http://vladgsound.wordpress.com/plugins/
 
These two plugins have great potential. The are pretty complex, but I think you'll find their worth (with a little bit of manual reading). The Limiter no. 6 is very transparent while the Molot compressor adds a fair amount of color.

Sonar X2a Producer, ADK intel i7 2600 quad core, 8gb, Win 7, Presonus Audiobox 44VSL,Roland DS8 studio monitors, HD500/DT50, Amplitube Custom shop, Amplitube Fender, Ampeg SVX, T-racksCS Deluxe. 

www.soundcloud.com/clintmartin

Has no one tried these yet? Your missing out in my opinion.

Sonar X2a Producer, ADK intel i7 2600 quad core, 8gb, Win 7, Presonus Audiobox 44VSL,Roland DS8 studio monitors, HD500/DT50, Amplitube Custom shop, Amplitube Fender, Ampeg SVX, T-racksCS Deluxe. 

www.soundcloud.com/clintmartin

Too busy tracking with other new plugs but plan on trying it out at some point.

Tried molot a while back. To me, the GUI is a little bit confusing. I was never sure when the limiter was on or off. I was too lazy to RTFM to figure it out....... I have DL'd Limiter6 but haven't messed with it yet. from all the glowing reviews I've seen, I have high hopes for it.

Dell XPS 8000 i5 750, Windows 64bit, 6gb Ram, Emu 1212m pci, Sonar Producer X1

Have not even downloaded them. Hence I have not tried them.

Yet.

The Coffee House Band
Soundcloud Collabs
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I had chance to try Limiter no. 6 on a few projects today. Very useful limiter, tried it on the drum buss instead of Pro-L & was surprised that I could push it harder & was more transparent. Prefer using my own comps pre but the other stages work very well.
No problems to report using X1x64 (so far) 

No. 6 is an excellent limiter, although the UI is busier and more intimidating than any other limiter you've ever seen.

It's really five processors in series. The first stage is a slow compressor, followed by a conventional peak limiter. After that is something called a "HF Limiter", which is apparently a limiter with a HPF on the sidechain so that it only responds to high frequencies (> 11KHz). That feeds into a soft clipper. The final stage is a brickwall limiter that purports to address intersample peaks.

The whole design is clearly geared toward extreme volume maximization. I'd expect it to be popular among the EDM set (although those folks usually don't like so many knobs). For my own genre, which uses far more conservative limiting, I felt like it was more work than it was worth.

But if you had no other limiter, had no money to spend, and are the type who really takes the time to learn their tools well, then No. 6 might just be the ticket.

All else is in doubt, so this is the truth I cling to.

My Stuff

I'm liking Limiter No.6 more and more. I just finished a test with 6 songs were I used the Pro channel eq, Sonitus comp and Limiter No.6 to master. I don't have an audio editor so I created a new project and imported the wav files of each song (using tracks 1 through 6). I did my best with the Sonar meters to get a equal peak/ RMS level ( does anyone know of a better way to view the RMS levels?). I created a patch for the eq in pro channel and used the same one on each song ( each track), then inserted Sonitus and Limiter No. 6. I'm actually surprised with how well this worked. I used the Limiter No.6 to basically reduce gain by 1 db on all 5 of it's processors with the peaks set to zero. Nice loud, transparent, and level sounding group of 6. I can share detailed settings if anyone is interested.

Sonar X2a Producer, ADK intel i7 2600 quad core, 8gb, Win 7, Presonus Audiobox 44VSL,Roland DS8 studio monitors, HD500/DT50, Amplitube Custom shop, Amplitube Fender, Ampeg SVX, T-racksCS Deluxe. 

www.soundcloud.com/clintmartin

Here's a few to check out:
http://code.mzuther.de/kmeter/
http://www.voxengo.com/product/span/
http://dynamicrange.de/es/es/download#menu1
http://www.toneboosters.com/tb-ebuloudness/

Voxengo SPAN

I have tried a lot of meters but this is the one I use day-to-day. It's not going to give you detailed amplitude statistics - I use Adobe Audition for in-depth analyses when necessary - but once you've established your own methodology, a simple K-meter is all you need.

If you want to compare all your songs at once (along with any reference recordings) with a single tool, Toscanalyzer is very cool.

All else is in doubt, so this is the truth I cling to.

My Stuff

I did use the Toneboosters Ebuloudness plugin, but I guess I don't know what I'm doing. I tried to match the integrated loudness on each song, which was around -10. I don't understand the K meter thing at all...which one is average RMS? All of them? Which should I use K12, K14? I ended up using the integrated loudness along with switching the Sonar meters to RMS only on playback, and then used my ears for final adjustments. I'll try the Voxengo plug, but I would really appreciate a little help understanding this better. Thanks, (and please play with that Limiter 6 plug some, I think you'll all like it, if you use guitars, bass and drums in your music).

Sonar X2a Producer, ADK intel i7 2600 quad core, 8gb, Win 7, Presonus Audiobox 44VSL,Roland DS8 studio monitors, HD500/DT50, Amplitube Custom shop, Amplitube Fender, Ampeg SVX, T-racksCS Deluxe. 

www.soundcloud.com/clintmartin

Ok I think I'm getting it now. Lu k14 seems to work best for me with Toneboosters. Barricade has the K meters too. I'll google some more.

Sonar X2a Producer, ADK intel i7 2600 quad core, 8gb, Win 7, Presonus Audiobox 44VSL,Roland DS8 studio monitors, HD500/DT50, Amplitube Custom shop, Amplitube Fender, Ampeg SVX, T-racksCS Deluxe. 

www.soundcloud.com/clintmartin

I'm trying No. 6 on a project and finding it has some interesting stuff going on. Working with a very pulsing bass track and I'm able to ramp up the limiter and get it pumping in time with the track. I find the pointer knobs a bit clunky and mostly ignore the meters. I thinks it's a cool alternative to similar gear. Thanks for building it guys.

Regards, John 


WIN 7 Pro X64 sp1, I7-3770k 16 gigs, ASUS Z77 pro ATI 7950 3 gig,  Roland Quad Capture, A-Pro 500, X2a Producer 

 I'm Canadian Eh?

Beware of trying to match average RMS as a way to make all your songs sound equally loud, because it will only get you into the ballpark. A recording with good song dynamics could vary by as much as -24db to -8db average RMS.

The K-system, in a nutshell, is a way to correlate average RMS to what you hear out of your speakers. It requires you to calibrate your monitors so that you're monitoring consistently. Bob Katz's website has more information, or better yet pick up his classic book "Mastering Audio".

If you settle on K-14 as your standard (a good choice), put SPAN into mastering mode ("Mode" button, upper-right) and select the K-14 meter scale ("Metering" button, beneath the display).

As you play back your song, watch the meter readings (which will bounce around, that's a good thing!). You want the bulk of your song to bounce around the 0db mark, usually going no more than 3-4db above it in the louder passages. I never let it go above +6db, and then only briefly. 

I'd recommend importing some of your favorite commercial recordings into SONAR so you can observe what SPAN does while they're playing. 

All else is in doubt, so this is the truth I cling to.

My Stuff

Thanks Bitflipper! Good tips, and I'll try them all. Last night I had a few minutes so I just checked each song and they are all in the +2 to 3 range. With The Toneboosters plugin Ebuloudness there are 3 measurements LUK14, true peak and loudness range ( I think). I was setting there thinking that if there was a wider range it would probably effect the LUK14 measurement some...for example. If one song is more dynamic and measures +2.5 K14 it is probably close to a song thats less dynamic that measures +3.

Sonar X2a Producer, ADK intel i7 2600 quad core, 8gb, Win 7, Presonus Audiobox 44VSL,Roland DS8 studio monitors, HD500/DT50, Amplitube Custom shop, Amplitube Fender, Ampeg SVX, T-racksCS Deluxe. 

www.soundcloud.com/clintmartin

bitflipper


If you want to compare all your songs at once (along with any reference recordings) with a single tool, Toscanalyzer is very cool.

Cool indeed.  I'll be downloading asap.

Sonar X1 Producer 64 Bit, Windows 7 64 Bit, RME Multiface II, PCIe
http://www.soundclick.com/donnyocollins

The EBULoudness plugin is technically more accurate than SPAN, but it's intended for broadcast applications. I did not find it particularly useful for loudness assessment, and as it's a bit of a CPU hog I don't use it. For a while I was using the TT Dynamic Range Meter, but after a year I went back to SPAN. The offline TT DR Meter is still handy for scanning a bunch of files at once, but lately I've been using Toscanalyzer because it gives more detailed information.

At the end of the day, though, my ultimate tool is a combination of ears, ATH-M50s and a quality MP3 player. The player shows a numeric value for the volume setting, which, though meaningless by itself, works as a means of comparing my stuff to commercial recordings and to my other material. It's a kind of crude K-system, in that it enables auditioning songs at a consistent, predictable volume level.

All else is in doubt, so this is the truth I cling to.

My Stuff

My recent purchase of a set of M-50s may be the single best use of my dollars in quite a while.  They are tres fab.  Astounding, really.

http://www.myspace.com/doghouserileyhisownself

Where you come from is gone...where you thought you were goin to weren't never there...and where you are ain't no good unless you can get away from it.

Sonar X1D Expanded Producer Edition 64 bit running on a Studio Cat Pro System Win 7 64bit 2.8ghz Core i7 with 12 gigs ram. MOTU Audio Express.

My last ventures I didn't have a sub at all and used just my M50's to make bass decisions...definite improvement.

Sonar X1 Producer 64 Bit, Windows 7 64 Bit, RME Multiface II, PCIe
http://www.soundclick.com/donnyocollins

For my fellow ATH-M50 users: I have recently been applying an EQ curve to my master bus to help compensate for these particular headphones. It's a small correction, based on the frequency response published at headphone.com.



My correction curve is basically a mirror of the above plot:
-4db at 45Hz, Q = 4
-4db at 130Hz, Q = 4
+4db at 5.5KHz, Q = 16
+4db at 9KHz, Q = 16       [EDIT: should be -4db at 9KHz, not +4db; thanks cecilius2!]


Yes, the graph would seem to indicate a need for larger corrections, but I don't know how accurate their measurements are or how much variance there is between individual units so I've elected to be conservative.

Just don't forget to bypass the EQ before exporting!

All else is in doubt, so this is the truth I cling to.

My Stuff

bitflipper

For my fellow ATH-M50 users: I have recently been applying an EQ curve to my master bus to help compensate for these particular headphones. It's a small correction, based on the frequency response published at headphone.com.



My correction curve is basically a mirror of the above plot:
-4db at 45Hz, Q = 4
-4db at 130Hz, Q = 4
+4db at 5.5KHz, Q = 16
+4db at 9KHz, Q = 16


Yes, the graph would seem to indicate a need for larger corrections, but I don't know how accurate their measurements are or how much variance there is between individual units so I've elected to be conservative.

Just don't forget to bypass the EQ before exporting!

Thanks bitflipper!  I occasionally use ATH-M50's for tracking, and also for checking mixes.  This is a nice EQ correction graph/numbers you provide for us, but the fabfilter looks like a  -4 at 9khz whereas you numbers call for a +4 at 9khz.  Can you let us know which is correct? 

Intel I7 2600k, Win7pro 64bit, GA-P67A-UD5-B3, 16 gigs ram, 3 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3 HDs, Noctua CPU cooler, Noctua fans, dual 27 inch monitors, Radeon 4650, MOTU 828Mk3 Hybrid; Sonar X2a Producer (64bit); Event 20/20 & Yamaha HS80M monitors.

Avatar is from 9th cent.Carolingian Psalter of a plucked stringed musical instrument.  Precursor to the Chapman Stick? 

Sorry, that was a typo. It is indeed MINUS 4db at 9 kilohertz. Good thing I included a picture!

All else is in doubt, so this is the truth I cling to.

My Stuff

Hey Bit...why not save that as a ProQ preset (as I'm sure you have) and make it available to other ProQ owners who also use ATH-M50s...i.e ME via a PM!!!  Purdy Please with sugar on it????

http://www.myspace.com/doghouserileyhisownself

Where you come from is gone...where you thought you were goin to weren't never there...and where you are ain't no good unless you can get away from it.

Sonar X1D Expanded Producer Edition 64 bit running on a Studio Cat Pro System Win 7 64bit 2.8ghz Core i7 with 12 gigs ram. MOTU Audio Express.

Here's a vid that will help explain how Limiter No.6 operates.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BodTdpvChHQ

Sorry, ol' pal, but I don't know how to do that. FabFilter presets are binary files in a proprietary format. I wish everybody would adopt Valhalla's nifty XML-based scheme, which makes it very easy to share presets online or via email.

All else is in doubt, so this is the truth I cling to.

My Stuff

So my ProQ presets can't be shared with other users?  Gee, didn't know that.  That sounds like something that needs fixin.  Dern.

http://www.myspace.com/doghouserileyhisownself

Where you come from is gone...where you thought you were goin to weren't never there...and where you are ain't no good unless you can get away from it.

Sonar X1D Expanded Producer Edition 64 bit running on a Studio Cat Pro System Win 7 64bit 2.8ghz Core i7 with 12 gigs ram. MOTU Audio Express.

bitflipper


Sorry, ol' pal, but I don't know how to do that. FabFilter presets are binary files in a proprietary format. I wish everybody would adopt Valhalla's nifty XML-based scheme, which makes it very easy to share presets online or via email.

How presets are stored
Presets for FabFilter Pro-Q are stored in separate files with the .ffp extension (for FabFilter Preset). All presets
reside in subfolders in the main preset folder. The subfolders will show up as separate categories in the preset
menu. You can also further divide the subfolders into categories.
You can manage the preset files just like other files on your computer. The easiest way to do this is in the Save
dialog that appears if you are saving a preset. The preset menu will automatically reload itself with the changes
when the dialog is closed.
Furthermore it is very easy to share your newly created presets with other users since FabFilter presets use the
same file format on both Windows and Mac OS X.
The default location of the main preset folder is My Documents\FabFilter\Pro-Q for Windows, and
~/Library/Audio/Presets/FabFilter/FabFilter Pro-Q for Mac OS X. To change this location, first copy all presets to
the desired new location, and then click Options > Change Preset Folder in the preset menu and select the new
folder.

Thanks Carl, ol pal.  I posted over on the FF forum asking that very thing...but you've provided the answer!!  Hey Bit, hows about now?

http://www.myspace.com/doghouserileyhisownself

Where you come from is gone...where you thought you were goin to weren't never there...and where you are ain't no good unless you can get away from it.

Sonar X1D Expanded Producer Edition 64 bit running on a Studio Cat Pro System Win 7 64bit 2.8ghz Core i7 with 12 gigs ram. MOTU Audio Express.

carl

Here's a vid that will help explain how Limiter No.6 operates.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BodTdpvChHQ

Thanks Carl for this link!  I had figured most of it out, but this video really, helps.  What I haven't fully figured out is their companion vst, the compressor Molot--the youtube video that is on the same site as the video for Limiter no.6 does not help.  Some of it's knobs  are easy like attack and release and ratio, but it would be nice to have a good tutorial video to explain it also.  I do say that I like the Limiter 6 once I got use to it.  I might use it now and then when the mood hits me.  Again, thanks.

Intel I7 2600k, Win7pro 64bit, GA-P67A-UD5-B3, 16 gigs ram, 3 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3 HDs, Noctua CPU cooler, Noctua fans, dual 27 inch monitors, Radeon 4650, MOTU 828Mk3 Hybrid; Sonar X2a Producer (64bit); Event 20/20 & Yamaha HS80M monitors.

Avatar is from 9th cent.Carolingian Psalter of a plucked stringed musical instrument.  Precursor to the Chapman Stick? 

I am well aware that ffp files can be managed like any other file. They can also be emailed as a MIME attachment or copied to a file-sharing site or an ftp server.

What you can't do is post the data on a forum or paste it into the body of a plain-text email.

A ValhallaRoom preset, by comparison, can be copied and pasted. Here's a VRoom preset:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<ValhallaRoom pluginVersion="1.1.0" presetName="Big Perc" mix="0.497999996"
              predelay="0.0890000015" decay="0.0551551543" HighCut="0.502013445"
              earlyLateMix="0.802999973" lateSize="1" lateCross="0.200000003"
              lateModRate="0.262626261" lateModDepth="0.270000011" RTBassMultiply="0.693333328"
              RTXover="0.225252524" RTHighMultiply="0.533333361" RTHighXover="0.477852345"
              earlySize="0.287087083" earlyCross="0" earlyModRate="0" earlyModDepth="0"
              earlySend="0.5" diffusion="0.800000012" type="0.333333343"/>


Highlight the preceding XML text and press CTL-C. Open VRoom and select "Paste from clipboard" from the Presets dialog. Just like that, you can get a preset from another VRoom user.

All else is in doubt, so this is the truth I cling to.

My Stuff