In 1994, the digital brickwall limiter with look-ahead (
to pull down peak levels before they happened) was first mass-produced
這裡有些資料可以參考 :-
Lookahead (Softube FET Comp)
The Lookahead can be used if the fastest attack time isn't fast enough, for instance if you want to apply some heavy limiting to a signal. The Lookahead will delay the signal path outside of the detector by up to 1 ms, leaving the detector signal unaffected. This has two effects:
1.The output signal will be delayed by up to 1 millisecond.
2.The detector will “see” the undelayed signal, but reduce the gain on the delayed signal. This means that the detector will be able to compress the signal before the actual transient comes (since the actual transient has been delayed).
The Lookahead time corresponds to the total latency of the plugin. The plugin will not report this latency to the host, since almost no hosts support compensating for a delay that depends on a parameter.
Some very fast Attack/Release settings will cause a “crackling” sound on transients, often sounding like some sort of digital clipping or saturation somewhere in the signal chain. This is very typical for this kind of compressor, but is usually an unwanted effect. The normal way to get rid of this “side effect” is to slow down the attack and release times but now you have another tool to use. By adding a little lookahead to the detector, many of these side effects can be avoided.
LOOK-AHEAD DELAY (TC MASTER X5)
Master X5 can look into the future, whenever this parameter is
active! This won’t help you fortune-telling, but it’ll help Master
X5 to be prepared for sudden peaks in your material, thus
ensuring a much better quality processing!
XO Wave's Compressor
The Limiter prevents the signal from ever going above a certain level. The simplest limiter design would simply "clip" the signal if it went above a certain level. This can create a very harsh sound, so XO Wave's Compressor has a "lookahead" feature which, by delaying the signal slightly, is much less noticeable. When driven to an extreme, however, no limiter can avoid clipping. Therefore it is important to use the Limiter carefully.
- Lookahead: This control allows the Limiter to start reducing the signal before the peak occurs. This can make it considerably less obtrusive; it corresponds to the Attack & Release settings of the Compressor proper.