubase default template to always have it as the last plugin on the stereo output. Saved me many times.

 

[heliosequence]

Ice9 seems to be no longer found on Plugin Boutique's website so it's great that someone posted it here on the thread. I always have it on the master/control room section of each DAW that I use (Pro Tools, Cubase, Reaper, Live, Sonar). It works like a charm and protects against those bursts (it's been a while but Acoustica Acquas used to have them frequently).

 

[ReelToLogic]

I noticed that Sigmod is on sale at JRRShop for $29 instead of $49. I was tempted to get it back when this thread was first created, and this sale helped push me over the edge and buy it.

https://www.jrrshop.com/nugen-audio-sigmod

 

[Dewdman42]

For anyone looking for it, I shared the last known OSX version of Ice9 here:

https://www.logicprohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=145531&hilit=ice9#p757888

The windows version is floating around out there, I might even have it somewhere, but anyway, the OSX binary is harder to find, so there it is.

SigMod is very nice also, but it does add 1.3ms of latency, if you care about that. Ice9 does not add any latency, but there is some speculation that it may cause a click when it mutes the audio...if you care about that more than 1.3ms of latency, then SidMod would be the one to use. SigMod has a number of other useful features, but me personally I have leaned towards using Ice9, and set to a value higher than 0db actually... I only want to shutdown audio when there is truly a blast coming through, in which case i don't care about a click, it doesn't happen often and I don't want any added latency, i have spent a lot of money to get my latency as low as possible.

This is better then using a limiter because with a limiter you will not be aware of when something in your mix is too hot. You'll just hear the audio top out at 0db and won't even notice problems. Ice9 and SigMod will cut out audio and cause frustration for a minute while you figure out which channel in your mix is causing the problem and fix it at the source. We shouldn't be running our mixes so close to 0db anyway. You basically just want it to catch the totally out of control blast or whatever from suddenly hitting your ears..which ice9 does very effectively and no latency. SigMod is high quality product and if you need its other features is kind of a no brainier, but the protect feature specifically, does add 1.3ms of latency.