talking limiters

[tas]

Since I started working with Pyramix I always relied on the Bus tools limiter, because I thought its is pretty good and never really bothered trying others out. So lately I ve been thinking, whether it has been "outdated" at all, by many newcomers. I had a quick try with the flux demo one and with similar settings, didn't find them to be much different, although I guess if I dig deeper some of the extra features may give it an advantage.

So I just wanted opinions on what others use or think about the bus tools one

[fl]

For the last couple of years I've been working with an unaccompanied women's chorus. Certain sections of high pitched unison (or nearly) singing would trigger some distortion artifacts with the Bus Limiter. I found the same thing happened with Izotope's Ozone. My search eventually led me to Voxengo's Elephant, which has a large range of controls (plus, up to 8x oversampling) that allow you to tailor it for optimum (in my case, least intrusive) performance.

[Paulo M]

My favourite is the TC Brickwall Limiter on the Powercore MD3 package. When I have the chance, I also use the V2 of the same plugin but on the actual M6000 machine. It´s a shame Powercore has been discontinued though...

Regarding the Ozone, I only use the limiter on the Loudness Maximiser module (in very small doses), never really tried the limiter on the other dynamics module too much, to have an opinion.

Usually my limiting chain is the MD3 limiter followed by the Ozone Loudness Maximiser, just to add a bit of openess, obviously depending on the nature of the sound I´m working on.

I use this set both in post and in music.

[Graemme]

I haven't used the Bus Tools Limiter for a few years now. It's just fine for very light use and I agree that it can't be pushed very far before it's limiting action becomes very noticeable.

The Flux Pure Limiter II, however, is in another league. To my ears, it changes the tonality of the programme the least of any limiter that I know of. I can't get it to do stupid level tricks and if I need that on a project then I'll use a combination of techniques, including adding the previously mentioned Voxengo Elephant. The sidechain filters in the Flux limiter are useful and I'd start with the "+2dB Safe' preset and work from there (including tweaking the release time to suit the music.)

I don't always rely on the final limiter alone to handle issues like you mention, Frank. I'll use a dynamic EQ or compressor to catch some of that stuff ahead of the limiter and lighten it's load, so to speak. Using transparent processors, properly set, adds no unwanted gunk the the sound.

Graemme

Since I started working with Pyramix I always relied on the Bus tools limiter, because I thought its is pretty good and never really bothered trying others out. So lately I ve been thinking, whether it has been "outdated" at all, by many newcomers. I had a quick try with the flux demo one and with similar settings, didn't find them to be much different, although I guess if I dig deeper some of the extra features may give it an advantage.

So I just wanted opinions on what others use or think about the bus tools one

[fl]

I don't always rely on the final limiter alone to handle issues like you mention, Frank. I'll use a dynamic EQ or compressor to catch some of that stuff ahead of the limiter and lighten it's load, so to speak. Using transparent processors, properly set, adds no unwanted gunk the the sound.

Oh, absolutely. I've been working with Voxengo Polysquasher ahead of Elephant to do just as you describe - tame the wildness with a threshold around -15 to -20 (depending on how hot I tracked things) with a ratio of 1.5 or 2 to 1, then raising the overall level a nominal amount, say 3 dB. Then I'll set Elephant to raise the gain to bring it up so that the peaks are being limited by 3 dB or so. Then, playing about a bit with the relative amounts of compression being applied by these two processors, I can minimize the artifacts. Voxengo's Soniformer is another useful plug that I'm just getting to know, but will be very useful for applying frequency selective compression/expansion in those troublesome, hard to reach areas.

The Flux processors are something for when I have some serious cash to invest, but hopefully some day... Did they ever solve the weird incompatibility with Pyramix that was plaguing users about a year or so ago?

[Graemme]

Hi Frank,

The Flux/Pyramix VST issues seem better to me these days. The Flux plug-ins that I have always work (now and in the past)very well in other apps like Sequoia and WaveLab.

It's worth checking the Flux site, as they have sales from time to time.

Graemme

[Jonathon Stevens]

Flux Limiter is my fave. For my film work i make a lot of quicktimes that get sent to the director for approval. I push everything through Syrah, with some settings close to one of the parallel compression presets, and then into the Flux Limiter.

They work, sound great, are easy enough to use, and are pretty forgiving when i'm in a hurry and stuff gets slammed a little too hard.

[J.Wajer]

All time favourite Limiter: TC Electronics MD4 that comes with the M6000. There is simply no match.

[Graemme]

That was true a few years ago...

All time favourite Limiter: TC Electronics MD4 that comes with the M6000. There is simply no match.

[aomahana]

Hi there,

My now favourite Limiter .... FabFilter Pro-L.
If you are reading this, and haven't had a look at it yet, check out the demo video at the FabFilter site.

I have been using it for a few months now.
My impression, less artifacts, and tunable to your requirements.

Previously, I have mainly been using Waves L2.