Waves L4 - Just released, Wow!

[DCrown]

But what is L4 offering over DMG Limitless and Newfangled Elevate? Those two plus a clipper seem to be all you need for transparent limiting. Never used TC6000 or Weiss DS-1.

It can cause less damage to a mix than Newfangled Elevate. Elevate won't be the right choice on every mix (on most mixes imo) and if you don't know what you do with so many (too many) options/features Elevate offers, maybe better don't use it, Waves gives fast results easily, that was always and is Waves' strength.
L2 had some special character, also not the right choice for every mix, L3 was rather an almost all purpose limiter, let's find out what L4...
Generally speaking Waves plugins are the best choice for very fast workflow, if you have enough time and patience for mixing and mastering and you want to turn a dozen knobs or move sliders of a plugin, make a break, eat a pizza, drink a beer, then continue mixing turning knobs, adjusting, A/B, moving sliders, then Waves generally might not be your choice.

Only AI is faster than Waves!

[DCrown]

Waves Z-Noise is the very best denoiser tool ever imho. Waves Reel ADT is unmatched to me. Waves Clarity VX is brilliant.

Just saying.

My list of unmatched Waves plugins would even be longer haha

[_leras]

How do you improve a limiter?! I’m still using L2; no need to upgrade.

L2 sounds like ass, just watch the Dom Sigalas review and he compares the two.

what does this even mean?

All a limiter does is brings up the audio level

It means instead of trying it yourself go and a watch a YouTube video of someone else trying it and experiencing it for themselves.

I'm not sure it was great advice though.

If you need a new limiter or want to try a modern one, trying it is the best option.

Do limiters just make audio louder, yes. Do limiters introduce distortion and brittleness to the sound in different ways, yes. Are some limiters better than other limiters, yes. Are some limiters better on some types of music, yes.

[DCrown]

L2 is very different than L1, L4 different than L3, you need them all. Great job again, Waves.

[oobesan]

I'm guessing some of you guys didn't read the product description or something - L4 is explicitly designed to NOT be used for loudness wars. So, if you're trying to slam your mixes the way you normally would if you're striving for maximum ear bleed, I wouldn't expect good results from it. I'm not having any of the issues you're describing. L4 is very clean and transparent, no obvious distortion, and no apparent bass issues (I'm mostly switching between the Modern and Smooth modes). I'm testing it on a modern-sounding chill house tune that goes from quiet verses to pretty lush choruses and this thing is handling it perfectly. The upward compressor is excellent for balancing the verses with the choruses and I love the Delta function for comparison. The only feature I'm not really feeling so far is the Clip control, which doesn't appear to be doing much of anything - I'm guessing it's a program-dependent thing or maybe it's just very subtle. Anyway, it's definitely worth the $50 IMO and may become my new go-to limiter, but we'll see.

Well, then L4 ULTRAMAXIMIZER may be the stupidest choice for a product name ever...

[Dirtgrain]

Ya, when "UltraTurboUberMegaMaximizer" was freely available.

[simon.a.billington]

How do you improve a limiter?! I’m still using L2; no need to upgrade.

L2 sounds like ass, just watch the Dom Sigalas review and he compares the two.

what does this even mean?

All a limiter does is brings up the audio level

Fundamentally they just bring up the level and trim any extraneous transients. But if that were solely true, pretty much every limiter would sound exactly alike. Many of the more advanced ones don't, because they do their job in more intelligent way.

The L4 in this instance may look simple, but I can guarantee you that there would be alot of intelligent things going on under the hood. It stands up very well against the likes of the Fabfilter Pro-L series, but with a simpler interface.

It doesn't just make things louder, but it make things more pleasingly loud.

[Mesmerised]

Does it need iLok?

Waves have never used iLok.

That's not quite true. I remember Waves DID use iLok at some point, and we were happy at first that they did. But Waves being Waves made it very complicated of course so we needed to use extra iLoks only for the Waves stuff. It was a hassle - the new (and current) system only worked for us when we put the licenses on extra USB thumbdrives and hid them from the system. (the less experiences users should not be tempted to fiddle with this "unknown" drive)
I have been using Waves from the time they still had ADB-Dongles!

[HcDoom]

But not needed anymore so its irrelevant.

[t.o.t.s.]

Just for more posts, waves ilok licenses worked fine on iloks with other licenses. i still have those licenses sitting in my account.

[kraster]

There's something kind of unfussy (and familiar) about L4 that really appeals to me.

It's essentially a modern version of the L2 (and its siblings) with a more refined sound.

I think waves (understandably) get more scrutiny than other devs mainly because of their marketing/sales shenanigans but there is years of DSP knowledge and experience in that company and I do think that counts for a lot.

I find a lot of modern limiters pretty convoluted. While L4 can do more than its predecessors it fundamentally retains that old waves L series workflow.

[Shadaloo Audio DSP]

I’m curious to test it.

[simon.a.billington]

Does it need iLok?

Waves have never used iLok.

That's not quite true. I remember Waves DID use iLok at some point, and we were happy at first that they did. But Waves being Waves made it very complicated of course so we needed to use extra iLoks only for the Waves stuff. It was a hassle - the new (and current) system only worked for us when we put the licenses on extra USB thumbdrives and hid them from the system. (the less experiences users should not be tempted to fiddle with this "unknown" drive)
I have been using Waves from the time they still had ADB-Dongles!

Of course, this was along time ago. I don't think V9 required an iLok, but V8 may just have. Either way, I think it was around that period the abandoned it. That would be around 15 years ago, give or take.

[VikingWarrior]

Does it need iLok?

Waves have never used iLok.

That's not quite true. I remember Waves DID use iLok at some point, and we were happy at first that they did. But Waves being Waves made it very complicated of course so we needed to use extra iLoks only for the Waves stuff. It was a hassle - the new (and current) system only worked for us when we put the licenses on extra USB thumbdrives and hid them from the system. (the less experiences users should not be tempted to fiddle with this "unknown" drive)
I have been using Waves from the time they still had ADB-Dongles!

I remember that , my memories are sketchy, I always thought it was the elicenser but no you are quite right was the ilok. At the time was the reason I didn't buy into that ecosystem plus the plugins were a lot more expensive. Then it all changed.