Which brickwall mastering limiter?

[hibidy]

Alrighty then, I bought it on word of mouth (and that JRR had it lower and that I can sell it if I hate it )

[AC222]

Alrighty then, I bought it on word of mouth (and that JRR had it lower and that I can sell it if I hate it )

Good luck, hibidy!

[hibidy]

So I don't like it

My conclusion is I hate limiting. They all sound pumpy/harsh/distorted/and just louder. The only example I can ever remember hearing that I liked was someone over at presonus trying the slate. Otherwise it just seems overkill.

[Hermetech Mastering]

I wish people would list how much GR they are doing when praising/dissing different limiters, and a little more info on the material on which they are using it.

As for me, I'm all about trying to find the limiter which does the least amount of destruction when doing between 1.5 and 3dB of GR on a finished stereo mix, and so far Elephant has been the one that offers the cleanest sound with the most tweakable interface to achieve that clean sound on disparate styles of music (and quality of mixes) within a mastering context.

[Brother Charles]

I am one of the most ardent admirers of all FabFilter's Pro product line, but with a bit of care, I think Slate FG-X has a strong grip on perceived dynamics, punch and transient preservation.

TBH, I'm honestly hard-pressed to chose a "better/best" between Pro-L & Elephant 4.x.

Tested Xenon little further, I must say that I prefer it to Maxwell regarding transient preservation.
This thing can take a beating!

But, nothing beats Pro-L in punchy mode when you want to preserve transients.

[Kaboom75]

Fabfilter Pro L is the cleanest on anything only ever tried the demo. I will compare it to FG-X 2 when that comes out Those two are the best for me when doing heavy rock or EDM. Problem with FG-X is you can only use it on an audio track and not on a mix with soft synths or sampled instruments. It sucks too much CPU or it crashes the DAW if your project is over 3GB.

For low CPU loudness maximiser I use DMG Audio Compassion it has the big limit preset and it does the job really well.

The whole point of a loudness maximiser is to make the sound louder at the cost of dynamics and quality. The trick is finding one that doesn't do as much damage for the same loudness and only using it after the track is 100% finished. Slate's FG-X tries to get around this by having the most transparent compressor first in the plugin and then a limiter that does some fancy tricks to keep some otherwise lost dynamic range. I think Pro-L has some of these tricks too.

[Ah_Dziz]

I use l2 from waves to catch final little overs when mastering with its ceiling set to -1dB. This is generally less than one dB of reduction though. I get my mastering loudness through gentle multi compressor> slightly stronger wideband compressor> massively oversampled clipper> Mmultiband limiter. That's my arrangement for competing in the loudness war while still leaving headroom. There is generally an instance of Mdynamic EQ and txt slick EQ in there as well. This is for mastering not for the mix bus.

The short answer is anything that can stop the odd spike that has slipped through your other mastering gear will work For your final (stop digital clipping) limiter. If you need to use your final limiter for more that two dB of reduction you might want to rethink your strategy.

JJ

[xx JPRacer xx]

Maybe I just missed it but I can't believe there's no mention of Limiter6 from vladg! (and it's FREE)

[kuzami]

I have Pro-L, I like it, very transparent. Heard great things about Barricade, Invisible Limiter and Elephant. Had great experiences with the free Limiter no. 6 and LoudMax. Limiter no. 6 gives you lots of options. LoudMax has two parameters, but it still gives you that desired loudness. Is incredibly easy to use.

[recursive one]

For the last year I have been using only PSP Xenon until I finally realized that I doesn't quite fit my music - it tends to sound kinda "muffled", while I'm aiming for bright clear mixes (I do various beat-driven electronic music, mostly psytrance atm), and also often adds some nasty artefacts even at moderate GR (about -3/-4 dB at the loudest parts - or is it not that moderate? Still, my music is not very loud). I also have TB Barricade. While it definitely sounds more transparent and bright, I notice that it adds some "plastic" sheen, not sure if I like it.

Maybe I should try something else? I cannot afford the top priced stuff like Pro-L or Ozone, Voxengo Elephant at 120 bucks is my limit. What do you think, could this one (or something else below 120 bucks) be better for my music?

While there always are demos, I feel that when it comes to the tools like a limiter it really takes a long time of extensive use to understand if it is really good or not so ...

[Tp3]

Limiting (on its on) is outdated... and overrated.

As for me, I'm all about trying to find the limiter which does the least amount of destruction when doing between 1.5 and 3dB of GR on a finished stereo mix

For me its UP to 1.0dB.... and 1.0dB.... and 1.0dB

[Twrogstudio]

Been using LVC LimitedMax recently and the results are great. Aside from that it's Xenon for me, which I just love. Never noticed any nasty artefacts with it, but it is quite configurable so maybe I'm not punishing it enough

[Naenyn]

I recently picked up Pro-L and am loving it! FabFilter~

[Hermetech Mastering]

Elephant only limiter I've been using the last 4 or 5 years and very happy, am sure you'll be happy with it too, many parameters to tweak to get you just where you want!

I try not to do more than 1.5dB of limiting, depends on the source of course, but then I can usually start hearing it work.

[poshook]

check this one http://kazrog.com/products/kclip/
It is far more transparent then any other mentioned above. Low CPU, minimum latency and almost for free