Philip: Sounds good...as always, I'm looking forward to it.

Geno: Think of it this way. For rock, sometimes it's good to have a little dirt under your nails. I have a problem getting this type of dirt out of the PSP. It gives me bad dirt when I run it hot. Now the Waves L series...perfect for rock with a good dirt if you push it just right. It depends which one you use though. L1+ for 16/44, L2, L3, LL3 for 24/48 and above. Their ARC control (not ARC as in room correction...I'm talking Auto Release Control) has some interesting starting points that make an incredible difference. I've been using the LL3 alot recently and I actually like it better than the L2. I think that's what would be perfect for you man....something in the L series. Now that's for your metal type stuff. If you are doing cleaner stuff...classic rock, blues, folk, jazz, I'll pick the PSP every time.

See here's another thing to keep in mind. These limiters react based on the mixes you throw at them. A great mix is going to sound good through any of them really...but you will notice the vocal characteristics each one has. Vocal meaning the voice of the plug. The Slate processor to me just sounds bad no matter what I do with it. As a matter of fact, one of my friends and two of my clients sent me stuff with that thing that had artifacts. Some had clicks and pops....it was just weird. When they took that thing out of the chain, it all went away. I myself just don't like the sound of it.

I'd rather use the new Sonar Concrete Limiter to be honest. Try that if you have X1 Expanded. I think it's a really good limiter that is well worth the price. It smokes Boost 11. If you can afford the Waves stuff, that's what *I'd* suggest for you. If not, go for the Concrete Limiter. It's not a super loud type of limiter and gets a little dirty after -6.5 threshold....but there's really no reason to run anything hotter than that anyway. A guy like you would find good results running it at -0.1 output with -5.5- -6.0 threshold, auto release or a 1ms release time. It stays clean, is plenty loud and handles transients extremely well. As a matter of fact, I was pretty impressed by how consistent it kept both sides of my stuff. Meaning, when you use limiters, sometimes you'll get a bit of an inconsistency between the left and right channels. This thing seemed to hit spot on every time...which is sometimes a hard feat to accomplish. So defintely check this stuff out man. :)

-Danny 

Danny,

Really good info and review of the Concrete Limiter.  I was one of these guys that had Boost 11, or a bunch of freebies and was right at the point of purchasing a limiter, but had not descided which direction to go.  Then, surprise, the Concrete Limiter came out.  I figured for $49 it was worth the chance.  So far, I have really liked the sound of it; and like you have mentioned, I don't push it very hard, or need to.  It certainly blows Boost 11 away.  Right now, the direction Cake seems to be going works really well for me.  If they keep putting out some descent plug ins at a layman's price, I can afford to purchase them.

Firstly to Phillip for putting my name and Bob Katz's in the same sentence! I can see why you did that! Ha Ha LOL I am only kidding. I am honoured to be even thought of in the same light as him. I have embraced some Katz things over the years and one of them being the K system ref level(s) for digital systems. He has put some organisation into that subject and actually done something to calibrate them as such.

For PSP users please note. Using it straight out of the box and also using presets is NOT the way to go and please do not judge it so. I have never been a great fan of presets for anything anyway. The know nothing about the music you are actually putting through the limiter.

You MUST read the read the manual right through and VERY carefully. Especially the explaination in the front part as to how it even works and what it is actually doing. It will take a few reads of that too, it did for me.

There are many controls (0ver 10) I think that control how that limiter sounds and what it is doing at any one time so it is very important to tweak those settings. I have heard it go from squashed and very ordinary to amazing and killer all within 30 seconds so you must be prepared to experiment. It is not a simple limiter, it is quite a complex one. The main danger with a limiter like this is that many will not get it and not fully extract the amazing sound it is really capable manily due to its complexity. I can see why many mastering engineers like it though. It is very technical and allows lots of fine tuning.

Once you get onto it I have found that many repeated settings make it work well especially for the genres you may be throwing at it. (get in to storing those starting templates though, that is fast and saves time) I can sort of see where Danny is coming from in terms of genre. I tend to work with cleaner sounding things so therefore I think it is the best limiter for me in that regard. And I have mastered and limited some dirtier sounding things but been happy with the result. And so has the client.

As I said in the other loudness thread, you can still make or break a tune with what you do with say the SMART C2 compressor before this limiter. That can have a major impact on how the final mix ends up sounding.

Jeff - I tried some of their presets and just fiddled around a little, and, using the CD Master 1 made it sound excellent.  Reading through the manual reminds me of how much I don't know.

timidi


Geno. C2 comp is a waves compressor.

Actually brother Tim...that's not the C2 Jeff was referring to. This is the one he means.
 
http://www.mercenary.com/alsmc2co.html
 
There isn't a C2 in the waves package that I'm aware of. I have 3 different C1's, C360, C4 and C6 and they are all compressors/multi-bands, not limiters....and it's nothing close to the REAL Smart C2. If they do have a C2 available, I need to update my stuff...but I don't see one here in my current version. :)
 
Mike: totally agree. Glad it worked for you. It's a pretty cool little limiter. I was quite impressed.
 
-Danny

timidi


woops. My bad.

You actually got me all excited for a second....I ran over to Waves hoping to see a C2 Smart comp waiting for me! Hahahaha! :)
 
-Danny