ron caser wrote:
i recently had the following problem:
i passed the 2-bus of my daw through a hardware L2 to chop off about
1.5db of the peaks and rerecord my master. as result the bass
(mini-moog) seems to be about 3db louder. in my mix prior limiting i'm
happy with its volume, but i need to reduce it when using the L2.
i had this same problem on 3 different tracks. i was kind of
astounished as i've been going through the same procedure a few months
earlier and don't remember having had this impression.
is this normal and my ears are developing? or is this not normal and
my ears are actually downgrading & fooling me?

Limiting removes peaks. If you have sharp peaks that have a lot of your
high end, and you chop them off, the end result is less top end and a recording
that sounds bass-heavy.

Limiting is always going to alter the overall tone of a recording, and that
is part of what makes it such a powerful tool. But how it does it will
depend on the source material.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."