Which brickwall mastering limiter?

[AC222]

I really like Theo and Bmanic's summaries. I agree with most of the observations and so instead of recreating a long post of what has been already said better than I would have, here's my two cents.

Aside from the well-known limiters like Pro L, and FG-X (for select rock material - I actually dig the compressor more sometimes cause its transparent and does something nice to the signal while the limiter needs careful attention to the controls to avoid artifacts), and Barricade

I like Flux Elixir for its transparency. Although I haven't really used in in depth enough to know all the controls to utilize it to its full potential. I also like Ammunition for its flexibility, ability to retain transients, and add a a little saturation if desired. And after checking Theo's suggestion and hearing good things, I now think the Mellowmuse LM1V is one of the better limiters around and I'm a bit perplexed that it gets hardly any buzz. It seems to retain the transients well from what I've tried, and doesn't overly color the signal. And it's simple to use with simple controls, and I like the GUI.

For what it's worth, for anybody on a serious budget, I would consider the Mellowmuse. I would personally vote for Barricade and LM1V as the two best bang for buck. Barricade perhaps takes the cake for best bang for buck because it is quite usable and can be had for very little. And I think that guy is excellent all around. But I will say that I think it is a little easier to get louder mixes (if that is your goal) with LM1V and other limiters and maybe it's just me but I don't think Barricade is super transparent either. But it sounds great and really gets the job done. But I think the Mellowmuse should be a serious contender for anybody on a budget and looking for serious limiter that is simple, affordable, doesn't overly color the signal, can preserve the dynamics, and get reasonably loud.

Oh and I do wish to throw out some thoughts on some of the freebies out there. Because I think KVR should be democratic and cater to those that don't have enough for a budget. Out of the freebies, the two I like best are Sir Elliot's Mastering Limiter and Vladg Limiter No. 6. For strictly a brickwall limiter, for me, I find Sir Elliot to be the best among the freebies. It has a plethora of controls that allow you to shape the signal and find a sweet spot between chopping off the peaks and getting loud and preserving the dynamics. It doesn't preserve dynamics imo as well as FG-X for instance, but to me is definitely quality enough to be used. If you don't have much to spend, I don't think that should stop you from making money and I think Sir Elliot's Limiter is excellent. For reference, I don't think L2 (where did my snare go?) is anywhere close to as good as the best limiters named in this thread, but that doesn't mean you can't use it to make a song as it had been in those smashed late 90s early 2000s records. But Sir Elliot's Limiter in my opinion is even better than L2 and quite useful even if it's not as transparent as the expensive Flux Elixir for example.

I threw in Limiter No. 6 because I think that is astounding quality for a freebie and the clipper makes it quite useful. But know this, it does saturate your signal a good deal and so it is not transparent. Also the limiter section is not lookahead if that matters to you so you will not get the benefits that you get from lookahead compressors. Still, I think that if you are cautious with the controls, one could find use out of it as a brickwall limiter and still get great results. But I think those are some caveats to know when people mention it in the same breath of the really good limiters out there.

[kylen]

-FG-X (worth it for the compressor, it is almost unbelievable how well it just puts everything together)...

BTW - thanks for this inspiration, I've seen a few others mention this also and after trying out FG-X decided to pick it up. THe FG-X comp is truley one of the most transparent ITB comps I have now (on sale Sep2013 $99) so I couldn't pass the sale up. I have many of the others mentioned here but this one just clicks with me for master bus comp at this point.

I realize this is a brickwall limiter thread so I'll just mention I use Barricade also as a brickwall, not pushing into it too far IOW (just a db or 2 every so often, not steady). However I think it does have some outstanding compressor/limiter sounding qualities on the master bus. If I hadn;t just picked up FG-X I would probably be pushing it a bit more. For now I'm just using Barricade for brickwall (and ISP) duties. I suppose I'd say that I would prefer to push into Barricade more than I would Ozone5 limiter for example, my ears, my material, etc. IMHO.

[Kindred]

I use Pro-L exclusively as my limiter and cannot fault it. Occasionally I get one of those illogical thoughts that perhaps some new Limiter will give me another little boost in my final mix. But in the end I prefer to spend the extra cash on stuff that colors (outboard like my Phoenix or plugs like Slate VBC).

Agree re: Sonnox also - I tried that limiter a couple of times maybe 5 years ago and even at the time I thought it sounded like poo - push it slightly and it breaks up - it may have improved since then tho..

[dexterbella]

Just had to chime in here as a Toneboosters fan - generally speaking they are incredibly good quality for a stupidly low price. I have a number of brickwall limiter options but it always seems to be Barricade I end up turning to. A quality plugin. Reelbus and FlX are also top drawer IMHO.

[mkdr]

I'm loving the TC System 6000 Brickwall Limiter. Works splendidly.

[Skorpius]

This may be a bit off topic, but most of the developers (on their websites) and most people in the threads here at KVR talk about mastering limiters all the time. As if limiters were only useful for mastering...

What about track limiters, i. e. limiters you can put on a single track in order to keep the audio from clipping? Any recommendations for that?

[Hermetech Mastering]

just record at 24 bit and turn the input down! you should be gain staging right so that you NEVER clip to 0dBFS when tracking. or for effect/mixing, just use any good brickwall limiter on that track.

[Aloysius]

I didn't read your post in detail. Have a bit of a headache.

Anyway. Without further ado.

I'm not sure if Pro-L actually blocks Inter Sample Peaks. Can't remember.

I like the Ozone 5 Advanced Limiter and lately DDMF No Limits.

Depends on your style of music and mix of course.

[Laurend]

Every limiters are different. None on the market is universally good.
Here are 4 tests;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL4GENHl ... gaTRYgc_bQ
You can run your own test using the files here:
http://www.maximalsound.com/4downloads/ ... roeder.wav

[Moonwrist]

What about track limiters, i. e. limiters you can put on a single track in order to keep the audio from clipping? Any recommendations for that?

I don't use limiters on tracks to prevent clipping but to "shape" the sound. I'm not after a brickwall limiting but limited sound.
One I use a lot is TLs-2095-LA http://www.tibrooketales.com or MCompressor http://www.MeldaProduction.com and use attack, release, knee and RMS size to get the limited sound I'm after.
If I need to prevent track from clipping I will use some brickwall limiter.

[ATS]

What is your favorite mastering limiter and why? Pardon me for clarifying in advance but let me say, I am not asking about mix buss compression/limiting, for me, that is earlier in my mastering chain and feel I've that well covered. I am referring to the very last limiter in the mastering chain. I am not sure how others do it but I generally use three leveling processors in my little world of mastering; aside from a little bit of coloring with tape sims, some subtractive eq, I use a compressor, then a clipper and finally a brickwall limiter. I am looking for perceived gain while retaining a respectable transparency - especially in regards to maintaining the integrity of the initial mix. I suspect folks have each tried a few, I'd love to get some responses as to 'why'...what is it which drew them to one, over another. Particularly between:

Izotope maximizer
fabfilter Pro-L
AOM limiter.

I know waves seems to have a few of them as does IK (why, btw?, it would seem to me, as their technology and methods improve in coding these limiters, one would update or simply replace the old?).

right so don't don't smash it at all. Do what I do and keep ALL the dynamics in tact. That is the ONLY way you will "maintain the integrity of the initial mix"

Louder makes your mixes sound weaker when volume matched to a mix that is not smashed. Loud wimpy sound.


And I will post this for about the 10th time, maybe it will get through to someone who really does care about sound quality and not just being LOUD like everyone else. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gmex_4hreQ

[SWAN808]

another shout out to the Mellowmuse Limiter. I did a big test a while back doing a big GR then level matching comparing, and Mellowmuse was joint favorite with Pro L...but its great because its simple...Barricade and elephant are good but I found the sound quality preferable with the above in terms of how they dealt with the transients. I ended up buying FG X in a sale and the compressor is good on that which is a bonus...and the limiter is decent.

[Davias]

Reading this thread I'm curious about what settings people use with Barricade in order to achieve transparent limiting. I tried a lot of brickwalls and for me the best is Pro-L, quickly followed by Invisible Limiter (and now Maximus ! but I don't limit with it, just saturate -> same result to my ears).

I didn't like waves, sonnox, elephant (I think this is really good but too much controls), psp, slate, and so on... they eat transients too much too quickly for my taste.

I tried Barricade many times, I think it is good, but I could never achieve the same loudness and transparency as with the ones I mentioned. Since many people seems to say Barricade is great I think that it is me who is doing something wrong. So what are your transparent settings people ?

Or maybe I should stop limiting on the master and just use a clipper instead ? not sure.

Thanks already.

[AC222]

If you are looking for a transparent brickwall limiter, please feel free to demo BW-LIMIT87 (€29). It is used by a German TV production company (for its Brickwall + Transparency qualities).

It has been designed to avoid distortion/digital clipping issues while being strict regarding its brickwall property.

There is also a free (cut down) version of this plug-in but FR-LIMIT87 will surely not be enough for mastering purposes. However, it can be very useful as a guard on the master bus.

All the best,
Philippe

Pardon the thread resurrection. I was sifting through old threads on limiters and felt it would have been a bit much to create yet another thread when there are already so much out there. Right now, I am pretty happy with my combination of TC MD3, Flux Elixir, Barricade, and Mellowmuse LM1V but I thought I'd try yours for fun.

I was very impressed by how clean your limiter is - very transparent with no added artifacts or distortion. However, for things like rock material, I found that the fixed attack was taking away the pop from snare hits way too much. The excitement was lost a little by squashing on the transients too son. I also had a tougher time (versus some of the other limiters I use) finding the right release setting to get the material to breathe with the music instead of hearing the audible compression coming in and our but I suspect that might be a user error. If you have any tips, I'm all ears .

By the way, I am really impressed with your products - particularly the eq and compressor because they are so clean sounding without leaving digital artifacts like a lot of the other stuff out there. Very few eqs I have found that are able to achieve this (flux epure and bx digital maybe for clean eqs and no artifacts). I got to try these in the CM version and they are so good I am considering stepping up to the full versions. I just wish that there was some room to adjust the attack on the brickwall limiter. But then again, maybe this limiter was not meant for loud rock/dance music. Still lots to like about it in any case.

[Turello]

Kuassa Kratos Maximizer not only is the worst limiter I ever heard but is the worst Kuassa plugin
Mellowmuse are a little anonymous

Sonnox Rules!!!