2. Headroom and loudness: don't squeeze the guitar

Why leaving room on the guitar bus and in the mix gives the master something to work with. Notions of LUFS and true peak.

The most important mix decision you make thinking about the master is leaving headroom: room between your highest peak and 0 dBFS. If you deliver the mix squeezed to the limit, the master has nothing to work with. And the distorted guitar, being dense and constant, is one of the things that pushes the level the most.

Why headroom matters (and where you lose it with the guitar)

When the master raises the loudness, a limiter squeezes the peaks. If your mix already came in crushed (because you squeezed the guitar bus trying to make it “sound loud”), the limiting can’t do its job: the result is flat, without bite and distorted.

🟠 Better to set it now· in mixing → master

Leaving headroom costs nothing and is reversible; recovering dynamics from an already-crushed mix is impossible without redoing it. Since the guitar is what pushes the level most, it's where it pays off most NOT to squeeze.

Loudness notions: LUFS and true peak

LUFS (integrated loudness)streaming reference ≈ −14 LUFS

Measures how loud the song is perceived (not the peak). Platforms normalize to their target: raising it brutally doesn't make you louder than the others, just more crushed. Dense guitar inflates the LUFS; that's why it pays to dose it, not maximize it.

True peakceiling ≈ −1 dBTP

The real peak that appears when reconstructing the signal (and when converting to MP3/AAC). Leaving the ceiling at −1 dBTP avoids distortion from inter-sample peaks. Guitars with lots of treble/fizz are the ones that trigger true peaks the most.

Limiter

Limiter (brickwall)stock Studio One Pro 4

Studio One's brickwall limiter. Raises the perceived level of the song and stops the peaks so nothing goes over the output ceiling.

The Limiter is an extreme compressor (ratio ∞:1) that acts as a wall: no sample goes over the ceiling you set. It’s used at the end of the master chain to raise the perceived level of the song without the peaks clipping.

What it’s for

Threshold / Gain: how hard you push the signal against the ceiling. More push = louder and denser, but past a certain point distortion appears and the song gets “crushed”.
Ceiling (Output): the real output ceiling. For streaming it’s usually left at −1 dBTP to respect the true peak after conversion.

Where you’ll use it

On the master bus (Main channel), as the last insert, over the finished mix. It’s not a mix or per-track plugin: if you’re using it to “fix” a guitar, you’re in the wrong place. It’s one of the things left for the end, once the balance is already solved.

Alternatives (for reference)

FabFilter Pro-L 2 (metering and limiting modes)
iZotope Ozone Maximizer
Limiter №6 (free)

Captura de Limiter (de tu Studio One Pro 4)Pending — this one is on you

The Limiter on the Main channel showing Threshold, Ceiling (Output) and the gain-reduction meter. Ideally with the guide song master playing, to see how many dB of reduction are applied on the peaks.

Formato: PNG o JPG, legible (que se lean los valores). Dejala en prodmus_frontend/public/img/plugins/ y avisame para integrarla y validarla.

What you should NOT chase yet

Your guitar bus to measure headroomPending — this one is on you

Upload your guitar bus from the guide song (stereo, WAV 24/48) to prodmus_frontend/public/audio/guitarra/. With that I can show on a meter how the level sits and how much headroom it left you, and compare a squeezed version vs one with room heading into the master.

Quick path — deliver a masterable mix

Quick path

Don't put a limiter on the guitar bus or the mix chasing volume.
Leave headroom: mix peaks around −6 dBFS.
Tame fizz and highs in the mix (they trigger true peaks in the master).
Competitive volume is achieved in the master, with the limiter on the Main at −1 dBTP.

Expected result

A mix with room to master: the guitar dense but not squeezed, peaks with headroom and no hidden limiter crushing the bus. You understand that LUFS and true peak are the master’s goals, not the mix’s. With this, the last section is the final check of the guitar before delivering.