Brickwall limiters

[Peter Cole]

Originally Posted by Eric Lambert

I've been a limiter junkie for years. I haven't missed too many. Current favorites are Elixir by Flux and FabFilter's Pro L. There are many great limiters but none (that I'm aware of) limit with the same degree of transparency.

To my ears the Flux Elixir sound the best and there is a 5.1 version.

[Eric Lambert]

Originally Posted by Peter Cole

To my ears the Flux Elixir sound the best and there is a 5.1 version.

You're preaching to the choir.

I've only recently been trying the Fab limiter and, for certain situations, I even prefer it to Elixir, which is admittedly a tall claim. I haven't played around enough yet to know when one might be more appropriate than the other but it's a simple matter to try both and let the winner remain, and that's what I've been doing.

To your point about 5.1, I'm not sure how many of these handle that many channels. Other engineers at our place tend to focus on post mixes but I know they use Elixir for 5.1. I'll have to check on Fab and see if it can handle 5.1 as well.

[Eric Lambert]

Seems that this is all leading us to a limiter listening test. I have most of what's been mentioned here, and a few more that haven't been, and could demo others. I could probably set something up. Maybe next week I'll post examples from the major plugins. These are usually fun.

[Eric Lambert]

After quite a lot of testing this week our new favorite is FabFilter's limiter, and not by a small margin either. And I can't believe I'm saying this because I'm a huge fan of Elixir and felt that it was practically faultless, but that's how these things go, right? You don't know what you have until you hear something else. There are styles of source material for which Elixir will still be the best option but I have a feeling that it's going to be rare. Fab's L is just intensely good, and quite a lot more flexible.

[Emcha_audio]

Originally Posted by Eric Lambert

After quite a lot of testing this week our new favorite is FabFilter's limiter, and not by a small margin either. And I can't believe I'm saying this because I'm a huge fan of Elixir and felt that it was practically faultless, but that's how these things go, right? You don't know what you have until you hear something else. There are styles of source material for which Elixir will still be the best option but I have a feeling that it's going to be rare. Fab's L is just intensely good, and quite a lot more flexible.

post the test examples?

[treason]

Originally Posted by Eric Lambert

After quite a lot of testing this week our new favorite is FabFilter's limiter, and not by a small margin either. ... Fab's L is just intensely good, and quite a lot more flexible.

We did ad hoc testing of material earlier in the summer and came to the same conclusion. We really wanted an AAX-DSP solution, but FabFilter's Pro Limiter is just so good that the quest for an AAX-DSP Limiter ended (of course, I'd love Fab Filter to create AAX-DSP versions of all they plugs - REALLY!!!)

That Limiter plug started us down the Fab Filter purchase path and we now use Pro Q2, Pro DS, Pro C and Pro MB. Their stuff is really great and has had really positive sonic impact on our work.

[Eric Lambert]

Originally Posted by Emcha_audio

post the test examples?

Hmmm... Yeah I guess I did talk about printing samples and shoulda done that as we were listening but I completely forget. We were entirely entrenched in the A/B'ing.

[Eric Lambert]

Originally Posted by treason

We did ad hoc testing of material earlier in the summer and came to the same conclusion. We really wanted an AAX-DSP solution, but FabFilter's Pro Limiter is just so good that the quest for an AAX-DSP Limiter ended (of course, I'd love Fab Filter to create AAX-DSP versions of all they plugs - REALLY!!!)

That Limiter plug started us down the Fab Filter purchase path and we now use Pro Q2, Pro DS, Pro C and Pro MB. Their stuff is really great and has had really positive sonic impact on our work.

It was the synth (Twin 2) that put me onto Fab's path, now I have all of their plugins. It's truly an addiction. And it's funny but it's sorta like a secret organization where everything inside the clubhouse is incredible and amazing and until you actually step through those doors and experience the lobby you doubt the place even exists, and you're skeptical that the rest of the house can be as great, but it is. I don't know which plugin is most impressive. Somehow they all seem to stand above their competition, regardless of the plugin type. I guess the delay is my least favorite and only because of EchoBoy and hardware boxes.

[groundcontrol]

I'm in the same boat here.

Their delay is probably better for people doing dance stuff znd electronica. I find Echoboy is king for flexibility and texture. Especially working with acoustc material where you often need to create subtle dark spaces/textures behind/around around instruments. However SoundToys new emulation of the od Lex PrimeTime is proving surprising useful.

[sw rec]

Anybody here using the Universal Audio Precision Maximizer?