Sonible smart:limit

[MadDogE134]

i think we are in the same boat somewhat... sonible plugs are my first choice these days because it kinda speeds up the process BUT it does not always work (subjective)... they are fabulous when they fit the bill otherwise if i am not satisfied with the sound even after tweaking i move on. i too have much to choose from over the years. i will note though that AI is getting better and better overall. really love what gullfoss does too but like sonible... it is not always what i want soundwise but it is a lot faster than i am in finding resonant problems imo

as for my opinion on Fab's L2 versus the new smart:limiter i have found that the smart:limiter is a bit 'cleaner' sounding imo but i still love the Fab L2... what i use now relies strictly based on the source used. i still love the cleanness of the Weiss limiter but the smart:limiter i find is a LOT faster in dialing in lol

cheers

[ABBAhighfan]

Hi, all!
Anyone compared Sonible with Focusrite Fast plugins? (FAST Equaliser, FAST Compressor, FAST Reveal and FAST Verb).
Now it sells for 99.99$ one time payment.
As I know Sonible helps Focusrite to make these plugins and in my opinion Sonible will not shot themselve in the foot and did not make FAST better than Sonible.

[bduffy]

Hi, all!
Anyone compared Sonible with Focusrite Fast plugins? (FAST Equaliser, FAST Compressor, FAST Reveal and FAST Verb).
Now it sells for 99.99$ one time payment.
As I know Sonible helps Focusrite to make these plugins and in my opinion Sonible will not shot themselve in the foot and did not make FAST better than Sonible.

I'm going to compare these on my youtube channel soon.

For now, I'm messing around with smart:EQ and FAST Equalizer. And the most obvious difference is that smart:EQ has a full EQ with filter types and unlimited filter nodes, but FAST EQ only five 5 peak filters and high/lowpass filters.

Plus smart:EQ has dynamics, M/S, etc.

But FAST EQ is great for learning because it shows you the ranges for "low mid", "high mid", etc.

[bmanic]

This is extremely impressive. I have a whole bunch of limiters and deep knowledge of the innards of Pro-L and Pro-L2. This thing is absolutely in a class of it's own in my opinion and thus I have no other option but to purchase it.. immediately.

EDIT: The AI stuff (as always with Sonible) seems pretty dumb and suggests really stupid values for things.. and it also refuses to reach my desired LUFS values when set manually.. so yeah, that part is completely useless as far as I can tell but the limiter itself sounds wonderful! It's superb on individual tracks and buses.

[bduffy]

This is extremely impressive. I have a whole bunch of limiters and deep knowledge of the innards of Pro-L and Pro-L2. This thing is absolutely in a class of it's own in my opinion and thus I have no other option but to purchase it.. immediately.

EDIT: The AI stuff (as always with Sonible) seems pretty dumb and suggests really stupid values for things.. and it also refuses to reach my desired LUFS values when set manually.. so yeah, that part is completely useless as far as I can tell but the limiter itself sounds wonderful! It's superb on individual tracks and buses.

Agreed! I'm not entirely sure what they were going for with not hitting desired LUFS...but it's an incredible limiter on its own not-smart merits!

[sl1200mk2]

Really interesting limiter. If I'm being honest with myself, I probably didn't want to like it as much as I do. I didn't have very high expectations for it, so it has caught me off guard a bit in that sense. Like a few others, I really don't care about the 'smart' features or really the metering though I can see the appeal of both. I just want it to sound good and be reasonable to use -- it easily clears that hurdle. I'm just going off sound so far, not checking ISP's or going into the weeds like that.

I'm still on the fence if I need it, but I like what I'm hearing so far. I spent some time comparing it to Pro L2, Elephant, Elevate and Ozone Maximizer. I didn't have time to throw in Sonnox or any others. In general, I find it to be punchy and more center focused at least on the the tracks I was trying (bass heavy electro) while sacrificing a little overall width and depth. Pro L2 and Elephant had a wider presence, but also felt a little softer and more polite in general -- more refined. I was definitely more comfortable and 2nd guessing far less with Pro L2 and Elephant, but that's to be expected.

I was more surprised when I brought in Elevate compared to the others. What I liked in Smart:Limit I was able to equal in Elevate and even take it a little further if I wanted. I think that's due to the number of bands and the clipping. Elevate had even more focus and punch, but it was also a lot easier to distort and take too far as well, so there was some balancing. Ozone was my least favorite... not 'bad', but not what I was feeling either.

I'll say this... if I didn't have so many options already, I'd be all over Smart:Limit and I'd pay a lot more than my loyalty price for it and be happy. Will I probably wind up getting it? Yeah... I can see that happening, but I'm holding out some. It's not an 'instant buy' and need some more time with it. I don't see it replacing either Pro L2 or Elephant for me, but I could see it being used frequently. It would likely be between Elevate and Smart:Limit on a given track if I didn't prefer one of the others.

If you like Smart:Limit and don't care about the 'smart' part of it and the metering, then you should really look at Elevate on sale right now. It's the closest overall IMO in terms of sound/flavor at least for the material I'm trying. If I had to pick between those two right now, I'd go with Elevate albeit with the caveat that Elevate has a much steeper learning curve. If you want a similar sound, but easier use overall, then Smart:Limit.

[Ambiphile]

I did various level-matched (same int. LUFS and True Peak) blind-tests with: SmartLimit, Ozone, Elevate, Stealth Limiter, Pro-L2, Waves L1, TDR Limiter 6, Boost, Velo2 and bx_Limiter_True Peak on 4 different tracks.

SmartLimit was a close, but clear 2nd place for me in all of those tests. 3rd place goes to Pro-L2 i'd say. My favorite was always: Ozone. I was amazed at how damn good Ozone actually is. It just retains transients and the original dynamics so well and still has low distortion (pushing quite hard to -6.2 int. LUFS at -0,1 TP for instance)

So, in my opinion, smartLimit can be a great limiter for people who don't want to deal with additonal metering plugins and researching loudness targets for various platforms etc., and who also like to have some additional shaping tools like the Saturation and Balance knobs.

However i'd say if you already have Ozone and are willing to use additional metering plugins (and optionally: saturation, spectral balancing etc. in your chain) and deal with loudness targets and limiter settings yourself, you can pass on smartLimit imho.

Regarding CPU load (FL's meter, i7-8086k, 512 smp):
smartLimit = 8%
Ozone = 7-14% depending on mode
Pro-L2 = 2-46% depending on mode and oversampling

[gagua]

I found a solution for nvidia users of sonible products.
From nvidia driver release notes: "NvIFR OpenGL support. Release 470 will be the last driver branch to support this functionality. NvIFR header files, samples and documentation have been removed from the NVIDIA Capture SDK 7.1.9 release. Future drivers will remove NvIFR.dll and any other reference to NvIFR. For details, see the NVIDIA Video Codec SDK page."
The solution is to install the studio driver instead of the game ready driver, because the studio driver is still from branch 470.
To install it just go to NVIDIA Geforce Experience, click on driver and then select driver studio.

[pawder]

If you like Smart:Limit and don't care about the 'smart' part of it and the metering, then you should really look at Elevate on sale right now. It's the closest overall IMO in terms of sound/flavor at least for the material I'm trying. If I had to pick between those two right now, I'd go with Elevate albeit with the caveat that Elevate has a much steeper learning curve. If you want a similar sound, but easier use overall, then Smart:Limit.

I tried to match the sound of smart:limiter to elevate, but i couldn't get the bass right. smart limiter had the bass more tight, while in elevate the bass sounded more loose, kinda occupying more range. i tried to lower some upper low bands but that didn't help. Can you give me a hint how to get a tight bass with elevate?

[sl1200mk2]

I tried to match the sound of smart:limiter to elevate, but i couldn't get the bass right. smart limiter had the bass more tight, while in elevate the bass sounded more loose, kinda occupying more range. i tried to lower some upper low bands but that didn't help. Can you give me a hint how to get a tight bass with elevate?

As a starting point, try one of the 'APS Mastering' presets for 'Punchy' -- IIRC I used the 'moderate' one as the basis for one of my own presets. You'll have to adjust the clipper and drive to taste and what suits the track you're working on. As you've tried, you'll have to watch the filter bank metering and see how it affecting the frequency range you're concerned with and possibly adjust as needed.

Other things I do myself, if bass is loose you may need some targeted compression prior to the limiter. For this particular purpose, I'll often use Fabfilter Pro-MB (lots of things would work though), but with just a single band in the low end to bring in some tightness. I initially bring up the level by 1-3dB, then compress somewhere in that same range as well. It might have to do with how much you're trying to limit as well. I generally try not to limit more than 3dB -- if I'm having to do that, then typically my gain staging in the overall chain isn't right. If not (e.g. someone wants it louder than I would normally deliver), then I might use a 2nd limiter and/or play with the clipping.

It'll still be very track dependent though and Smart:Limit very well could be handling that particular track better than Elevate would. That's why I personally try a few different limiters on every track I master. There's just never 'one best' solution I can always use.

[pawder]

that was very helpful thx alot!

[Leo1999]

I have also decided to buy smart limit, because it is different from most other limiters with more new features. But I am going to use it without analyzing.
There is a pretty good video where smart limit is compared to other limters with extreme settings
I like smart limit best in this comparison followed by Stealth Limiter and Elevate.

[plexuss]

I have decided not to buy it. I have settled on Limitless and Youlean and in my demoing of smart:limit I am not seeing or hearing a benefit. If I hadn't already settled on a limiting and metering solution I think smart:limit is pretty good. I didn't do in depth listening tests however. In my case, mastering to -16 LUFS, I push the limiter hard and prefer to have a clean sound so it didnt seem worth the time to compare them since I am happy with Limitless. For me it the decision was more about redundancy than quality: it looks like a very capable limiter with a unique and useful approach to visualtions. The other thing I dont like is the gain fader causing a green over-lay on the real-time chart - it visually implies the green area is somehow affecting the audio in that range, when it's not. Just a simple gain fader to the right would be preferable.

[fairlyclose]

I have decided not to buy it. I have settled on Limitless and Youlean and in my demoing of smart:limit I am not seeing or hearing a benefit. If I hadn't already settled on a limiting and metering solution I think smart:limit is pretty good. I didn't do in depth listening tests however. In my case, mastering to -16 LUFS, I push the limiter hard and prefer to have a clean sound so it didnt seem worth the time to compare them since I am happy with Limitless. For me it the decision was more about redundancy than quality: it looks like a very capable limiter with a unique and useful approach to visualtions.

I bought smart:limit because I dont have an equivalent. I think it is great. if I had something else that was great I would not have bought smart:limit (I hope). It is interesting to see here and on gearspace how many people use limiters a lot and are very sensitive to the different sound qualities each has. That is not me.
I wanted something that would be clean and help me take my mixes (which are already where I want them to be) to a designated level as well as compress the dynamics according to platform/use case. Smart:limit does that a treat. No doubt many others would as well, although perhaps not at the price point I got smart:limit for

[bduffy]

I have decided not to buy it. I have settled on Limitless and Youlean and in my demoing of smart:limit I am not seeing or hearing a benefit. If I hadn't already settled on a limiting and metering solution I think smart:limit is pretty good. I didn't do in depth listening tests however. In my case, mastering to -16 LUFS, I push the limiter hard and prefer to have a clean sound so it didnt seem worth the time to compare them since I am happy with Limitless. For me it the decision was more about redundancy than quality: it looks like a very capable limiter with a unique and useful approach to visualtions.

I bought smart:limit because I dont have an equivalent. I think it is great. if I had something else that was great I would not have bought smart:limit (I hope). It is interesting to see here and on gearspace how many people use limiters a lot and are very sensitive to the different sound qualities each has. That is not me.
I wanted something that would be clean and help me take my mixes (which are already where I want them to be) to a designated level as well as compress the dynamics according to platform/use case. Smart:limit does that a treat. No doubt many others would as well, although perhaps not at the price point I got smart:limit for

I think it has to be said that even many of the sensitive mastering engineers, are embracing this plugin. You made a good purchase, I might say! I'm really enjoying smart:limit, although I'd like to see it auto-match targets.