Transparent limiter suggestions!

[bladerunner]

Originally Posted by Fergler

The JS effect Smooth Limiter (by Geraint Luff) is getting a lot of use lately for me. Nice simple GUI.

If you want really transparent, you're going to want to look into multiband compression before your limiter.

Multiband compression is anything but transparent..

The only thing that's genuinely 'transparent' ie. you don't know it's there because the sound has not changed enough to notice, is a clipper.

[pepe44]

Let me tell you guys and girl that the leaping audio dynone is a different beast...Have look at this plugin.

[JamesPeters]

Originally Posted by pepe44

Let me tell you guys and girl that the leaping audio dynone is a different beast...Have look at this plugin.

I like how it has multi-band vs single-band on a slider. That's a nice touch.

Besides that though I think ReaXcomp should be able to accomplish the same job (when using the wet/dry control for the effect instance in the fx browser window).

[heavymetalmixer]

1) Loudmax: It makes the track sound weak even if there's no gain reduction at all, maybe it's because of some sort of LPF inside or slow release. Also, it has noise/color underneath so it does color the sound (a little bit).

2) Unlimited: This one sounds awesome and the two sliders to control the transients and color make it very versatile. But there's one big problem with it:
It's unlinked! This means that each channel in Stereo/Surround is processed appart from the others, so limiting anything that isn't mono will mess up the width greatly and introduce weird modulation artifacts.

3) Limiter No. 6: Tons of stuff means many posibilities but also more time to learn, not a problem to me tbh. But again, this one has two problems:

a) It heavily colors the sound: It seems like Vlad tried to make it this way just to make for Molot being a heavily colored compressor too. It even colors the sound when there's no gain reduction being made, the more you process the signal the more mud you get.

b) Its antialiasing dulls the signal, something awful and never seen in any other plugin with oversampling (that I know).






My proposals for free limiters would be:


1) Kilohearts Limiter, it's like the Waves L1 because you do have to set the release manually, but it has a lookahead just like Loudmax (and Limiter No. 6 in some settings):

https://kilohearts.com/products/limiter


I haven't tested ReaComp as a limiter enough, and with the change the to knee maybe it'll sound better to me this time.


2) TDR NOVA 2 followed by a clipper: The new version of TDR NOVA came out late last year and one of its new features (in the free version) was inf:1 ratio. So you can use this plugin like a "manual-limiter" with awesome oversampling and color or no color at all depending on what you choose (Precise and Precise+). It needs a clipper afterwards because NOVA's compressor is actually an RMS compressor with a very small RMS time, so very short-lasting peaks still go through.

[future fields]

I put Limiter no6 set to just "Digital Clip" (only the last module enabled) for safety precautions

In those mode it is zero latency and fully transparent to everything below clipping

[citizenkeith]

I have been using Loser's MGA JS Limiter lately. Not for anything mission critical, just throwing it on the master buss when rendering rough mixes for clients. But I must say, I like the sound of it. I haven't done any comparisons but I plan to do that soon.

[heavymetalmixer]

Regarding clippers, I think the best one is ADClip7 from Airwindows:

http://www.airwindows.com/adclip-7/

[heavymetalmixer]

Today Loudmax was updated to version 1.26 and it has "only two" changes. But after testing it for a while I noticed a big difference in the coloration it gives: It's almost gone.

Unless you're a mastering engineer you won't be able to notice the difference between the plugin ON and OFF until it starts reducing gain.

You people try it and tell me if I'm right or wrong: https://loudmax.blogspot.com/

[bladerunner]

Originally Posted by heavymetalmixer

Today Loudmax was updated to version 1.26 and it has "only two" changes. But after testing it for a while I noticed a big difference in the coloration it gives: It's almost gone.

Unless you're a mastering engineer you won't be able to notice the difference between the plugin ON and OFF until it starts reducing gain.

You people try it and tell me if I'm right or wrong: https://loudmax.blogspot.com/

Loudmax is the last limiter I would use for 'loud' (I'm a mastering engineer). It's a basic limiter with an extremely slow release. For loud you want a very fast release. It does however, have an excellent ISP protector - that's what I mainly use it for. I'll happily use it for masters that are not in the running for competitive loudness.

I personally find Unlimited underwhelming. Bass suffers badly when compared to other limiters I use. I don't think I've ever ended up using it. Limiter No6 is a similar story - I can tweak it to kingdom come but other limiters are better at preserving the audio at their default settings.

[airon]

I classify useful limiters in to two categories.

Realtime and clean.

For realtime, which to me means no latency, I use the JS MGA limiter. It's on my monitor FX at -1.0 and 50 ms release. It's there to protect my speakers and my ears.

The clean limiter I use is Elephant, though these days I would investigate the Fabfilter L2 as well. They're both versatile and can do truepeak limiting (4x oversampling for 44.1/48k). Barricade also comes to mind.

Limiters are a utility to me unless I'm doing something creative in sound design.

The JS effect MGA Limiter that comes with Reaper is great for this.

[dug dog]

Originally Posted by bladerunner

other limiters are better at preserving the audio at their default settings.

Any recommendations in this department?
(I'm especially interested in budget friendly solutions.)

[Michael AD]

Several others have mentioned it, and I too am in the Toneboosters Barricade 4 fan club.

They offer you a fully functional demo, except you cannot save your settings:

https://www.toneboosters.com/tb_barricade_v4.html

I have no doubt that the FabFilter Pro-L-2 is great (as I have several of their products), but the FabFilter is about $200 whereas the Toneboosters is about $30. So if you are looking for great quality at a low price, check out Toneboosters.

[bladerunner]

Originally Posted by dug dog

Any recommendations in this department?
(I'm especially interested in budget friendly solutions.)

Pay for a copy of Computer Music Magazine and you'll get access to their Vault of magware. In there is Toneboosters Barricade V3 CM - It's one the cleanest limiters out there - preserves the low end particularly well. Of course, you could buy V4 for a very good value price but if money's tight it's a solid option. I also like this one:

http://www.vst4free.com/free_vst.php...imiter&id=1288

It's definitely got a colour but I like what it does. I'll sometimes use that for the gain reduction with loudmax after it with the ISP function switched on to catch overshoots.

I am still a dinosaur on 32 bit Reaper so most of my recommendations will be 32 bit plugins.

[lolilol1975]

Originally Posted by heavymetalmixer

Regarding clippers, I think the best one is ADClip7 from Airwindows:

http://www.airwindows.com/adclip-7/

I get an error 403 "It appears you don't have permission to access this page.
403 Error. Forbidden."

It's weird because I could access it a few days ago. Have I been IP banned ? Anyone else has this ?

[karbomusic]

Originally Posted by lolilol1975

Have I been IP banned ? Anyone else has this ?

I see it here. Looks like a config issue on the server.

[vdubreeze]

Originally Posted by lolilol1975

I get an error 403 "It appears you don't have permission to access this page.
403 Error. Forbidden."

It's weird because I could access it a few days ago. Have I been IP banned ? Anyone else has this ?

He sent out an email saying his hosting service says he's using too much bandwidth, so they seem to have throttled him. He says he's working on a better situation, perhaps a cloud service. Meanwhile, he put the latest here:

https://www.mediafire.com/file/xucji...dates.zip/file

He'll need more money for the better place. Everyone who enjoys Chris' work (or even just Chris : ) go to his Patreon and chip in : )


https://www.patreon.com/airwindows

[dug dog]

Originally Posted by bladerunner

Pay for a copy of Computer Music Magazine and you'll get access to their Vault of magware.

Thanks. I'd forgotten about this option. I did this some years ago and still have the TB Barricade plug.

[Philbo King]

Originally Posted by Dr Bob

Just to clarify ...

Versions of Limiter No. 6 are 32-bit AND 64-bit - install which you require.

dB

I like this one more every time I use it. Set properly it's quite inaudible. Here's one of my recent tunes using it, called Lonely Lullabies
soundclick.com/philboking