Vintage Limiter plugin...

[SWAN808]

Hi All, I found that this type of 'vintage limiter' is great on the drum bus. Can anyone suggest any independent developer, non Ilok alternatives to the McDSP Retro Limiter?

https://mcdsp.com/plugin-index/4040-retro/

[sinkmusic]

VoS has quite a lot of vintage limiters... This might do the trick?

[sinkmusic]

https://varietyofsound.wordpress.com/20 ... -released/

https://varietyofsound.wordpress.com/20 ... -released/

https://www.patreon.com/posts/varimoon-34323360

https://www.patreon.com/posts/oss-34292591

https://www.patreon.com/posts/yala-34323384

https://www.patreon.com/posts/49184069

[SWAN808]

VoS has quite a lot of vintage limiters... This might do the trick?

thanks, I don't think they are mac compatible which Im on...

[Held]

Plugin Alliance has a bunch of vintage limiters like this one: https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/prod ... _254e.html No idea how it compares to McDSP stuff, though.

[SWAN808]

I just remembered this

https://goodhertz.com/faraday-lim/

[No_Use]

https://d16.pl/frontier

[kritikon]

Was perusing Fuse Audio Labs when checking out their Ocelot clipper. They have a few vintage leveler type plugins. Haven't tried any of them as they're not really my thing but worth a look.
https://fuseaudiolabs.de/#/pages/home

[t.o.t.s.]

I like the McDSP one but like someone else said, d16 Frontier is worth looking at. it’s great.

[bmanic]

The McDSP limiting action is obviously heavily influenced by the STA limiter. So if you happen to have Arturia's Comp Tube-STA plugin (or any of the other plugin clones available), you can get really close to the sound of the 4040. You may want to add an actual brick wall look-a-head limiter at the end though as the 4040 has one of those built in too.

I just did a quick comparison and with these settings on the Arturia STA you get very similar results:

Triple or Double Mode
Release around 7.50 to 8.00, slightly depending on source
Then for fine tuning you could use the bell band side chain Equalizer between 5 to 10kHz to emphasize the highs a little bit

Audio example:

Drumbus, McDSP 4040 (approx 6dB GR (Google Drive, 2mb 16bit 48kHz .WAV)

Arturia Tube-STA (approx 6dB GR) (Google Drive, 2mb 16bit 48kHz .WAV)

I also put Fuse Audio Ocelot Limiter after the Arturia plugin to keep peaks at exactly -2dBFS just like I had the McDSP 4040 ceiling at -2. The Arturia is slightly more saturate and has a bit more "vibe" but the overall action is very similar.

If you really want the ease of use of the 4040 it can usually be had for very little money a few times a year. Currently I see it for 25 euros at Gear4Music (an European online music store)

[bmanic]

Also worth noting about the McDSP 4040 retro limiter.. it's a truly retro plugin. It can only handle a maximum of 96kHz in terms of sample rate, completely crapping out at 192kHz and immediately and brutally crashing a host if you go to 384kHz.

But as long as you don't try to oversample it by mistake, you'll be fine. And it's got some clever programming in it that very effectively kills any harmonics above 1kHz. The "transformer emulation" only happens when you have actual compression/limiting happening.

It's pretty unique piece of code, like all McDSP plugins. Too bad the company is so horrible and the coder such a douche. Otherwise it'd be an easy recommend.

[DNAudio]

Also worth noting about the McDSP 4040 retro limiter.. it's a truly retro plugin. It can only handle a maximum of 96kHz in terms of sample rate, completely crapping out at 192kHz and immediately and brutally crashing a host if you go to 384kHz.

But as long as you don't try to oversample it by mistake, you'll be fine. And it's got some clever programming in it that very effectively kills any harmonics above 1kHz. The "transformer emulation" only happens when you have actual compression/limiting happening.

It's pretty unique piece of code, like all McDSP plugins. Too bad the company is so horrible and the coder such a douche. Otherwise it'd be an easy recommend.

I've never been able to get McDSP to run on Wine (even before the JUCE 8 fiasco) but that harmonic suppression sounds interesting to me. Does it just process less at higher frequencies or is it a smarter form of anti-aliasing?

[The Noodlist]

Brighton 2 Ratios: 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 20 (limiter)
Smoke Comp not quite a limiter, but vintage.
I'd wait for the sales.......
MJUC

[Winstontaneous]

d16 Frontier, besides being worthy for buss duties, is my favorite for smashing acoustic guitars into place.
While not a brickwall limiter, PSP Twin-L is also very useful for similar massaging.

[SWAN808]

The McDSP limiting action is obviously heavily influenced by the STA limiter. So if you happen to have Arturia's Comp Tube-STA plugin (or any of the other plugin clones available), you can get really close to the sound of the 4040. You may want to add an actual brick wall look-a-head limiter at the end though as the 4040 has one of those built in too.

I just did a quick comparison and with these settings on the Arturia STA you get very similar results:

Triple or Double Mode
Release around 7.50 to 8.00, slightly depending on source
Then for fine tuning you could use the bell band side chain Equalizer between 5 to 10kHz to emphasize the highs a little bit

Audio example:

Drumbus, McDSP 4040 (approx 6dB GR (Google Drive, 2mb 16bit 48kHz .WAV)

Arturia Tube-STA (approx 6dB GR) (Google Drive, 2mb 16bit 48kHz .WAV)

I also put Fuse Audio Ocelot Limiter after the Arturia plugin to keep peaks at exactly -2dBFS just like I had the McDSP 4040 ceiling at -2. The Arturia is slightly more saturate and has a bit more "vibe" but the overall action is very similar.

If you really want the ease of use of the 4040 it can usually be had for very little money a few times a year. Currently I see it for 25 euros at Gear4Music (an European online music store)

thanks for that great response bManic. I will check those out...