Voxengo Elephant

[Drlove]

I've seen this mentioned a lot in here.

I have T-racks, Waves gold and Ozone.

Would this be something I would also use or have I covered my bases pretty well?

How does this differ from say Waves L1?

[jdtrbn]

The only limitation in the demo is that the sound stops for a second or so every 45 seconds, so you should be able to get the idea.

Voxengo

[blim]

Originally Posted by Drlove

I've seen this mentioned a lot in here.

Would this be something I would also use or have I covered my bases pretty well?

How does this differ from say Waves L1?

I'm probably in a minority here, but, to my ears, Elephant sounds too grainy and "metallic." I'm not a fan of the Waves L series, but I actually prefer L3 to Elephant.

[sanddigger1]

Not as good as waves or ozone at nominal sampling rate (when working at 44.1 or 48). With oversampling enabled, it works fine and sounds brighter and more accurate than ozone and probably allows to be pushed a little hotter. But I still prefer ozone in most cases. I agree about the "grainy and metallic" comment, but in some cases, it may give very good results.

[Cellotron]

I think the Voxengo Elephant 2 is very good as far as peak limiters go and on the tracks on which I use a digital limiter it probably gets used the majority of the time over my multitude of other options (i.e. UAD Precision Limiter, Stillwell Event Horizon+, RML Labs Levelizer, GClip, Waves L3, etc.).

fwiw - in contrast to the other poster on this thread I find I can get enormously better results with it with far less futzing than I can get with the Waves L3 - which I find I almost never use these days as my other options nearly always sound better than the Waves does.

With Elephant I mainly use the EL3 mode with it but sometimes use the Clip mode - nearly always at 4x upsampling. In EL3 mode I most often have it set to "Max" speed (except when I want to deliberately soften sharp transients, in which case I'll use the slower settings), nearly always use it completely unlinked, and find tweaking the "shape" control can be really helpful in retaining in either the snap of the snare or thump of the kick (whichever one you want to prioritize).

Anyway - as mentioned previously on this thread there is a downloadable demo available so you can judge for yourself whether it is worth the very minimal price they charge for it. To me it's a valuable tool to have in the toolbox and very well worth purchasing.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[gsuser]

I don't mean to hijack your thread but curious. Anyone have comments or views about the Elephant in comparison to PSP's Xenon limiter?
I ask as I'm presently demoing both for jazz-rock & symphonic material. I like them both but it seems the PSP is a bit warmer sounding/ doesn't change or affect the mix as much.
Any thoughts?
-thanks

[bcgood]

Here's a screenshot of the settings that I like the best. I find that you can get a very transparent sound from using these settings.

Cheers!

[scraggs]

you would hope it sounds transparent when it's not doing any limiting at all!

[princeplanet]

Was rather curious myself so gave it a thorough going over. Found that clip mode with 3x (not 4) oversampling was better than most Loudness limiters in the way that (for rock and pop) it preserves the "apparent" shape of the kick and snare without rolling off lows excessively. You can get (depending on the mix) an RMS of -8db before a discernible onset of distortion. The other modes wont go as loud, but give you some optional groovy contours. There are other plugs that go louder, if that's your thing, but suffer more low freq coloration.

You gotta suck it and see for yourself....

[JPeters86]

Have any of you tried PSP Xenon? It is my go to limiter right now for mastering purposes.

[Retinal]

It's definitely a very deep limiter, not a set and forget, not a 2 slides limiter as the vast majority of them
Once you get a hold of it, it's probably the best, more versatile limiter out there

[Andy Krehm]

Originally Posted by gsuser

I don't mean to hijack your thread but curious. Anyone have comments or views about the Elephant in comparison to PSP's Xenon limiter?
I ask as I'm presently demoing both for jazz-rock & symphonic material. I like them both but it seems the PSP is a bit warmer sounding/ doesn't change or affect the mix as much.
Any thoughts?
-thanks

I got the PSP Zenon a few months ago and it is now getting used on at least 80% of my masters. I had previously used the outboard L2 almost all the time but now I am finding that I like the sound of the PSP much more often.

However, the very things that don't sound right when using one limiter can sound right with the other so I have no intention of abandoning the L2 any time soon. The L3 I rarely use.

Based on the usefulness of having these two limiters in my toolkit, I intend to try more in the future in case I find another that will give me another useful sound.

BTW. I am mastering a huge variety of music here with the exception of classical but there is no real pattern as to which of my two limiters suit one style better than the other. It has much more to do with the mix or the processing I am using or how loud the album has to be.

[MichaelPatrick]

Always oversample with Elephant. Easily overlooked, it makes a huge difference.

[camerondye]

I like Elephant on Tracking, but IMO Ozone is the best ITB Limiter made. I tried it against Xenon which I think is close sounding but definitely not better than Ozone IMO. I haven't tried the Sonnox which I've heard is great but passed on the Xenon since I already had Ozone.

Ozone also has great dither and usable others. Great product...
Cameron

[leddy]

I can't remember where I saw it, but someone ran a test and found 3x oversampling to add the least amount of artifacts. It was a significant difference, IIRC.

I started using 3x as well, and it sounds better to my ears.

I also remember Alexi saying that EL-1 was the most transparant mode.

Sorry I don't have links, I don't remember where I read it.

[Retinal]

if i don't remember wrong test about the artifacts didn't consider the dynamic behaviour or something like that, I could be wrong, but I remember 3x was actually the same as 4x