What limiter are u using?

[sokoleski]

Limitey Limits Limiter from Limitless Limitations (Limited Edition)

Va fan säger du ?

[briefcasemanx]

I think KVR is not a great forum for getting advice about FX plugins, you'll get people saying not to use limiters, people saying to add a clipper to every track in the mix, people saying they use a bit crusher instead of a limiter, etc. I've seen lots of pretty bonkers advice here about effects and mixing, and not just about limiters.

I like Sonible Smart:Limit best of anything on master. DMG Limitless and the NEWEST version of Voxengo Elephant with the new slgorithm are also good. I own a ton more that have been referenced in this thread, but on master these 3 suit my needs the best and are the most transparent.

The music I make is made up of synths but Id say it's closer to rock than to EDM, so different than most on this forum, I think.

[Elias Outlander Ricks]

DMG Limitless

YES
+1

[osiris]

Another Limiter 6 fan here. This is like special seasoning for sound.

[briefcasemanx]

DMG Limitless

YES
+1

I...ummm...uhhh...okay. And all the other stuff I wrote surrounding those 13 characters.

[DMG68]

In no particular order:
Softube Weiss MM-1
Limiter 6 GE
Frontier
Barricade 4

[bmanic]

Since only now i discovered how good Pro-L2 actually is - after years of using it "wrong" - and that its actually also a Clipper, it makes my favourite limiter for sure by far! Its so flexible once you dive deep in the settings. In case you didnt know it (like me), there is the guy on youtube (higly recommended channel!) that explains it in detail:

Pro-L2 (and it's predecessor Pro-L v1) has over 4 years of development behind it. It has completely 100% unique solutions to how it works, not based on any "common" concepts as far as I can tell. Which was in stark contrast to all the other limiters available at the time of Pro-L v1 release, the only exception being Voxengo Elephant which too was completely unique and almost impossible to "de-crypt" it's behavior. It's no wonder people haven't figured Pro-L out yet, though I did make TONS of presets for it to showcase it's many different flavors of limiting but unfortunately people don't seem to use the presets as starting points at all. I've been trying to tell people for years that they really should sit down and explore the full parameter ranges of this thing.. but I severely underestimated how little most actually tweak plugins or how little time people put in learning their tools.

It's ridiculously complex. The attack and release knobs literally control 50+ parameters under the hood, every single one of them being program dependent (meaning it constantly adapts to the incoming audio). Same goes for the look-a-head parameter which itself controls tons of program dependent adaptive parameters.. as do the stereo linking controls. Now add on top of that the different algorithms which are not just "flavors" but rather 100% completely unique limiting algorithms that completely change how it all operates under the hood. For instance the Transient algorithm is a unique combination of the 'Transparent' algorithm plus a complex program dependent transient enhancer + clipper in a sort of strange parallel yet serial way. Hard to explain.. but basically the attack and release knobs pull double duty under the hood, both defining the transient behavior as well as the limiter and clipping behavior.

Look-a-head knob is completely unique in the 'Modern' algorithm. It doesn't behave at all like an ordinary look-a-head function. While it does introduce look-a-head like operation it also at the same time becomes increasingly program dependent in how it "holds" the peaks and modifies the attack and release behavior depending on the type of transient that enters the limiter. You should definitely explore how it sounds and behaves at long look-a-head times when using the 'Modern' algorithm. In all the other algorithms it is a more common implementation.

If anybody has specific questions about Pro-L2 then I'm can probably answer most of them as I know the explicit inner workings of it.. well to a degree. It's been quite a few years since I worked on the development of it so I've probably forgot a bunch of it (and I don't have access to the development tools any more). Still, I do vividly recall all the sleepless nights just thinking about it. Thousands of hours poured into it.

[The Main Event]

Since only now i discovered how good Pro-L2 actually is - after years of using it "wrong" - and that its actually also a Clipper, it makes my favourite limiter for sure by far! Its so flexible once you dive deep in the settings. In case you didnt know it (like me), there is the guy on youtube (higly recommended channel!) that explains it in detail:

Pro-L2 (and it's predecessor Pro-L v1) has over 4 years of development behind it. It has completely 100% unique solutions to how it works, not based on any "common" concepts as far as I can tell. Which was in stark contrast to all the other limiters available at the time of Pro-L v1 release, the only exception being Voxengo Elephant which too was completely unique and almost impossible to "de-crypt" it's behavior. It's no wonder people haven't figured Pro-L out yet, though I did make TONS of presets for it to showcase it's many different flavors of limiting but unfortunately people don't seem to use the presets as starting points at all. I've been trying to tell people for years that they really should sit down and explore the full parameter ranges of this thing.. but I severely underestimated how little most actually tweak plugins or how little time people put in learning their tools.

It's ridiculously complex. The attack and release knobs literally control 50+ parameters under the hood, every single one of them being program dependent (meaning it constantly adapts to the incoming audio). Same goes for the look-a-head parameter which itself controls tons of program dependent adaptive parameters.. as do the stereo linking controls. Now add on top of that the different algorithms which are not just "flavors" but rather 100% completely unique limiting algorithms that completely change how it all operates under the hood. For instance the Transient algorithm is a unique combination of the 'Transparent' algorithm plus a complex program dependent transient enhancer + clipper in a sort of strange parallel yet serial way. Hard to explain.. but basically the attack and release knobs pull double duty under the hood, both defining the transient behavior as well as the limiter and clipping behavior.

Look-a-head knob is completely unique in the 'Modern' algorithm. It doesn't behave at all like an ordinary look-a-head function. While it does introduce look-a-head like operation it also at the same time becomes increasingly program dependent in how it "holds" the peaks and modifies the attack and release behavior depending on the type of transient that enters the limiter. You should definitely explore how it sounds and behaves at long look-a-head times when using the 'Modern' algorithm. In all the other algorithms it is a more common implementation.

If anybody has specific questions about Pro-L2 then I'm can probably answer most of them as I know the explicit inner workings of it.. well to a degree. It's been quite a few years since I worked on the development of it so I've probably forgot a bunch of it (and I don't have access to the development tools any more). Still, I do vividly recall all the sleepless nights just thinking about it. Thousands of hours poured into it.

Very interesting. Thanks a lot for your insight!
The information on this limiter and how it functions in different modes is quite overwhelming, to a point - for me - where i cant remember which is doing what in any mode. Is there a kind of a "cheat sheet" or whatever to quickly read through the functions and sound of each mode and look-ahead, attack, release for each mode? That would make using it much easier.

[legendCNCD]

I love the Panorama Mastering guy. Been watching him since the beginning. So much good info too.

[planet_b]

Yes, Panorama Mastering guy is offering quality content! The constant hand drumming in the videos also a nice touch and good vibrations.

[bmanic]

Very interesting. Thanks a lot for your insight!
The information on this limiter and how it functions in different modes is quite overwhelming, to a point - for me - where i cant remember which is doing what in any mode. Is there a kind of a "cheat sheet" or whatever to quickly read through the functions and sound of each mode and look-ahead, attack, release for each mode? That would make using it much easier.

No not really. However there are only 2 main controls that vary the most from algorithm to algorithm and those are of course Attack and Release. Just remember to try out the FULL range of the knobs. Don't look at the values as they are complete bullshit and totally useless. I was always advocating FabFilter to use % as the value number instead of 'seconds', because the seconds value is completely arbitrary and has absolutely no real world meaning as everything is so program dependent.

For instance try this:

'Modern' algorithm with look-a-head at full (5ms), attack at full (10s) and release at zero. Then compare this to how it sounds when look-a-head is 1.5ms or zero ms. It wont sound the same. Then try also release at full or half way or two thirds.

Then also test the 'Dynamic' algorithm and take note of how attack and release play double duty. This means if you set attack to full, you get maximum size and amount of the transient processing. Then compare how you can use the look-a-head to fine tune when and where the transient processing happens. A millisecond of two of look-a-head can help get it popping just at the right time. Also experiment with really fast attack and release times with this algorithm as it means the transient processing is only treating the very first few milliseconds of the peaks, which can work wonders when trying to limit material that you don't want to be "chunky" but rather want to try to retain fine details of a sound.

The stereo linkage controls are always internally routed so that they follow their own respective envelope combinations. This means that the transient part always follows all the internal "short" envelopes and calculations whereas the sustain part always follows all the internal "slow" envelopes or rms/average calculated parts. Thus of course this means that they all behave as distinctly different among all the algorithms as attack and release envelopes are different too. For instance the 'Dynamic' algorithm can become quite weird and unruly if you unlink the transient stereo link control as it can result in a one side of the stereo suddenly getting a lot more transient processing than the other.. which is why I usually recommend keeping the stereo link transient control between 70-100% with that algorithm.

Finally I recommend also testing the old 'transparent' algorithm, which was the one we developed for the original Pro-L, as it's still the favorite one for many users. This one was made to be very forgiving, especially with the release timings. You can quite safely set it to very long release times and it will still intelligently manage itself and sound natural. It works great as a "glue" compressor/limiter.

You can use two instances of Pro-L2 and get almost any track easily into the -9 to -7 LUFS territory using this little trick:

First instance with the 'transparent' algorithm, set to really long release times and short attack with a tiny amount of look-a-head to keep it from distorting. Then a second instance with the 'modern' algorithm where you set it so that you have almost complete clipping happening, yet the limiting will kick in just before severe clipping happens.

You can download these two presets here (Google Drive, ZIP file)

I've set the first instance (pre-clipping glue) to have completely unlinked transient part of the stereo field whereas the second instance (final clipping) to have completely unlinked sustain part. This keeps the stereo image natural and in balance on most material. If you feel that it is wandering a bit or too loose then just tighten up the linkage of both instances.

[bmanic]

Forgot to mention how to use the two presets. First load the Pre-clipping Glue preset, set it so that it does all the heavy lifting. Don't be afraid to push it way into -6dB or more of gain reduction. It's slow so it will not easily distort. Then follow that instance with the Final Clipping preset and use that very sparingly. Usually you only need about 2 or 3 dB of gain for a good mix to hit -8 LUFS. If you have a compromised mix you can still hit -10 LUFS with this combo very easily.

If you want slightly more loudness and movement then shorten the release of the first Pro-L2 instance. A typical range would be between 3s and 10s. Anything faster than that can yield too hectic and distorting results.

As a bonus, you may not even need a masterbus "glue" compressor as the first instance of Pro-L2 does that part very well.

[phantom101]

I use FabFilter Pro L-2 and it's my favourite. Transparent and clear.

[Detalion]

Signum Audio Bute Limiter 2

[simmo75]

Limitless, I always end up using it after A/B’ing with other limiters.