# What's your favorite Mastering Limiter?



## Chaim (Jan 24, 2007)

What's your favorite Mastering Limiter?

And why?


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## Peter Emanuel Roos (Jan 24, 2007)

Recurring, but interesting question. 

I only use one limiter (L2) so I can't compare. But I am very interested in hearing comments on Voxengo's Elephant!


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## Bob L (Jan 24, 2007)

You may want to watch the demo video on the Levelizer at www.SAWStudio.com

It offers quite a different method of acheiving the high levels without the compression artifacts of the other mastering limiters and compressors.

It is native to SAWStudio though.

Bob L


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## Peter Emanuel Roos (Jan 24, 2007)

Hehe,

I don't think the choice for a limiter would make me switch to another virtual mixing environment :smile: 

Cheers,


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## michel (Jan 24, 2007)

Peter, you can try out the Elephant for yourself. Just download the demo. The only limitation is, that the demo version mutes the output every 30 seconds or so.

But I am also curious about some mastering limiter suggestions. :wink:


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## synergy543 (Jan 24, 2007)

Bob L @ Wed Jan 24 said:


> It offers quite a different method of acheiving the high levels without the compression artifacts of the other mastering limiters and compressors.


Hi Bob,

I watched the video but I didn't really see anything different about your method. Can you explain how this is different? 

Actually one thing I saw different is that the normalizer changed the shape of the signal. Normalizing is only supposed to change gain not alter the signal shape. So can you explain what's going on here.

Also, the file you use has steady dynamics. How might users benefit using the Leveler with large dynamics?

Thanks,

Greg


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## Rob Elliott (Jan 24, 2007)

Peter Roos @ Wed Jan 24 said:


> Recurring, but interesting question.
> 
> I only use one limiter (L2) so I can't compare. But I am very interested in hearing comments on Voxengo's Elephant!




Peter,

Of course L2 is well known and respected. Can't go wrong there. I do use Voexngo's Elephant 2 (usually a 'very soft' setting - it shaves off the occasional transients (that I didn't want to shave off in the individual mix) - without really any artifacts. Their tech support seems on par with that of RMX.

Bottom line for my orchestral mixes - I don't want to 'hear' it -- just reap the benefits of a solid limiter (it also has a dithering feature if needed for 16 or 24 bit ditherings)

Hope this helps.


Rob


(if you do ocassional vocals you might try out the Voxiformer - real shinning star!)


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## mathis (Jan 24, 2007)

In the moment my standard limiter is UAD's precision limiter.


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## Bob L (Jan 24, 2007)

Greg,

The Levelizer video demonstrates the plugin's ability to drastically alter transient peak levels, without altering the shape of the waveforms from zero-cross to zero-cross. These types of transient peaks that stick out above the average level of a mix are the things that keep your overall signal level lower when mastering the finished product to a CD burn.

Most limiters will flat-top signal peaks that rise above the threshold, then normalize the remaining signal level up to the limit... but this results in both altering the dynamic qualities of the original mix as well as add distortion artifacts from the squaring off of waveform edges.

If you simply rip a song or two from today's pop CDs, you can see the results of this issue... and of course most of us can hear the results without even thinking about it... and will agree that these products have a very harsh and edgy digital sound quality.

As you watch my demonstartion, you can see that the peaks that are brought down, do not flat-top... ever... and remain exactly the same shape as they were... only now... lower in volume. The Levelizer works on half-wave cycles, from zero-cross to zero-cross. The end result is audibly not detectable, when used correctly, and the finished mix transients will sound the same... although the resulting waveform will look quite different. It is easily possible to drop these peaks, in many mixes, 8 to 12db or more before anything sounds different.... then the Normalize routine can raise the remaining volume level giving you an overall higher level CD burn... without altering the audible dynamics of the mix... and without adding the digital harshness that comes from squared-off waveform edges.

I have never been able to acheive this kind of result with any hardware or software tool... they always seem to alter the mix dynamics in order to limit and raise the overall signal level. :smile: 

Bob L


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## Frederick Russ (Jan 24, 2007)

Hey Bob - Any possiblilities on your end to building this limiter for the rest of us - perhaps as a VST? I'll echo Peter's sentiment that I don't want to leave my sequencing environment for this feature and besides, I'm a hardcore Mac Logic guy.


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## tobyond (Jan 24, 2007)

iTunes :mrgreen: :mrgreen:


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## Dr.Quest (Jan 24, 2007)

tobyond @ Wed Jan 24 said:


> iTunes :mrgreen: :mrgreen:



WHOOT!
Ry Cooder, man! Ry Cooder!

J


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## midphase (Jan 24, 2007)

I also use L2, but I'm considering switching to Izotope Ozone since I heard so many good things about it.


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## drasticmeasures (Jan 25, 2007)

midphase @ Wed Jan 24 said:


> I also use L2, but I'm considering switching to Izotope Ozone since I heard so many good things about it.



I'm also curious about others experiences with Ozone 3. I don't use it, but I think I liked the results from the demo - I didn't really use it enough before it timed out.


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## synthetic (Jan 25, 2007)

If you have the bucks, you might look into a hardware limiter. An SSL buss limiter, Rupert Neve Portico or Manley Slam really makes a mix "sound like a record."


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## hv (Jan 29, 2007)

I usually use hardware: a Pendulum OCL-2 optical comp/limiter. But when I'm in a hurry, the Wave Hammer plugin that comes with Sony SoundForge is not bad. Recently I stumbled across the VC-64 plugin that came with Sonar 6 and it was awesome. Here's a u-tube video demo:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLBRyiEaF7s

Howard


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## Waywyn (Jan 29, 2007)

Another vote for Elephant 2 of Voxengo here.

I tried all kinds of limiters, but with the Elephant I always have the feeling that the mix isn't distorting or pumping.
Sometimes you can really turn up (better turn down ) the threshold and it just gets louder and louder but not starting to destroy the sound. Of course and like always, this is just a personal opinion.

... but there is one thing which I am really curious about and I am right before to buy an iLok for the demo only ... that's the Sony Oxford Limiter.

Does maybe someone of you already work with that thing?

Otherwise of course the best thing to go for is, like Synthetic mentioned, a cool hardware limiter, since I think limiting is so very important.
You can pull out so much out of a good mix and make a track even more powerful and round-ish


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## Frederick Russ (Jan 29, 2007)

synthetic @ Thu Jan 25 said:


> If you have the bucks, you might look into a hardware limiter. An SSL buss limiter, Rupert Neve Portico or Manley Slam really makes a mix "sound like a record."



Then you're talking big bucks. If you're going to bother porting your mixes over to something that fantastic (nice choices by the way) you may also have to look at getting a good D/A converter in the chain and of course A/D back into the box - something like an Apogee Rosetta 200. If you're particularly picky you could port over 8 stereo stems to an Apogee AD16X out to Dangerous 2 Bus to a Manley Slam back to a Benchmark ADC-1. By that time you may be sleeping in your car since that's a good chunk of the mortgage :razz:


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## Scott Cairns (Jan 29, 2007)

Hehe.


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## Frederick Russ (Jan 29, 2007)

I wonder how Waves SSL Native would work - its supposed to have the bus compressor from the SSL 4000. For that matter it would be great to have somebody try out an SSL Duendo and let us hear some before and after mp3s.


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## Toxeen (Jan 29, 2007)

Duendo is pretty interesting.

I made usage of the L2 as well, during the last 2 years. Now I switched my system to Powercore Plug-Ins.

By the way: does the Sony Oxford Inflator count as a limiter ? :D (I just love it! ass-kicking and fattening)


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## Frederick Russ (Jan 29, 2007)

Hey Toxeen - I'm interested in that too. What exactly does it do? Psychoacoustics?


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## dach (Jan 29, 2007)

> it won't work as a VST, since that protocol does not allow buffer size changes, which the plugin needs to do in the peak limit mode to chase the zero cross points.



Bob, you have my full attention now. Have you ever thought of applying that principle in reverse... If I'm understanding you correctly, could you could adapt that to either raise or lower any transients... frequency dependant or not? Who cares if it's DX or VST... could it be done?

I'm just curious.

Thanks,

DACH


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## Scott Cairns (Jan 29, 2007)

Frederick Russ @ Tue Jan 30 said:


> Hey Toxeen - I'm interested in that too. What exactly does it do? Psychoacoustics?



Hi Fred, Ive only played with the demo, it adds distortion/harmonics to a sound to give it more perceived loudness (If I remember right)

Hans Zimmer uses it all the time apparently. Storm Drum sounds amazing through it.

To loosely quote Spinal Tap - I guess its the knob that goes to 11.


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## Bob L (Jan 29, 2007)

Dach,

I guess the process could be used to raise a half wave cycle up instead of scale it down... so what are we talking about here... an expander circuit?

In reality, I think the overall effect would end up being the same... the idea of evening out the overall waveform without destroying the transient sound.

Bob L


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## Waywyn (Jan 30, 2007)

I have the Inflator and I would say Scott is right.
It is not really a limiter because if you try to use it as you would use a limiter, it would clip really fast. Usually you raise the input and set the limit to -0.1dB or something, but if you do that with the Inflator it starts to distort the sound because of simply peaking the level.

Best use for it, in my own experience and reading somewhere, is to put the Inflator AFTER your limiter. By doing this and not too much, it seems you get almost 20% more loudness to a track and all the little fancy stuff you put in the mix which sometimes gets lost or drowned comes up. Trebles sound more shiny and bright and bass gets a little punch.

I would go that far, that if somebody would take away my Inflator today I would instantly stop working and act like a five year old boy whose parenty took away his toy train 


... and that's why I am really curious about the Sony Limiter. Now Sony plugins require an iLok to test their demos and use their plugins, which might be cool for porting the licence, but well ... dongles  ... I had the chance to download all the tryouts of the Oxford plugins like EQ, Dynamics etc. and I really have to say that I hardly tested any EQ which sounds so characteristic and cool as the Oxford EQ. On the other hand it might again be a matter of taste, but I would really love to check out that new limiter.


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## Frederick Russ (Jan 30, 2007)

It kind of sounds like Sony Oxford Inflater is a bit like Empirical Labs Fatso - like a combination of tape & tube saturation? Like you said I still think you're gonna need a limiter of some kind. The Sony Limiter may do it - we'll see. In the meantime, I'm going to be looking at the Inflater again.


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## dach (Jan 30, 2007)

Bob L @ Tue Jan 30 said:


> Dach,
> 
> I guess the process could be used to raise a half wave cycle up instead of scale it down... so what are we talking about here... an expander circuit?
> 
> ...



Yes, similar to an expander, but filtered. I'm more thinking in terms of restoration and forensic audio. Not noise reduction or eq, but a sort of "hybrid" frequency selectable expansion type of device... but not really like multiband expansion. I'll give a better explanation off-forum if you are interested. I've seen similar things done in MatLab but don't have the math background to do it myself. 

Thanks...


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## Toxeen (Jan 30, 2007)

Yeah, Frederick, go and have a look for it, I second that.

It's more some kind of a maximizer, adding a clear, crisp and punchy feeling. In fact, it fattens up more brightly. The clue is - you just have got 2 control bars (effect & curve) and the i/o's. It's that easy but so much impressive


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## Bob L (Jan 30, 2007)

Dach,

You can send me a more detailed explanation if you want to [email protected]

Bob L


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## esteso (Feb 18, 2007)

I'm using hardware L2 and it's pretty great for 4 or 5 db. Well more like 2 or 3 if you're fussy I suppose. 

But just to go off on a bit of a tangent..... I've downloaded the demo of the Oxford limiter and I notice the GUI puts me off a bit. Not bad exactly, but after the pretty interfaces of Waves and URS and probably lots more that I can't think of right now, it's pretty boring. I know... it doesn't effect the sound but looks low rent to me and if I'm paying $300 (or whatever) I want it to look good too. For sure if two plugs were close in sound and function I'd buy the one with the pretty face.

PS the Oxford sounds pretty damn good and is developed by Paul Frindle who really knows his stuff. I believe it's the only native option that accounts for and refuses to allow illegal signals, sometimes called intersample peaks. This is a very good thing to combat distortion at higher levels and I will probably buy it just for that. For more info about this functionality read the Oxford manual carefully or search Paul's posts about this on Gearslutz.


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