I’ve used Ozone (4), decided that the UAD Precision Limiter was better. Recently I bought Wavelab 8 and I’m liking the combination of the Mastering Peak Limiter with the Brickwall Limiter (both SB). The MPL has a brickwall but there’s something about the combination that’s better than just by itself. The Brickwall has inter-sample peak limiting too, IDK, but together, I find them better than the UAD.
I’ve heard the Fab Filter at another studio and was impressed. Haven’t demo’d it yet. Also heard lots of talk about the PSP Xenon. Haven’t used it yet. We’re talking strictly “last in the chain before dither” peak limiters. Please share your preferences, and maybe which ones you have and haven’t tried. I know people very impressed with Ozone who haven’t tried the others.
I’m purposefully not including the Waves L series. They hollow out the middle under even the most modest use. Feel free to write it in, but it’s not in the running in my book.
Ha! Wow, tumbleweeds. This forum used to be more active. I think of Peak Limiters as the most important plug-in. Everything you do has to go through it.
Hmmm , I don’t want to fiddle about with limiters much which I rarely use to influence sound.
I just want them sitting there, keeping the level below the set mark and basically be inaudible as much as possible.
Precision Limiter, although not the best there is, does that for the majority of jobs, rather uncomplicated
and reliable. Gets my vote for those reasons.
Even if you’re just protecting from overs - which is how I use them too, They sound pretty different if you A/B them. I was very surprised when A/B’ing the new stuff in Wavelab 8 against the precision limiter using it exactly as you said. Everything counts. The attack, release, look ahead, they all sound different. I’ve been using the precision for a while but WL8 unseated it for me and I suspect there’s prob better than that. I have to demo the FabFilter and the Xenon.
By the time a master is “fully cooked” - hitting above -10dbfs RMS even the slightest difference becomes so magnified.
Can’t compare with WL8.
I have kicked WL7 in the corner and use it just for a few specific tasks
WL 8 is not even on my wishlist.
This might turn out to be a mistake, but it saves me nervs.
The designs of N6 and WL7 are enough for an engineer’s lifetime.
Fortunately I started with WL8, i’ve heard the WL7 horror stories . Apparently the brickwall limiter is new in 8.
Not worth the whole price of WL by itself , but like I said, I am digging it more than the UAD limiter.
Sonnox Limiter for the clean main bus, Waves L3 Multi Maximizer when I need some sonic re-balancing, too. Waves L1 and Vienna Suite Limiter for single tracks and/or safety purposes.
On the Mixbus usually the Sonnox Limiter. Often in the Mastering as well. In the Mastering I usually use a combination of limiters… I usually have the Voxengo Elephant on the very last slot because he is the most transparent one.
Some time ago I used the PSP Xeon a lot, some years ago I loved the Precicion Limiter a lot.
It all depends. If I just need an emergency limiter in a WL CD Montage which is not audible - maybe just to catch some peaks which may occure when I have to overlapp 2 already mastered songs - then the WL Peak Master ist great - just set everything to zero so he is not doing anything until a peak comes.
It depends very much on the music and the task. I usually do heavy metal or at least hard rock, here you usually have permanent peak-limiting involved - unlike a jazz or classic session were you have only that one peak at 15 min… A limiter who is constantly shaving the kick and snare hits ( I mean ALL of them) can colour the sound, if it sounds good, but has to work great at the same time. I started to dislike the Xeon here, he sounds to “soft”. Sonnox and Elephant.
. Apparently the brickwall limiter is new in 8.