Voxengo Elephant 4.0 mastering limiter plugin released

[4damind]

I played a bit with the parameters and got also the snappiness back (the look-ahead must a bit lower then I expected but fortunately there is not much distortion)... Yes, I think the GUI needs some improvements and IMO it needs some better presets to have a quicker start...

Brickwall Limiter needs presets?
I thought you just push it until you hear artifacts, then back off some. The Waves L1 GUI made it easy to A/B the unprocessed VS the limited signal at the same volume.

You can (and sometimes must) tweak the Limiter to get the desired sound and Elephant has a lot of options. You must play with the Look-Ahead, the ratio etc. if you hear too much distortion or it sounds too smooth there are always some options under the hood.
So it makes sense to have some more categorized presets for typical usage.

[Aleksey Vaneev]

The idea of Elephant's extended mode configurability is that you may dial-in certain settings that you like and save them as preset.

Next time you simply load Elephant and load the required mode preset, and just set the input gain. Two-step operation.

EL-4 algorithm will deliver a decent sound at almost any setting, the mode parameters offer a way to "skew" the algorithm towards one aspect or the other, but the overall integrity of the sound won't break-up too much at any setting. The modern limiter is technically a bit different to a compressor, it's hard to get a definitely pumping or definitely distorting sound like you can with a compressor.

[4damind]

For channel linking... about 80% seems to be a good value to preserve the stereo image?

[Aleksey Vaneev]

GUI overhaul is not as small a consideration as you may think and sliders are better than knobs. Some capable people at the OBxd thread brainstormed and ended up donating a GUI.
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... &start=795

I would like to repeat, how many sliders do you need in Elephant4? It already offers a slider on the input gain meter. There is no slider handle, but it works just like a slider, and looks uncluttered - you see where the threshold is at exactly.

[Aleksey Vaneev]

For channel linking... about 80% seems to be a good value to preserve the stereo image?

Yes, it is OK and not noticable in most cases. 60% is already a bit much, but offers an added loudness.

[Aleksey Vaneev]

I'm continuing my research into limiter control signals and maybe someday I'll be able to offer some even more transparent algorithm that is at the same time louder.

However, today the competition was narrowed down to 0.4 dB average loudness difference at a similar distortion level - it is close to negligible.

Note that it is possible to objectively measure the magnitude of limiter's distortion level by high-passing the control signal and measuring its RMS power.

[4tune]

You do not need sliders much in Elephant 4, because the input gain meter is a kind of a slider already - try to drag it.
.

Useful to know!

[keel]

I tried it against my Pro-L, and Elephant can't get loud as Pro-L. Elephant is more transparent tho, but as the loudness is everything in edm, Pro-L is the choice. If I push Elephant for similar loudness, it just pumping badly. No matter what settings you try, so Pro-L is still king.

[4damind]

I tried it against my Pro-L, and Elephant can't get loud as Pro-L. Elephant is more transparent tho, but as the loudness is everything in edm, Pro-L is the choice. If I push Elephant for similar loudness, it just pumping badly. No matter what settings you try, so Pro-L is still king.

IMO this has something todo with the settings. Typical EDM masters with DR 6 or DR 7 are completely no problem with Elephant. The difference is very small to Pro L. But it needs shorter Look Ahead and some different channel linking settings.
Some good settings are IMO EL4 mode, channel linking 80%, Ratio 1.6 : 1, Release Shape 1, Trans Time 0.23ms, Trans Shape 1 and a sharp transient form. Oversampling 4x (or 8x)

[Aleksey Vaneev]

I tried it against my Pro-L, and Elephant can't get loud as Pro-L. Elephant is more transparent tho, but as the loudness is everything in edm, Pro-L is the choice. If I push Elephant for similar loudness, it just pumping badly. No matter what settings you try, so Pro-L is still king.

You may need to increase the Timing in Elephant to 200 and beyond, 100 would be "too fast"... PRO L's release time is twice as large as it shows (e.g. for 500ms setting the actual, measurable, release time is 1000ms).

[Aleksey Vaneev]

In the world of infinite money supply (and pirates just in case), PRO L is maybe the "king", but in our world it costs twice as much as Elephant while not offering the same level of configurability.

I agree, Elephant may not come with the settings for certain extreme usage cases, but I have to follow the market, EDM is not a prevailing music style. PRO L is probably set by default for EDM. But this default setting is too hot and distorting for a lot of softer material.

[4damind]

Which settings will have long release times like beyond 3000ms or up to 10s? There is only the ratio attack:release which goes to 5:1

[manducator]

PRO L's release time is twice as large as it shows (e.g. for 500ms setting the actual, measurable, release time is 1000ms).

Why?

[Aleksey Vaneev]

Which settings will have long release times like beyond 3000ms or up to 10s? There is only the ratio attack:release which goes to 5:1

If you need a longer release, use 5:1 and set the Timing to a higher value. E.g. Timing=300& Rls/Atk Ratio 5:1 will approximately yield 3.5-second release time.

[Aleksey Vaneev]

PRO L's release time is twice as large as it shows (e.g. for 500ms setting the actual, measurable, release time is 1000ms).

Why?

Well, I've measured it. 500ms points to exactly the half-way point of the release shape.