Which brickwall mastering limiter?

[PFozz]

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

[PurpleCatfishBettie]

i used buzmaxi3 for several years, but really like this jb broadcast.

broadcast really imparts some 'oomph' into the mix, while having the brickwall aspect... amazing it's a freebie. with any luck; someday i'll be able to get all of the new tb plug-ins; the jb freebies are so good.

old habits die hard though; i still use buzmaxi3 for its spectrum view, and to see how the meters look; but turn it off just before mixdown.

[Hermetech Mastering]

Voxengo Elephant, because it's really easy to "tune" the limiter to the track.

It's a bit hard to get your head around at first (steep learning curve, loads of settings), but once you do, it's the most versatile thing out there. Can be transparent or gnarly, depending on how you set it.

Been using it daily in a professional context for many years now, and wouldn't want to be without it!

Bear in mind I'm usually doing no more than 1.5dB of GR, and 3.0dB at the max. All limiters tend to start sounding too obtrusive after that, if you ask me. I'm getting most of my loudness from other parts of the chain (analogue compressor and EQ loop, then clipping the capture ADC on the way back in if the client wants it REALLY LOUD). This tends to sound much better than getting all the loudness at the end with the limiter.

[AngeFragile]

FabFilter Pro-L, quality plugin.

[Quietinthedark]

Barricade is very clean. Even the auto saturate is pretty subtle unless you get loco with your input.

I'm with Darkflame tho. I don't tend to be chopping off too many dbs at that stage.

[djshire]

+1 for Kuassa Kratos

[frank001]

On my tracks I've tested barricade, NoLimits, FabFilter Pro-L, eventhorizon, VintageWarmer2, Melda's limiter, vladg no.6, and Samplitudes Pro X's limiter (so far). My favorite's are Pro-L and VintageWarmer. They both preserve the bass end very well and are punchier when dialed in right. I'd probably end up using VintageWarmer2 because of it's added character.

[PatchAdamz]

Both the Flux and Powercore are very transparent, I use them regularly.

[satYatunes]

BuzzMax3, LoudMax
VladG Limiter No6

[Aiynzahev]

Apparent loudness is different from gain. In my experience and from what I've read the most popular limiters are Pro-L, Sonnox & Elephant.

My favourate of the three so far is Sonnox, I don't believe it is as transparent as Pro-L, but I feel that Pro-L is not fully transparent anyway, no limiting is from what I understand.

Sonnox however has an enhance function which makes the signal sound more intense and "louder" but it is not doing so by generating any harmonics, so you have a clean enhancement. It does not always work and depends on material though.

On a related point Flux Syrah has a preset (two actually) developed by a regarded mastering engineer. It makes use of some interesting features in Syrah which allow it to increase the RMS. That is really going to make things sound louder. It's called parallel enhance.

From my experience the combination of the two on a good mix will go a long way, then you won't need to raise the overall level and hit gain reduction on a limiter so much.

Then there is Slate FGX...

[Steve Bolivar]

I like the PSP Xenon limiter.

[brok landers]

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?).

first off, what kind of music do you do? there's stuff that works with this style, but not too good with that style, so one can't generalize... also, even despite the style, it depends on the material you throw at... every song is different and has its own needs...
btw:
you write that you use compressor > clipper > brickwall limiter
?????? after the clipper, nothing is there to brickwall limit for the brickwall limiter (which essentially is nothing else than a clipper with a release, being sample accurate on the attack). so essentially you brickwall limit a brickwall limited sound... in most cases, that cannot lead to a good result (while i admit that i saw horses throwover, so, yeah )
my advice is, before you buy another mastering plugin, consider 3 things first:

1. is your room suitable for mixing/mastering
2. does your mix objectively sound good?
3. do you have good, rather big speakers (only what you hear you can mix/master)?

if the answer on at least one of these questions is "no", i strongly suggest you to work on these factors first, before investing in yet another plugin, that can't come over the physics law...

trust me, having your room physically treated and having good, rather big speakers (midfield monitors or at least big nearfields) does wonders right in the very first, waay before mixing and mastering... you suddenly choose the right sounds/presets, you suddenly indetify any mistake right after you made it or even better, you instictively don't do it at all... that all leads to a better mix, which in return, is way easier to master then...
in general there's a rule:
if you can't get the result you want in mastering, it's 99,9% the failure in the mix. if you can't get the result you want in mixing, it's 99,9% the failure in the sounds you use, the key the song is in, etc...
when that all is ironed out (which it is to a big extend, when treating your room and listening through a good pair of reasonable sized speakers), you'll be mastering with the stuff you already have just fine...


just sayin'...

[bmanic]

Spot on!

Only addition I'd mention is that you do NOT absolutely have to have expensive speakers and room treatment. A little goes a long way. The main key here is that you can trade an optimal listening environment for time, testing, careful analysis and experience of your setups limitations (which basically means you got to sacrifice a lot of time and carefully "learn" your situation).

The better your listening chain/environment is, the less is required of your brain and you can get right to the meat of the matter. If you are stuck with working on headphones or a compromised environment you need to actively train your brain to identify the problems of your environment. Only once you have learned this can you start tackling the problems of the production and can actively avoid troubles right at the beginning (by choosing your sounds wisely, like said above).

The problem with this kind of compromised setup is that you need to be constantly aware of the fact that you work within a compromised environment and that takes a lot of focus and energy which could have been spent on the actual production.. but it can definitely be done. There are some ridiculously talented people around the world who deliver absolutely 100% perfect mixes on very limited equipment and listening environments (like a crappy pair of consumer headphones).

Cheers!
bManic

[Ah_Dziz]

gclip and limiter6oth free. and can get you an obscenely loud transparent sound.

[oneshotdeal]

gclip and limiter6oth free. and can get you an obscenely loud transparent sound.

The clipper in LNo6 is heads and shoulders above GClip tbh.