Mastering limiter

[giggle]

Hi all,

I'm in the process of choosing some new software and I'm wondering what limiter to get. Up until now I've been using an ancient version of voxengo elephant, which has been fine, but I'm wondering if anything else would be better or worth looking at.

It'll mainly be used for mastering, usually quite gentle rather than crushing anything.

What are you guys using?

Thanks,

Matt

[Kwackman]

Which DAW do you use?
Sometimes the “native” plugins are worth checking out?
Good luck with your search.

[The Elf]

Good advice above. It's increasingly rare to have to go searching for third-party plug-ins for the basics - and a limiter is a relatively simple process that should be capable of being handled by the majority of bundled plug-ins.

[James Perrett]

ReaLimit in Reaper works perfectly well and I'd guess that most DAWs will come with something similar.

[RichardT]

I would choose one that allows you to see what it's doing in graphical form, i.e. allows you to see the waveform pre and post limiting.

I find that very useful. I use Fabfilter L2.

I think most limiters now offer 'true peak' limiting. I would avoid any that don't.

[Tomás Mulcahy]

Realimit has an excellent graphical display, it shows a rolling output and input waveform, overlaid, and a green line tracing the amount of gain reduction, as well as the GR meter. Unfortunately it only works in Reaper, it is not part of their ReaPlugs VST FX Suite, which is a very useful set of free plugins for any VST DAW.

You probably have an upgrade path to Voxengo Elephant, you could stick with that. It's highly regarded, has LUFS metering and dither built in, and the algorithms have been updated. His plug-ins are generally excellent, for example the R8brain SRC is the best in the biz (and it is built in to Reaper).

[giggle]

Thanks all, that's food for thought. I use ableton. I've been on live 8 for a looong time, and never trusted the limiter fully, and it didn't do true peak limiting. But I'm going to upgrade to live 12 soon, maybe I should wait and see what that offers.

[RichardT]

Here’s some info on the Live12 limiter:

https://www.pushpatterns.com/blog/Ablet ... 2-1Limiter

I can’t see for sure whether it has a graphical waveform display, but on first sight it doesn’t look like it.

[James Perrett]

Here’s some info on the Live12 limiter:

https://www.pushpatterns.com/blog/Ablet ... 2-1Limiter

I can’t see for sure whether it has a graphical waveform display, but on first sight it doesn’t look like it.

It looks like it has all you need - I find that the moving graphical display can be distracting.

[giggle]

Thanks, handy info. Looks like ableton's limiter will suit my needs.

[MOF]

UAD’s Capitol Mastering Compressor is worth a look, it adds a nice character to the sound, it’s not just a strict limiter. It’s available in various packages at less than the price quoted here
https://www.uaudio.com/products/capitol ... compressor