Comments on: Keep a Limiter on your Master

By: abd

abd — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 06:58:01 +0000

Man, I tried Wavearts FinalPlug. It’s sounds better than Voxengo Elephant). I think. I should make few more tests anyway but all I want 2 say is that Wavearts FinalPlug is really great.
Btw, I tried Wavearts Multiband Dynamics. And figured out that it’s better than Ableton standard Multiband Dynamics)) I know this is kinda off topic but could you tell few words in future how to use MD.

By: Matt Azevedo

Matt Azevedo — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 05:23:50 +0000

As a mastering engineer,

Putting a limiter on your mix buss is nice for catching the occasional “oops”, but if you plan on sending something out for professional mastering please just leave a few dB of headroom. Tracks that come in with limiting are much harder to place together into an album, it’s one of the biggest hassles of my job.

By: atarix

atarix — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 12:43:52 +0000

i use Voxengo plugins since they exist on a mac and on pc. I think their quality compared to UAD2 even. And they are cheap.

By: MMI

MMI — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 14:51:13 +0000

Another good reason to have a limiter somewhere by default is to prevent speaker and or ear destroying accidents when you do something bad, stupid or dangerous with a Max patch.

By: Oliver Chesler

Oliver Chesler — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 12:41:46 +0000

Interesting. I never really push it as I do keep my channel faders really low. I’m going to do a few sound tests and see if I can hear what the differences are (at least for my own ears).

By: Oliver Chesler

Oliver Chesler — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 12:40:43 +0000

I never tried the Voxengo Elephant. I see it’s about $130 and there is a demo: http://bit.ly/7gFvAe

By: abd

abd — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 08:20:04 +0000

Yeah, there’s a mac version! I use it on master.
I used Waves L2 when I worked on PC (Maybe it’s not just a limiter :B but it’s the best thing, I even read an article about maximizers and they said that L2 rules. unfortinately I couldn’t find it on Mac)

Btw, want to ask, what is better Wavearts FinalPlug (u mentioned b4) or Voxengo Elephant? ’cause I’m looking now for good mac limiter)

By: Document 02

Document 02 — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 08:20:03 +0000

While working the master limiter should be a simple brickwall limiter (to make sure you don’t go over -0.3dB), not a mastering limiter (which dynamically processes the sound & adds delay, and should be used at the final mastering stage).

According to my sound engineer, the -0.3dB value was decided a long time ago as cheap low-end D/A converters tended to saturate (sometimes even break) on the analogue side when receiving a numerical 0dB input.

By: mr. tunes

mr. tunes — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 23:11:21 +0000

the new ableton limiter is convenient, but i find that it sounds horrible. the artifacts show up almost instantly without turning up the gain.

i recommend voxengo elephant to PC users, not sure if it’s available on mac yet.