Best limiter

[ksandvik]

Tested it, wow so clean output, basically if you push it too hard it's mostly just pumping.

[bmanic]

Hmm.. I don't find it all that clean. I can easily get it to distort on deep bass sounds when using short release settings and long attack on the pre-compressor thing. If you stay in the 1 to 2dB of max gain reduction area, then it can be difficult to hear but it's there.. very noticeable when going for more extreme compression.

However, it does react very well to automation with zero artifacts as far as I can tell, so this may be a solution for places where it distorts.

[simon.a.billington]

Waves L1!!!!

Another classic from the modern era.

[Aloysius]

1994 is not the modern era. You must be getting old.

[swilow11]

That is way too simple a test. Most modern good limiters are _extremely_ program dependent (both time and frequency domain). And most do clipping + limiting and it all depends on the time constants switching between the clip vs limiting stage. Even the clipping stage can be modular and program dependent.. so that it constantly varies the knee of the clipping depending on incoming audio or do some kind of smoothed clip of blocks.. or other shenanigans to directly manipulate the harmonic series that is created.

For instance in Pro-L2 you have some control over these internal stages (depending on algorithm though). If you set attack to maximum, you get mostly clipping but slightly varying depending on at what frequency the majority of the incoming audio is at. A simple steady state sine wave will reveal virtually zero of the magic sauce behind the algorithm.

To really understand what happens within a complex modern brick wall limiter is not at all a simple task. It takes a lot of effort, a lot of different test tones and a lot of relatively advanced analysis tools to do. Heck, if you REALLY want to go down the rabbit hole, you'll actually need a real oscilloscope post DA conversion to look at what is actually happening.

Interesting points. Tbc though, my test is only really determining at what input a limiter typically starts hard clipping. I'm using limited liberally across group tracks anf find that inaudible clipping becomes audible the more instances you've got. To me, a limiter that is very hard to get hard clipping is my preference

That said the Bx True Peak limiter sounds good despite it clipping very easily.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts...

[bmanic]

Interesting points. Tbc though, my test is only really determining at what input a limiter typically starts hard clipping.

.. but that's the whole point, you can NOT determine that with a static sine wave, at least not at all with most of the modern "good" program dependent limiters. It wouldn't give you any relevant data at all. They are all very sensitive to the type of "audio chunk" that comes into it. Heck, you could even make a limiter that "cheats" so that periodic waveforms could receive zero clipping artifacts while it's still clipping like crazy as soon as you send any form of normal complex audio material through it.

If you want a good test signal, take a relatively simple drumloop that contains both low and high frequencies simultaneously.. for instance a loop where you have kicks + cymbals happening at the same time.. or a tom tom fill + crashes going on at the same time. This is a good test signal because it has clearly defined "chunks" of audio with silence or lower volume stuff in between. This will trigger the built in program dependency and you'll be able to hear the differences in attack and release (+hold) modulation and how those systems balance against the clipping (either hard or modulated soft clipping).

You can then listen to the harmonic series created by focusing on the color of the cymbals. Do they change? Does it feel like you are equalizing the cymbals while a kick or tom happens at the same time? How is the harmonic distortion being distributed on output? That shape of the harmonic series that happens can be tailored to be sort of masking, adding to the loudness perceived while trying to be "natural sounding" at the same time.. and then focus on how natural do the transients and macro dynamics still sound, how close to the original are they. Does it sound squeezed and altered in terms of dynamics?

Then compare these results to pure digital hard clipping and note the differences in tonality and transient response. Objectively, the most "perfect" limiter in terms of transient response, is indeed just pure hard clipping.. but at the cost of massive amounts of infinite series of harmonics while it's happening, meaning that there are very clear tonality changes happen while clipping.

This is what all good limiters are trying to balance. They want to keep the illusion of "nothing has changed, it's just louder".. which means balancing macro dynamics or micro dynamics vs tonality (aka saturation, the harmonic series distribution). Some knowledge of psycho acoustics and tons and tons of listening tests on real world signals is usually the way these things are tuned as far as I know. This is also where we get into the subjective realm of things. Some people prefer one side of a compromise while others prefer the other (tonality vs dynamics).. but there are always compromises that have to be taken, hence the myriad of different limiters on the market and why they all sound and behave differently. None of them are perfect solutions to all problems.

For instance, FabFilter Pro-L2 tries to be the be-all/end-all system with it's multitude of different limiting algorithms. It's literally one plugin with 8 _completely_ different limiting algorithms, so basically 8 plugins in one. The only thing these algorithms have in common are that they are controlled by the same basic front panel macro controls, which in turn are controlling hundreds of tiny changes within each algorithm (case in point, the look-a-head control is not just what it says on the tin!). You can go for algorithms that prioritize hard clipping at almost all cost vs algorithms that are trying to be ridiculously clean (try the 'Safe' algorithm and try to get it to clip.. good luck!!).

[Bohmes DSP]

Newfangled Audio - Elevate. No competition. (bit heavy on the cpu but damn it works good)

[Tubeman]

Newfangled Audio - Elevate. No competition. (bit heavy on the cpu but damn it works good)

Do you have examples of it compared to the competition?

[swilow11]

Interesting points. Tbc though, my test is only really determining at what input a limiter typically starts hard clipping.

.. but that's the whole point, you can NOT determine that with a static sine wave, at least not at all with most of the modern "good" program dependent limiters. It wouldn't give you any relevant data at all. They are all very sensitive to the type of "audio chunk" that comes into it. Heck, you could even make a limiter that "cheats" so that periodic waveforms could receive zero clipping artifacts while it's still clipping like crazy as soon as you send any form of normal complex audio material through it.

If you want a good test signal, take a relatively simple drumloop that contains both low and high frequencies simultaneously.. for instance a loop where you have kicks + cymbals happening at the same time.. or a tom tom fill + crashes going on at the same time. This is a good test signal because it has clearly defined "chunks" of audio with silence or lower volume stuff in between. This will trigger the built in program dependency and you'll be able to hear the differences in attack and release (+hold) modulation and how those systems balance against the clipping (either hard or modulated soft clipping).

You can then listen to the harmonic series created by focusing on the color of the cymbals. Do they change? Does it feel like you are equalizing the cymbals while a kick or tom happens at the same time? How is the harmonic distortion being distributed on output? That shape of the harmonic series that happens can be tailored to be sort of masking, adding to the loudness perceived while trying to be "natural sounding" at the same time.. and then focus on how natural do the transients and macro dynamics still sound, how close to the original are they. Does it sound squeezed and altered in terms of dynamics?

Then compare these results to pure digital hard clipping and note the differences in tonality and transient response. Objectively, the most "perfect" limiter in terms of transient response, is indeed just pure hard clipping.. but at the cost of massive amounts of infinite series of harmonics while it's happening, meaning that there are very clear tonality changes happen while clipping.

This is what all good limiters are trying to balance. They want to keep the illusion of "nothing has changed, it's just louder".. which means balancing macro dynamics or micro dynamics vs tonality (aka saturation, the harmonic series distribution). Some knowledge of psycho acoustics and tons and tons of listening tests on real world signals is usually the way these things are tuned as far as I know. This is also where we get into the subjective realm of things. Some people prefer one side of a compromise while others prefer the other (tonality vs dynamics).. but there are always compromises that have to be taken, hence the myriad of different limiters on the market and why they all sound and behave differently. None of them are perfect solutions to all problems.

For instance, FabFilter Pro-L2 tries to be the be-all/end-all system with it's multitude of different limiting algorithms. It's literally one plugin with 8 _completely_ different limiting algorithms, so basically 8 plugins in one. The only thing these algorithms have in common are that they are controlled by the same basic front panel macro controls, which in turn are controlling hundreds of tiny changes within each algorithm (case in point, the look-a-head control is not just what it says on the tin!). You can go for algorithms that prioritize hard clipping at almost all cost vs algorithms that are trying to be ridiculously clean (try the 'Safe' algorithm and try to get it to clip.. good luck!!).

Okay, gotcha. Thanks for sharing this- I appreciate your expertise on all things dynamics related

Of the limiters you've tested, what is generally the cleanest? I'm probably not willing to pay Fabfilter prices and am happy with Toneboosters Barricade but do like having a few options in the toolkit.

Have you tested anything like Elevate, Voxengo Elephant, Bx True Peak, the limiter in Ozone? If so, any thoughts?

[DCrown]

Interesting points. Tbc though, my test is only really determining at what input a limiter typically starts hard clipping.

.. but that's the whole point, you can NOT determine that with a static sine wave, at least not at all with most of the modern "good" program dependent limiters. It wouldn't give you any relevant data at all. They are all very sensitive to the type of "audio chunk" that comes into it. Heck, you could even make a limiter that "cheats" so that periodic waveforms could receive zero clipping artifacts while it's still clipping like crazy as soon as you send any form of normal complex audio material through it.

If you want a good test signal, take a relatively simple drumloop that contains both low and high frequencies simultaneously.. for instance a loop where you have kicks + cymbals happening at the same time.. or a tom tom fill + crashes going on at the same time. This is a good test signal because it has clearly defined "chunks" of audio with silence or lower volume stuff in between. This will trigger the built in program dependency and you'll be able to hear the differences in attack and release (+hold) modulation and how those systems balance against the clipping (either hard or modulated soft clipping).

You can then listen to the harmonic series created by focusing on the color of the cymbals. Do they change? Does it feel like you are equalizing the cymbals while a kick or tom happens at the same time? How is the harmonic distortion being distributed on output? That shape of the harmonic series that happens can be tailored to be sort of masking, adding to the loudness perceived while trying to be "natural sounding" at the same time.. and then focus on how natural do the transients and macro dynamics still sound, how close to the original are they. Does it sound squeezed and altered in terms of dynamics?

Then compare these results to pure digital hard clipping and note the differences in tonality and transient response. Objectively, the most "perfect" limiter in terms of transient response, is indeed just pure hard clipping.. but at the cost of massive amounts of infinite series of harmonics while it's happening, meaning that there are very clear tonality changes happen while clipping.

This is what all good limiters are trying to balance. They want to keep the illusion of "nothing has changed, it's just louder".. which means balancing macro dynamics or micro dynamics vs tonality (aka saturation, the harmonic series distribution). Some knowledge of psycho acoustics and tons and tons of listening tests on real world signals is usually the way these things are tuned as far as I know. This is also where we get into the subjective realm of things. Some people prefer one side of a compromise while others prefer the other (tonality vs dynamics).. but there are always compromises that have to be taken, hence the myriad of different limiters on the market and why they all sound and behave differently. None of them are perfect solutions to all problems.

For instance, FabFilter Pro-L2 tries to be the be-all/end-all system with it's multitude of different limiting algorithms. It's literally one plugin with 8 _completely_ different limiting algorithms, so basically 8 plugins in one. The only thing these algorithms have in common are that they are controlled by the same basic front panel macro controls, which in turn are controlling hundreds of tiny changes within each algorithm (case in point, the look-a-head control is not just what it says on the tin!). You can go for algorithms that prioritize hard clipping at almost all cost vs algorithms that are trying to be ridiculously clean (try the 'Safe' algorithm and try to get it to clip.. good luck!!).

Okay, gotcha. Thanks for sharing this- I appreciate your expertise on all things dynamics related

Of the limiters you've tested, what is generally the cleanest? I'm probably not willing to pay Fabfilter prices and am happy with Toneboosters Barricade but do like having a few options in the toolkit.

Have you tested anything like Elevate, Voxengo Elephant, Bx True Peak, the limiter in Ozone? If so, any thoughts?

Try free loudmax. It is often my choice for music that has a live performance vibe like rock, funk, fusion, jazz, experimental.
I ve noticed that some limiters affect the sound of a certain frequency range, that sometimes can be good sometimes not, L2 kinda seems to boost high mid range a bit.
Loudmax keeps the mud (I love some funky dirt) of low mids and low end, maybe because it doesn't boost mids and high mids, it is pretty transparent/clean, but maybe not the best choice for edm, dance, house etc

[legendCNCD]

Newfangled Audio - Elevate. No competition. (bit heavy on the cpu but damn it works good)

It was no competition vs Ozone Maximizer yeah. Elevate elevated highs way too much and made harsher, so for me it was dropped.

[ampetrosillo]

Anyway, I like DMAX (by some Russian developer) on drums. It works well, a bit heavy CPU-wise but on the other hand it is intended as a drum bus limiter. Not as a track or master limiter.

[DCrown]

Newfangled Audio - Elevate. No competition. (bit heavy on the cpu but damn it works good)

Don't know your music genre, it affects the overall sound too much imo, that's not what I want a limiter to do. If I produced HipHop I would probably use L2, cuz it would make the voice more upfront, couldn't find any use for Elevate yet, it was always rather ruining than enhancing a mix, even with subtle settings.
So I agree, it has no competition, cuz all other limiters might be a better choice.

[DCrown]

Waves L1!!!!

sometimes the best option and super clean

[simon.a.billington]

1994 is not the modern era. You must be getting old.

Modern era meaning digital, Classic meaning old, but still popular

What I'm pointing out is the new classics are no longer just analogue devices, they are also digital and they can be plugins.

We're in 2026 and people are still going off at how much they like the sound of a mid 90s limiting plugin. 30 years on and it's still popular. That makes it a classic from the modern era of digital. Just like the LA2A is a classic from the vintage era of analogue.

Or maybe I mean a modern classic. Man I don't know anymore Hahaha!!!

It's old, it's digital, but it's popular in this modern era. However you want to phrase it.