Best limiter

[ampetrosillo]

I find that people obsess a bit too much on finding "the best limiter". Each of them has a certain "sound", which is given basically by the choice of internal soft-clipping algorithms, lookahead, attack and release times (when you can't set them manually), multi-band processing vs wide-band processing, etc.

I find that you should have a few limiters (free and non-free), test them out, and then finally stick to the one that fits the track. Either that, or you choose one full-featured limiter (like Pro-L<whatever>, for instance, or TDR Limiter) and you learn to use that. And sometimes you'll find that some other limiter will work better for a certain track.

I personally use TDR Limiter + I find the new free XMLimiter to be quite good for pop production styles (it has a certain "thick-gooeyness").

[simon.a.billington]

I find that people obsess a bit too much on finding "the best limiter". Each of them has a certain "sound", which is given basically by the choice of internal soft-clipping algorithms, lookahead, attack and release times (when you can't set them manually), multi-band processing vs wide-band processing, etc.

I find that you should have a few limiters (free and non-free), test them out, and then finally stick to the one that fits the track. Either that, or you choose one full-featured limiter (like Pro-L<whatever>, for instance, or TDR Limiter) and you learn to use that. And sometimes you'll find that some other limiter will work better for a certain track.

I personally use TDR Limiter + I find the new free XMLimiter to be quite good for pop production styles (it has a certain "thick-gooeyness").

Exactly.

Not that'm telling everyone the need to spend up and get more. Certainly, though, if you have more than one test them on different things, preferably in the context of a whole mix. Listen to what they do to the transients and what kind of harmonic change they make to the sound. In the case of plugins like IK's Brickwal Limiter or the Waves L4 where they have several algorithms, put those to the test too.

Use the differences between the plugins and algorithms to your advantage and expand your sonic tool palette.

[bmanic]

The "best limiter" race has somewhat become redundant in the past decades as the traditional audio engineering market, meaning audio recording / mixing / mastering shifted to new generations where the rules were changed. The old guard (boomers) and the previous "new"-guard (GenX) who dominated the industry for half a century had a pretty simple definition for brick wall limiting when it officially got a name and a brand in the form of Waves original L1 limiter and especially after they launched L2 together with the hardware. Even before those times we sometimes marveled at certain tape brands + tape machines that could nicely limit the peaks while retaining "close" proximity to the original source. Or microphone preamps that could do the same without collapsing or clearly distorting.

Anyhow, the definition for the "best brickwall limiter" used to be this: How close to the original source does it sound when you compare it volume matched? That's it. The closer you got to the original tonality, dynamics and overall feel was the goal for a limiter. And I can tell you, from experience, doing a processor that does that while cutting up to 7dB of peaks is difficult.. like really really really difficult.

However, that definition has changed. At some point it became "How loud can it go without completely fizzing out or breaking apart". Nobody cared any more about the tonality changes, complete dynamic rearrangement and not even about comparing apples to apples (aka volume matched comparisons). All that went out the window. Thus naturally this all morphed into a myriad of new ways of doing limiter and clipper algorithms now that the shackles of "being transparent" were taken away. And let me just add here, yes that is still a difficult thing to do well.. like really really really difficult!

And to be perfectly honest, that attitude of the new generation(s) is about goddamn time! We've lived way too long in the stupid and rigid "..but does it sound like the original??? If not, it's shit!" times. It's no wonder younger people just don't give a f**k and instead jump to actually relevant things like "Does it sound good!?".

So the correct answer to "best limiter" is 100% subjective in today's world. That wasn't the case in the olden days. You could actually have quite a bit of objectivity simply by comparing like for like and listen to the tonality and dynamics. Especially if you do a delta compare after your DA converter, in the analogue domain when the clipped peaks have regained their energy, you can actually hear that one limiter is "better" in preserving the original, than another. But none of this is relevant any more and nobody cares.. nobody should care. Like the previous two posts above said clearly. Use whatever works best.

Also worth noting is that pretty much all top name limiters and quite a few indie hidden gems are at a ridiculously high standard in 2025. It's virtually impossible to go wrong. Thus you should choose the tool you feel most comfortable with UI and feature wise. I love tinkering with things.. so a simple 1 knob thing doesn't do it for me.

[casiobioassay]

best limiter ..................... for what?

[chagzuki]

best limiter ..................... for what?

For not wasting more money.

[ampetrosillo]

The "best limiter" race has somewhat become redundant in the past decades as the traditional audio engineering market, meaning audio recording / mixing / mastering shifted to new generations where the rules were changed. The old guard (boomers) and the previous "new"-guard (GenX) who dominated the industry for half a century had a pretty simple definition for brick wall limiting when it officially got a name and a brand in the form of Waves original L1 limiter and especially after they launched L2 together with the hardware. Even before those times we sometimes marveled at certain tape brands + tape machines that could nicely limit the peaks while retaining "close" proximity to the original source. Or microphone preamps that could do the same without collapsing or clearly distorting.

Anyhow, the definition for the "best brickwall limiter" used to be this: How close to the original source does it sound when you compare it volume matched? That's it. The closer you got to the original tonality, dynamics and overall feel was the goal for a limiter. And I can tell you, from experience, doing a processor that does that while cutting up to 7dB of peaks is difficult.. like really really really difficult.

However, that definition has changed. At some point it became "How loud can it go without completely fizzing out or breaking apart". Nobody cared any more about the tonality changes, complete dynamic rearrangement and not even about comparing apples to apples (aka volume matched comparisons). All that went out the window. Thus naturally this all morphed into a myriad of new ways of doing limiter and clipper algorithms now that the shackles of "being transparent" were taken away. And let me just add here, yes that is still a difficult thing to do well.. like really really really difficult!

And to be perfectly honest, that attitude of the new generation(s) is about goddamn time! We've lived way too long in the stupid and rigid "..but does it sound like the original??? If not, it's shit!" times. It's no wonder younger people just don't give a f**k and instead jump to actually relevant things like "Does it sound good!?".

So the correct answer to "best limiter" is 100% subjective in today's world. That wasn't the case in the olden days. You could actually have quite a bit of objectivity simply by comparing like for like and listen to the tonality and dynamics. Especially if you do a delta compare after your DA converter, in the analogue domain when the clipped peaks have regained their energy, you can actually hear that one limiter is "better" in preserving the original, than another. But none of this is relevant any more and nobody cares.. nobody should care. Like the previous two posts above said clearly. Use whatever works best.

Also worth noting is that pretty much all top name limiters and quite a few indie hidden gems are at a ridiculously high standard in 2025. It's virtually impossible to go wrong. Thus you should choose the tool you feel most comfortable with UI and feature wise. I love tinkering with things.. so a simple 1 knob thing doesn't do it for me.

To be honest, the old attitude had its merits. Once upon a time, mastering was supposed to be "like the mix, but louder". So essentially it was just "make the mix compatible with the medium" (which used to be vinyl, which came with its large set of compromises).

With digital audio, the whole idea behind mastering was no longer applicable; after all, 16 bits were more than enough to translate a mix into the final medium.

But the whole loudness wars started (because you couldn't make things too loud with vinyl, but now you could), and for quite a few years, it was all about making stuff louder.

So, after a while, it became "let's make stuff loud, but it needs to still sound good", and you can't really do that transparently. It's no longer just catching peaks and gluing things a bit at that point (and you need the glue to catch peaks a bit more transparently).

Limiting and compression at the mastering stage now gets deep into the signal; you get mastering engineers acting all "mixing is easy, hah! Mastering is where the magic lies" and moving from a merely technical role to a more "creative" one. Which can be fine (especially when mixes these days are often home productions), it means that mastering engineers have got (more) skilled at fixing imperfect mixes (whether due to skill or technical limitations) but this means that getting a master that is just a good loudening of your original mix might not be straightforward.

[ampetrosillo]

Anyway, I've noticed a trend. Once upon a time, making stuff radio-friendly meant compressing it a lot right at the source, so that it would sound more or less similar on the radio (because levels were already compatible). Now I'm noticing stuff that sounds really thin and "unproduced" when listened on Spotify, for instance, and have more of the intended effect (I am assuming) when played on the radio. I don't know why. Maybe it's due to the level normalisation that happens on streaming platforms (but that wouldn't really explain the phenomenon).

[casiobioassay]

best limiter ..................... for what?

For not wasting more money.

Use stock.

[Igro]

Many stocks are made just for the tick. Like: "we've got it too!"

[kritikon]

Many limiters are made just for the tick also. TBH I can't really tell much of a difference between any of the current crop of limiters, outside of where the distortion kicks in when you overlimit and what the distortion sounds like. Even for getting a master at something like -9 LUFS, you could A/B/C/D/E/F/G/H a shitload of limiters to me and I really can't tell you which is which. Same goes for compressors - I can tell a difference between modes such as optical/VCA or whatever they're impersonating, but TBH at normal level compression...they all sound much the same, and very little different to stock DAW ones. Obvs the really shit ones can be identified, but not the good ones. Even the stock Cubase comps are getting quite long in the tooth, but compare them to many new ones and they hold up extremely well.

I remember finally doing a detailed A/B between the Cubase maximiser and brick wall limiter vs Izotope and once I got into fine details...TBH not a whole lot of difference. I ended up continuing with Izotope just because the GUI is easier to work with TBH. Now I use Ocelot...doesn't sound that much different but I like the very easily readable GUI, very intuitive. TBH I may as well still use Cubase stock for all the difference it makes to my mixes. I reckon I can squeeze a few more dB out of Ocelot, but that's all .

I really do fail to understand why anyone would have a folder stuffed full of 10 limiters...unless that particular field is one's hobby/obsession (and we all have some kind of obsession)

[billinder33]

best limiter ..................... for what?

For not wasting more money.

Use stock.

Chicken or beef?

[casiobioassay]

Many stocks are made just for the tick. Like: "we've got it too!"

lots of stock plugins have been used on successful commercially produced music.

[Aloysius]

Like what? This is KVR. We need a list!

[Igro]

Yepp, please proofs.

[legendCNCD]

I know few cases where Ableton limiter, no, not the new one, the old one, was used on master
They sounded ok!