Hi, anybody here knows how L2 Ultramaximizer works?  I have checked the Waves "Gold" plugin bundle, most of the stuff was not much impressive except for L1 ultramaximazer. It is not enough to justify the purchase of the whole bundle (even the stripped version of TH2 is far superior to GTR). I suppose L1 and its bigger brother L2 is very smartly combined compression, gate, eq and distortion, any idea how to get such effect with the plugins we already own in X3?

It depends a lot on the application. It's essentially a transparent limiter with dithering options.

Serial compression using multiple instances of a compressor, followed by a brickwall limiter. The reason for multiple compressors rather than one is to minimize pumping. As far as I know, there is no EQ in L1 or L2.
 
Regards,
Dan
 

Every now and then Waves puts the plugins on sale.  I bought the L2 when it went on sale a couple of years ago.  Just keep checking their site. 

There are basically four choices.
 

• BlueTubes brickwall limiter. Just getting into this so don't have many comments.
• Boost Eleven. Okay for individual tracks but not my favorite.
• Sonitus Multiband compresor. This is overlooked and underappreciated. There is a limit button on the Common page and when enabled, you can increase the output and drive it into limiting. Once you get above about 6 dB of limiting the sound deteriorates, but you don't want much more than that anyway. And because it's a multiband compressor, you can tweak the frequency response a bit to sweeten things up.
• This takes a little more work but can sound really good. The LP-64 Multiband Compressor is very high quality but doesn't have limiting functions. What you can do is use the LP-64 to do most of the compressing, then add the Sonitus afterward to catch any transients.

 

Anderton
There are basically four choices.
(...)

• Sonitus Multiband compresor. This is overlooked and underappreciated. There is a limit button on the Common page and when enabled, you can increase the output and drive it into limiting. Once you get above about 6 dB of limiting the sound deteriorates, but you don't want much more than that anyway. And because it's a multiband compressor, you can tweak the frequency response a bit to sweeten things up.
• This takes a little more work but can sound really good. The LP-64 Multiband Compressor is very high quality but doesn't have limiting functions. What you can do is use the LP-64 to do most of the compressing, then add the Sonitus afterward to catch any transients.

 

Thanks, there be a lot tweaking. I just didn't know where to start !   Sonitus is my one of my favourites and indeed deserves more attention. Would you put (as suggested above by DCUMPIAN) several instances of Sonitus or LP-64 compressors in series and then add limiting?

dcumpian
Serial compression using multiple instances of a compressor, followed by a brickwall limiter. The reason for multiple compressors rather than one is to minimize pumping. As far as I know, there is no EQ in L1 or L2.
 
Regards,
Dan
 

Thanks Dan, would you be able to suggest the settings of consecutive compressors, even in general terms like "from mild to radical or vice versa"  ?

Sacalait
Every now and then Waves puts the plugins on sale.  I bought the L2 when it went on sale a couple of years ago.  Just keep checking their site. 

So you have it, cool. How do you use it ?   I found it shines on stereo bus, made my mixes clearer and louder.

The Whole point of serial compression is so that each instance doesn't work too hard to avoid compression artifacts like pumping and distortion. Each instance should be gently pushing up the overall level.

If you really want to squash the track and make it super loud, you'll have to balance what each compressor instance is doing and then still push it when you get to the limiter.


Regards,
Dan

Not that I recommend that, BTW. I use the L1 and L2 as well, and while they are really good, they aren't going to magically make a quiet track with peaky transients loud and still sound good.

Regards,
Dan