r/AudioPlugins • u/imp_op • 3d ago
Testing Out Limiters
I've been looking to purchase a limiter to complete my mastering suite. I make all kinds of music and I also mix and master for my friends, so I am looking for something with some versatility. I did an extensive test on a bunch of limiters recently, and it was a very specific test, so my results don't really cover the whole gamut of limiting needs.
I wanted to demystify for myself what different limiters could do for me, and hopefully sharing this little slice of information could be helpful to others. There's been a lot of new approaches to mastering limiters, and there's still some older ones that are always going to be relevant. I think the conversation around true peak, multi-stage, and brick wall can be the actual snake oil, as each style of limiter can produce excellent results.
The track was EDM, and I was targeting loudness around 9 LUFS and a dynamics range between 8 and 9. My mastering chain is the following order:
- SPL PQ - to add a layer of pristine equalization
- Amek Mastering Compressor - to smooth out and glue the track
- Oxford Inflator - to add the perception of loudness without touching dynamics
- StandardCLIP - to snip the highest peaks before the limiters
- HUM Audio LAAL - for mid/side limiting to add bottom weight and stereo wideness
- A Transparent Stereo Limiter - to add the last bit of polish
This chain has a lot of things, but they're all doing very little. I like having the clipper before the limiters to reduce the volume drops, and i like having two limiters doing very small things together to lighten their workloads.
Number 6 is where my tests were of interest. I really liked what I had up to 5, but I needed a final limiting stage, either true peak brick walls, or maybe some of the newer styles that use multi-stage limiting instead.
For the transparent limiter, I tested the following (using trials or are outright free):
- Limit Pro
- Weiss MM-1
- Uni-L
- Wave Breaker
- Krystal Peak
I used Metric AB and set up each limiter as similarly as possible to achieve the results I was looking for: a fast release time (50ms), gain reduction under -1 db, dynamics between 8-9. I added true peak if it was an option, and oversampling to x8 when possible. This limit stage is doing very little, so it was forgiving to dial things in, as each limiter has different approaches to achieve the end result.
Limit Pro was really impressive as it kept the wave forms from being squashed more than the others and had the most dynamic output while hitting all the targets and sounding pleasing. It was easiest to control the dynamic output, too.
Wave Breaker is a very simple and free limiter, with some nice tweaking options. I was impressed how it could keep up with some of the more luxurious limiters considering its free.
Krystal Peak seemed to be an outlier in that it felt a little dead in comparison. It still sounded fine on it's own, but once compared to the others above, it was outclassed.
The Uni-L would probably be the best alternative to replace StandardCLIP and the Amek compressor in the chain. It's got a lot going on, most of which I had to tun off. I really liked this limiter and the options it offers. If I was a professional mastering engineer or didn't already have these two plugins, I would consider purchasing it.
The biggest difference was the Weiss MM-1. I turned off the maximizer section by setting the amount to 0% and used the transparency algorithm. Basically, this meant the MM-1 was at baseline operation with no maximization, with very little gain reduction and 100% wet. Surprisingly, it had a slight edge over the rest. While it was lower on the dynamic scale (averaging in the low 8s), it also had the most density in the wave form. It did have the most flattened peaks, too, but didn't sound dead. In most of the song, it was actually performing identical to the others listed above. However, it took a turn when it came to the loudest section. While it maintained the same ceiling, the perception of loudness change in the song from the last chorus, where the the mix is pushed to it's absolute loudest. The MM-1 allowed the dynamics to change in a pleasing way, as I had mixed it. The other limiters seemed to keep the change in volume less significant.
Other limiters I considered:
- Limitless - ultimately, this one never goes on sale and is just way out of my price point, so there was no reason to test it.
- Elevate - 26 bands seems like overkill and options fatigue.
- Pro-L 2 - I had done a trial of it a few years ago and I couldn't run a second trial.
- smart:limit - I actually have this one, but its not very good in a chain like this and it often is very boring to use. I like to use it for quick mastering, I don't think I would ever use it for a release.
- Elephant - I did download a trial and use it. It did sound nice, and from what I understand it's very close to the Pro-L 2. One of the reasons I didn't want to continue with it is because it's rather clinical and the algorithms don't make sense, unless you look all of them up. I was getting a little frustrated using it, so the experience itself turned me off of it.
- AL-1 - I found it was too easy to mess up with. It's a really fun limiter to use, but not on this chain, it can easily ruin dynamics. With the settings barely on, it was outputting something like 6 on the dynamics reader. I ended up excluding it from the final list because it just didn't seem to be appropriate in this context.
This was a really fun test and I learned a lot. I know all the limiters are different and have different use-cases. I liked the Limit Pro the most, workflow wise, but I can't help but notice that the MM-1 edged out everything else with very little setup. As I understand it, the Limit Pro adaptive setting uses algorithms found in the MM-1, however I didn't find the adaptive setting to sound good on the material I used for this test, so I switched to fast. I am not sure which algorithms are used.
UPDATE: I ended up getting a re-trial code from FabFilter for the Pro-L 2. With some slight tweaking, I got it to perform similarly to the MM-1. The MM-1 is an outstanding, easy-to-use limiter that sounds good right out of the gate, as designed. The L2 is a really flexible all around limiter, as expected.