Pro-Silentium Idiot Brake Limiter

Pro-Silentium Idiot Brake

What For?

You know the drill: people at the mixing console always turning it up louder. A limiter can prevent brutal levels, but an audio signal slammed hard against the limiter just doesn’t sound good. And eventually, the console clips...

MELWEL

The Idiot Brake is a limiter with MELWEL technology – simply put, "If you turn it up, it gets quieter."

A regular limiter reduces 1 dB for every dB above the threshold – with MELWEL technology, it reduces 2 dB. When you keep turning up a limiter, you get a heavily compressed signal limited to a certain level. With an Idiot Brake, the louder you turn it up past the threshold, the quieter it gets.

Attack and release times of about 0.3 seconds are used – hardly any limiter pumping, no reaction to short impulses. But if the overall level is too loud, it reduces the volume.

The Idiot Brake is factory-set so the highest level is output at -9 dBV input level. This usually kicks in early enough to reduce the level well before the preceding signal chain clips.

Idiot Brake

The Idiot Brake is inserted between the mixing console / DJ console and amplifier or speaker controller. The threshold is usually set to -7 dBV, low enough to ensure the desired effect occurs clearly before the console or DJ limiter clips. We can set a different threshold on request.

There are no controls, so nothing can be tampered with. An LED indicates when level reduction is active. Since the inputs are RCA and the outputs XLR, the Idiot Brake cannot be bypassed without the appropriate adapter. The matching power supply is included.

If you turn it up, it gets quieter!