[review] Limiter WaveBreaker

[enroe]

Limiter WaveBreaker

limiter wave breaker 12 white.gif

With a size of 2.2 mb the vst3 plugin is still quite small. Very good!

The GUI is divided into 3 windows: In the first, larger window on the left
you can see the input signal - as an amplitude in time resolution. Here
you can pull the ceiling line down from above so that the limiter kicks in.
This type of operation is very intuitive - well done!

The second window on the top right shows us the effect of the limiter
on the signal. Here you can see the "reduction" of the signal. In the
third window at the bottom right we see the finished output signal.

With these three windows, control over the signal is wonderful to see.
This is pretty useful for fussy and difficult sound sculpting or even
mastering.

limiter wave breaker 21 reducing.gif

Below you can compensate the volume via rotary control, either
manually or normalized. On the right side there is the possibility to
contribute a saturation. What does the "preserve" controller do? Can
we use this to control transient processing? I haven't found any
information on this.

The field for "model" indicates that there are other algos for this plugin
besides the "Clarity One" algorithm. Will this also be available for this
model of the "DC-2023"?

The GUI is a bit big. But this is due to the fact that the signal and its
changes are displayed very precisely. In addition, the GUI can be
reduced or enlarged in certain steps. Nevertheless, it is the case that
a relatively large amount of space is wasted.

You can choose different colors for the GUI, there are light and very
dark GUIs. I like the bright GUI in orange best:

limiter wave breaker 31 orange.gif

The CPU load is a bit higher compared to other very efficient
compressors or limiters. For example, the Reaper limiter needs 0.1%
CPU power for a reduction of 6 dB, the Wavebreaker needs 1.4%,
i.e. 14 times as much.

I examined the sound with a bass drum, which I wanted to make a bit
more assertive and fat. Lo and behold: it works really well! The optical
control allows you to model the sound very precisely. So the probability
of getting the desired result is high.

Conclusion: Good limiter, very precise control is possible. You can model
individual sounds very nicely - and you can also master an overall signal.
I haven't tested how well the limiter performs with overall signals in
practice, I'll leave that to others.

Tested: WaveBreaker.vst3, version 1.0.1 (Reaper 6.64, Windows 10)

[Pyramidz]

I think this one is meh but i like the meters, lacks sound though!

[pekbro]

Decent limiter, i dont see it replacing any of the limiters i tend to use. I wish you could explicitly set the ceiling on it as well. Some more models might make it a lot nicer too. Still, a nice effort for the dev challenge imo.

[pressplay1]

Thank you for your review! I would like to comment on a few aspects.

Documentation: There is already a link to the online documentation in the About tab. Unfortunately, I have not found the time to add any useful content to it. I plan to do so in the coming weeks.

Limiter models: There are more models in the works. I will add them gradually after the competition is over. Currently there is only "Clarity One", which was the simplest implementation of a limiter that sounded good enough.

CPU: Yeah, I can imagine it is not the easiest limiter out there. It always runs oversampled to catch the true peaks and reduce aliasing effects.

Saturation: I wanted to allow the user to have as little distortion as possible if they wanted to (saturation=0). This can sometimes sound a bit boring or even "dull" depending on the source material. Saturation can be applied to signals above the threshold (never below), which adds a bit of punch to the transients. I believe that many commercial limiters do such tricks secretly. I don't like this approach because it gives you no control over the sound.

Preserve: Turning this up increases the release of the gain reduction algorithm (among other parameters). The result is more punch and less distortion. On the other hand, the value should be lower if you want to reduce the dynamic range. Higher values also increase the risk of 'pumping'.

I wish you could explicitly set the ceiling on it

Of course you can. The threshold is an editable text field. Threshold is also an automation parameter.

[pekbro]

^^ Ahh ok my bad. Thx...