Just curious why Producer, with many refinements worthy of using as a mastering program, doesn't include a limiter or clipping effect, other than paying extra for the brick wall limiter?  Would have been a nice addition for X2.  A harmonic exciter would be nice also.  

boost 11 is a limiter

We do include Boost11.  The Concrete limiter is a bit cooler, I admit.  But Boost11 should serve most basic purposes.

Just get Fab filter. No one can top this limiter anyways

Guess I never looked at Boost11.  Maybe I should look at all the fx included with sonar...

well, name a single DAW that includes a truly pro-level, mastering-grade limiter in the box and i'll disagree with you. :-)

personally, i really think Cakewalk should continue this momentum of its focus on core features and bug fixes and not on plugins. i even think the time they spent on console emulation would have been better spent (the Waves SSL and NLS are much better).

the five best, imho, are (in this order):

1) Ozone 5
2) Fabfilter Pro-L
3) Voxengo Elephant
4) PSP Xenon
5) Sony Oxford Limiter

i keep coming back to Ozone when not messing with stuff below 300hz matters.

the Waves API-2500 is also pretty darn amazing toward the end of a mastering chain, though not a final limiter class device (no dither / target-bit-converter, intersample-peak detector, brickwall, margin, etc.)

Jalcide

1) Ozone 5
2) Fabfilter Pro-L
3) Voxengo Elephant
4) PSP Xenon
5) Sony Oxford Limiter

You honestly think Ozone 5's limiter is better than Sonnox? I luuv the Sonnox limiter (when I've used it in other studios), and Ozone 4 is not comparable at all! Is Ozone 5's limiter that much better?


(and, honestly, Voxengo Elephant should be waay below Sonnox on your list for both apparent loudness and transparency. Haven't tried Fabfilter or PSP.)

i guess, but how many can afford waves? fabfilter is up there too.  as long as  a full-featured daw has all the plugs needed for a good-quality mix, that's all I ask.  As products improve and upgrade, they should be able to improve the quality of the built in plugs as well.  I love the R-Mix, Breverb seems great and TH2 looks pretty good too (will try them more this weekend).

well, for my purposes/genre it is. the Oxford is awesome, overall, but it messed with my kick drum track!

Ozone is the only limiter that did not degrade the kick (in my tests).

i have a very hot, pre-baked kick track that, even though i account for, and mix, into my mastering chain, is still pretty close to the target end-game (before it hits the chain). so, my mastering chain has to do its mojo, but still keep any pure sine wave aspects intact, while still being liberal with the transient shaping it does with stuff above 300hz. it's a tough balancing act.
i think you may be correct in that i should have put the Elephant last; Oxford is better. i think i put it 3rd as it's really good for other per-track tasks.

for me, it was a shootout between Fabfilter Pro-L and Ozone. i actually wanted to make Pro-L my go-to finalizer, but it just didn't keep the sub 250hz stuff as tight and transparent as Ozone.

yes, Ozone 5's IRC III is night and day between type II that was in version 4.

also, the fact that Kaskade and Morgan Page (two EDM producers I highly respect for their mix/mastering qualities) use Ozone, is not lost on me. but, the real proof for me was my testing -- it was all about the kick track (specifically the 25hz to 80hz range), everything else was mostly fine with the other Limiters (i actually liked the sound of PSP Xenon in many ways, too).

Jalcide


well, name a single DAW that includes a truly pro-level, mastering-grade limiter in the box and i'll disagree with you. :-)

personally, i really think Cakewalk should continue this momentum of its focus on core features and bug fixes and not on plugins. i even think the time they spent on console emulation would have been better spent (the Waves SSL and NLS are much better).

the five best, imho, are (in this order):

1) Ozone 5
2) Fabfilter Pro-L
3) Voxengo Elephant
4) PSP Xenon
5) Sony Oxford Limiter

i keep coming back to Ozone when not messing with stuff below 300hz matters.

the Waves API-2500 is also pretty darn amazing toward the end of a mastering chain, though not a final limiter class device (no dither / target-bit-converter, intersample-peak detector, brickwall, margin, etc.)

You missed IK's TRacks-3 Brickwall Limiter which in my opinion is absolutely awesome