why not analog-style limiters?

[kvaca]

lately we can see many new and intersting analog modelling vst plugins - be it tube saturators, console plugins, preamps or equalizers...OK, I can get it, but I still cannot see any new dedicated and hi-quality analog style limiter... /= think brickwall but without latency and with nice harmonic distortion/ and I need to say that Im not talking about simple clipping here,too...a lot of good clippers around already...
so - am I missing something, or all what people need today is tranparent brickwall limiter with lookahead like Elephant or L2?

[X2]

old but worth a look and from a real lo credibility company but has zero latency that is not reported to host when you move the attack time but sounds rather good to my ears_

crysonic spectraphy LE

http://www.kvraudio.com/product/spectra ... y_crysonic

you can manually set the attack to 0ms but as you change the attack it also changes the reported latency to the host based on the attack but you get some really funky distortion with really low attack times, use the smooth dial to clean the sound up after you have set it, works great on guitars and smashes drums rather splendiferously my good chap, best I could think of, then there is spectraphy as well which is rather too smooth on the auto attacks but rather good as well. Shame about the company though because its really bad. Its best to buy the plugins dirt cheap and then forget about it as they tend to ignore you after.
I bought the 2008 everything bundle and half the plugins got discontinued within two years of the bundle so use at your own risk

[kvaca]

old but worth a look and from a real lo credibility company but has zero latency that is not reported to host when you move the attack time but sounds rather good to my ears_

crysonic spectraphy LE

http://www.kvraudio.com/product/spectra ... y_crysonic

uhh, it was fast...but I know spectraphy and so far I counted it as L2 clone with some twist here and there...I need to look if it really have no lookahead and also what kind of harmonic distortion it does...
thank you anyway

[No_Use]

I'm no DSP guru but I think I once read here from some dev that a limiter with zero lookahead would be just a clipper, in other words technically not possible.
Someone more knowledgeable may correct me if I'm wrong.

Besides, since you say analog style, do you actaully know of any analog hardware limiters ?
I don't, I only know the L2 hardware and TC finalizer and these are also digital.

[@midnight]

I'm no DSP guru but I think I once read here from some dev that a limiter with zero lookahead would be just a clipper, in other words technically not possible.
Someone more knowledgeable may correct me if I'm wrong.

Besides, since you say analog style, do you actaully know of any analog hardware limiters ?
I don't, I only know the L2 hardware and TC finalizer and these are also digital.

you can shape the clip to make it less annoying sounding

you can oversample it to get rid of digital artifacts (more analog sounding)

you can add a slight release to it so it doesn't abruptly cut in and out

you could do a lot of stuff and keep it down to 4 or 8 samples for some decent minimum phase oversample filters, you dont even really need to compensate for 4-8 samples.

i agree, some more analog style limiters would be nice.

[kvaca]

I'm no DSP guru but I think I once read here from some dev that a limiter with zero lookahead would be just a clipper, in other words technically not possible.
Someone more knowledgeable may correct me if I'm wrong.

dont know-maybe you are right...

Besides, since you say analog style, do you actaully know of any analog hardware limiters ?

Im not sure if we are talking about the same thing, but many times they are built-in inside a soundcard /some Apogee/,or as a part of compressor /Slate Dragon,DBX 165/ or multiprocessor /TLA VP1/...to name just a few

[kvaca]

I'm no DSP guru but I think I once read here from some dev that a limiter with zero lookahead would be just a clipper, in other words technically not possible.
Someone more knowledgeable may correct me if I'm wrong.

Besides, since you say analog style, do you actaully know of any analog hardware limiters ?
I don't, I only know the L2 hardware and TC finalizer and these are also digital.

you can shape the clip to make it less annoying sounding

you can oversample it to get rid of digital artifacts (more analog sounding)

you can add a slight release to it so it doesn't abruptly cut in and out

you could do a lot of stuff and keep it down to 4 or 8 samples for some decent minimum phase oversample filters, you dont even really need to compensate for 4-8 samples.

i agree, some more analog style limiters would be nice.

thank you- Im pleased to see that Im not alone in this

[No_Use]

Im not sure if we are talking about the same thing, but many times they are built-in inside a soundcard /some Apogee/,or as a part of compressor /Slate Dragon,DBX 165/ or multiprocessor /TLA VP1/...to name just a few

Ah ok, might indeed be a misundertanding.
These were unknown to me, I think we're not talking about brickwall limiters then ?
Because looking at some of these, they seem to have at least a few ms of attack time, which would be undesirable for a brickwall limiter.

[@midnight]

Because looking at some of these, they seem to have at least a few ms of attack time, which would be undesirable for a brickwall limiter.

they are probbaly using a combination of thing to limit the transients

perhaps the ms attack control controls when the envelope follower kicks in

but before that kicks in, there might be a clip stage to handle the initial transient, so you would have a clipper-limiter working in series in one plugin, working synergistically.

[kvaca]

Im not sure if we are talking about the same thing, but many times they are built-in inside a soundcard /some Apogee/,or as a part of compressor /Slate Dragon,DBX 165/ or multiprocessor /TLA VP1/...to name just a few

Ah ok, might indeed be a misundertanding.
These were unknown to me, I think we're not talking about brickwall limiters then ?
Because looking at some of these, they seem to have at least a few ms of attack time, which would be undesirable for a brickwall limiter.

?
...dont know about attack, but Im sure they sound nice, always punchy and without overshoot
on the other side- all software lookahead limiters I know /including Elephant,L2,Pro L etc/ can sound dull or pumping to me

[meloco_go]

lately we can see many new and intersting analog modelling vst plugins - be it tube saturators, console plugins, preamps or equalizers...OK, I can get it, but I still cannot see any new dedicated and hi-quality analog style limiter... /= think brickwall but without latency and with nice harmonic distortion/ and I need to say that Im not talking about simple clipping here,too...a lot of good clippers around already...
so - am I missing something, or all what people need today is tranparent brickwall limiter with lookahead like Elephant or L2?

And how much true analog brickwalls do you know? I can't remember anything except Pendulum.
In reality I don't think they would sound too good.

[kvaca]

Because looking at some of these, they seem to have at least a few ms of attack time, which would be undesirable for a brickwall limiter.

they are probbaly using a combination of thing to limit the transients

perhaps the ms attack control controls when the envelope follower kicks in

but before that kicks in, there might be a clip stage to handle the initial transient, so you would have a clipper-limiter working in series in one plugin, working synergistically.

exactly this kind of clipper-limiter is built-in inside Compassion,its punchy but mostly on the transparent side as it has no character to me /lacks some nice harmonic distortion/

or theres another expensive compressor plugin - Splitcomp which is capable of this...

[Compyfox]

Would that matter if you'd use EBU R-128 type meters and your signal doesn't even exceed -1dBTP?

I can recommend taking a look at Fabfilter Pro-L or ToneBoosters Barricade. Not "analog type", but versatile as heck and the only limiters I actually trust these days.


We have enough mojo plugins already. Why not stick with "clean" tools for cutting off peaks at least.

[@midnight]

Would that matter if you'd use EBU R-128 type meters and your signal doesn't even exceed -1dBTP?

I can recommend taking a look at Fabfilter Pro-L or ToneBoosters Barricade. Not "analog type", but versatile as heck and the only limiters I actually trust these days.


We have enough mojo plugins already. Why not stick with "clean" tools for cutting off peaks at least.

Ummm, nah.




Anyways, back on topic -

Analog style limiter plugins would be awesome.

[kvaca]

We have enough mojo plugins already. Why not stick with "clean" tools for cutting off peaks at least.

I know...more than enough maybe...basically they all do distortion, but Im searching for something in between clean sw limiter and mojo distortion plugin, becouse all these mojo plugins could be somewhat dangerous...as lots of them also use some unwanted tricks on the background /at least unwanted to me like crosstalk,hum,noise etc/and yes-sometimes some unwanted artifacts can be switched off,but sometimes you even dont know whats going on at all...for instance look at that stateful saturation...