Voxengo Elephant 3.0 as brickwall

[PrinsJan]

Anyone test this new plug allready ?

I've got this one now for a few days, but for the first time in my life i really don't know if it's okay or not.
I like the oversampling upgrade (set as high as possible), but i don't like the led analyzer of the gain reduction, is hard to see/hear if the limiter is working.

To me the first time i hear the plug, it sounds strange, by strange is hard to define the sound. It's not clean, it;s not colour, it's not warm.

Little confused about this plug. And did you liked it ?

[kjg]

Hi,
I haven't tried 3, but I didn't like the sound of the 2 at all. There should be some considerable improvements in v3 though. I might give it a spin today and post back.

If you are demoing limiters, I think you should try Kjaerhus MPL-1 too.

regards,
Klaas-Jan

[cichy]

hmmm

elephant 3 seems to add something else to bass .
its also easy to get sound distorted

Voxengo Elephant 3.0 as brickwall - NO

[princeplanet]

It still has "clip" mode right? If so, is it any different to v2 in that regard?

[cichy]

for me it seems to be different with attack time and transparency.

[wildpark]

if you cant ! hear the limiting its not there

i just compared the elefant too sonnox limiter waves l316 and all other out there i have here

and for me the elefant is a mouse

Originally Posted by PrinsJan

Anyone test this new plug allready ?

I've got this one now for a few days, but for the first time in my life i really don't know if it's okay or not.
I like the oversampling upgrade (set as high as possible), but i don't like the led analyzer of the gain reduction, is hard to see/hear if the limiter is working.

To me the first time i hear the plug, it sounds strange, by strange is hard to define the sound. It's not clean, it;s not colour, it's not warm.

Little confused about this plug. And did you liked it ?

[Dog Boots]

Ok, this is weird - I've only seen threads where the Elephant 3 is praised.

Anyway, let me be the first to say I think the Elephant 3 is an excellent brickwall. I have no personal experience with the Sonnox but the EL3 is by far the best brickwall I know (which means out of most of the rest of the competition).

I find I can get it much louder than any other plugs, before the unfortunate artifacts get annoying. Not that I use it that loud (I usually go for K-14), but I think it's a very relevant observation. At K-14 levels, I find it very transparent and pleasing, with possibilities of doing great things to transients, preserving a lot of punch.

The Kjærhus MPL-1 that has been suggested earlier in this thread is not my cup of tea, at all....and I even own it. It may perform very well in sine tests with respect to intermodulation distortion and what not, but in practice I find it very quickly starts pumping in an obnoxious way, and is in no way capable of achieving loudness anywhere close to modern (or just 8-10 years ago) commercial standards (and once again, I'm no fan of modern levels!) without very offending artifacts.

My 2 cents.

[24-96 Mastering]

Originally Posted by Dog Boots

I find I can get it much louder than any other plugs, before the unfortunate artifacts get annoying. Not that I use it that loud (I usually go for K-14), but I think it's a very relevant observation. At K-14 levels, I find it very transparent and pleasing, with possibilities of doing great things to transients, preserving a lot of punch.

My 2 cents.

When I tried the Elephant a while back, I found it too "clippy". I.e. it didn't soften the material as much as an L2 in ARC, but it was also quite aggressive.

Trouble for me was, I found it (for my use) to not be enough of a limiter. I.e. when I wanted to avoid distortion, the Elephant was too sharp. And when the material could handle the sharpness of the Elephant, oversampled clipping worked better instead. So I didn't really have a use for it. That was v2 though, I believe, though it may even have been v1. Maybe I should try out v3.

[cichy]

for me version 2 with x4 oversampling is still winner over elephant 3 on stereo buss
although elephant 3 does great job on tracks

[Arksun]

Elephant 3's EL-UNI mode is a massive improvement over Elephant 2 imho and with all the extra controls to finely tweak the results that Elephant 2 simply didn't have, one can get much closer to a distortion free sound that retains more transient detail than Elephant 2 could.

I find when comparing to say the Sonnox and Ozone Limiter. When those two are pushed fairly hard, whilst the transient detail remains, the sound as a whole gets more brittle as it gets distorted. This is most noticeable in the soundstaging.

Thats the real standout quality of Elephant 3 over the likes of Sonnox and Ozone. When its pushed hard, the sense of air, width and depth of the stereo soundstage holds together better, whereas with the Sonnox and Ozone it seems to flatten the overal soundstage a bit.

Don't just go by the Elephant 3 presets, take the time to go deep inside it and you'll achieve great results.

[princeplanet]

earlier Q got ignored so here goes again: does V3 still have "Clip" mode? Does it sound as transparent as it did for V2?

Cheers.

[Torg]

earlier Q got ignored so here goes again: does V3 still have "Clip" mode? Does it sound as transparent as it did for V2?

you may as well just RTFM at the manufacturer website

but, to summarize.... yes, it does have clip mode...

[ISedlacek]

I just tried Elephant 3 and compared to my commonly used Sonnox limiter and I to my surprise I must say I liked Elephant 3 better on the album I am mastering now (while I prefered Sonnox to the Elephant 2 long time ago - this Elephant 3 must have some sound improvements ?) . Fuller and more natural sounding, while sonnox sounds a bit "squeezed", slightly aritificial and "metallic" comparing to it. Breathes less as if ... I was quite pleased. Today I also tried the new Sonalksis limiter - well, I did not like it much: a bit "weak" sound and effort comparing to these two to my ears ...

[Aleksey Vaneev]

While monitoring internet discussion activity about Voxengo plug-ins I've landed here. Thanks for opinions - positive or negative. For me, even positive is not usually enough, and so I do have some playing-cards under sleeve. Let's see how both Sonalksis and Ozone 4 limiters "fire". It's a competition after all.

[bcgood]

Originally Posted by ISedlacek

I just tried Elephant 3 and compared to my commonly used Sonnox limiter and I to my surprise I must say I liked Elephant 3 better on the album I am mastering now (while I prefered Sonnox to the Elephant 2 long time ago - this Elephant 3 must have some sound improvements ?) . Fuller and more natural sounding, while sonnox sounds a bit "squeezed", slightly aritificial and "metallic" comparing to it. Breathes less as if ... I was quite pleased. Today I also tried the new Sonalksis limiter - well, I did not like it much: a bit "weak" sound and effort comparing to these two to my ears ...

Yea, great way to describe it. I also find the Elephant 3 to be very smooth and full sounding. Basically you have to know how to set up everything properly with all of the options but you can dial in a very nice sound with this plug in. It's better than Elephant 2 from my tests and Bob Katz mentions Elephant 2 in his book saying that it "performs very well." That says a lot to me.

[thermos]

Originally Posted by ISedlacek

I just tried Elephant 3 and compared to my commonly used Sonnox limiter and I to my surprise I must say I liked Elephant 3 better on the album I am mastering now (while I prefered Sonnox to the Elephant 2 long time ago - this Elephant 3 must have some sound improvements ?) . Fuller and more natural sounding, while sonnox sounds a bit "squeezed", slightly aritificial and "metallic" comparing to it. Breathes less as if ... I was quite pleased. Today I also tried the new Sonalksis limiter - well, I did not like it much: a bit "weak" sound and effort comparing to these two to my ears ...

Ivo, have you ever tried the Ozone limiter? I liked the new Elephant limiter ok, probably better than any other limiter, but it seems to suck some air out regardless of setting (I know that matters to you too). Ozone is the only limiter (in intelligent mode) that doesn't seem to do that.

[ISedlacek]

Originally Posted by thermos

Ivo, have you ever tried the Ozone limiter? I liked the new Elephant limiter ok, probably better than any other limiter, but it seems to suck some air out regardless of setting (I know that matters to you too). Ozone is the only limiter (in intelligent mode) that doesn't seem to do that.

You see, once I tried to try it, but the system of controls was so weird to me, that I was not able to do anything with it, so I somehow gave up ...

[bcgood]

I've used Ozone, I didn't like it. Some of the features sounded ok and others didn't sound very good at all. YMMV

[thermos]

Originally Posted by bcgood

I've used Ozone, I didn't like it. Some of the features sounded ok and others didn't sound very good at all. YMMV

Only the limiter and dither. Those are the only features worth mentioning imo. Set the mode to intelligent, and the character slider on the low side (I do somewhere between .4 and 1). Still completely unbeatable as a limiter to me, although Ozone 4 will have dual mono, which is huge.

[bcgood]

Originally Posted by thermos

Only the limiter and dither. Those are the only features worth mentioning imo. Set the mode to intelligent, and the character slider on the low side (I do somewhere between .4 and 1). Still completely unbeatable as a limiter to me, although Ozone 4 will have dual mono, which is huge.

I'll have to try it again limiting it to just the limiter.

[JPeters86]

Originally Posted by thermos

Only the limiter and dither. Those are the only features worth mentioning imo. Set the mode to intelligent, and the character slider on the low side (I do somewhere between .4 and 1). Still completely unbeatable as a limiter to me, although Ozone 4 will have dual mono, which is huge.

Have you tried the Sonnox Limiter?

[bmanic]

Originally Posted by cichy

hmmm

elephant 3 seems to add something else to bass .
its also easy to get sound distorted

Voxengo Elephant 3.0 as brickwall - NO

Huh? I'd be interested in hear what you think distorts less easily than Elephant v3 at the same loudness. In my experience Elephant is about as clean as it gets (provided that you know how to tweak it, but you can start with the "Master Punch" preset for most modern pop/rock stuff).

Perhaps the "adds something to bass" that you hear is actually Elephant being transparent compared to other limiters that seem to take away or distort the bass. Elephant retains the frequency spectrum of the original signal better than most in my opinion.

Cheers!
bManic

[thermos]

Originally Posted by JPeters86

Have you tried the Sonnox Limiter?

I did, I didn't like it. Personal preference of course.

[electro]

Originally Posted by cichy

for me version 2 with x4 oversampling is still winner over elephant 3 on stereo buss
although elephant 3 does great job on tracks

Which mode are you using to make El2 sound better than El3?

[Aleksey Vaneev]

Elephant2's EL-2 mode can be recreated for 99.9% in Elephant3 by selecting EL-UNI mode, setting knee to 0, transshape to 0, EL Dyn to OFF, and disabling the Release stage. Elephant2's EL-3 mode can be achieved as well, but you have to enable the Release stage.

I'm a bit wondering myself how can Elephant2 be more preferrable if you follow these guidelines. Perhaps you can advise me which of these elements (knee,transshape,EL Dyn, Release) that are set by default in Elephant3 make things sound worse in comparison to Elephant2.

[bcgood]

Originally Posted by Aleksey Vaneev

Elephant2's EL-2 mode can be recreated for 99.9% in Elephant3 by selecting EL-UNI mode, setting knee to 0, transshape to 0, EL Dyn to OFF, and disabling the Release stage. Elephant2's EL-3 mode can be achieved as well, but you have to enable the Release stage.

I'm a bit wondering myself how can Elephant2 be more preferrable if you follow these guidelines. Perhaps you can advise me which of these elements (knee,transshape,EL Dyn, Release) that are set by default in Elephant3 make things sound worse in comparison to Elephant2.

Great work Aleksey, I think Elephant 3 rocks! Sounds much more spacious and organic to me now.

[E-Irizarry]

Originally Posted by bcgood

I've used Ozone, I didn't like it. Some of the features sounded ok and others didn't sound very good at all. YMMV

Originally Posted by bcgood

Great work Aleksey, I think Elephant 3 rocks! Sounds much more spacious and organic to me now.

Ozone 3 is only good for dry/wet filtering and plate reverb IMHO.

I use Elephant 3 for organic fullness with Spectra´PHY right after it for analogue uber-clarity as the end of my mastering chain.

[virtualaudio]

Elephant 3 seems a big improvement over 2, with it's increased tweak-ability and better LP oversampling.
I agree though that the led meters take a bit of getting used to; I preferred the Elephant 2 meters; you could really see when just the transients were being suppressed and when the body of the music was being limited; 3 is less obvious. I understand the concept of standardizing the various plugin interfaces, but in this case, I liked the old metering system better.
Still, Aleksey deserves major kudos for his continued improvements on so many excellent products, and all at very reasonable prices.
Can't wait for a 5+ band linear phase dynamic EQ and/or compressor with thresholds, if he ever chooses to make one. Soniformer is nice, but tricky to work with, especially the attack and release settings in relation to the peak/env and 'fluffy' settings, and you can only define one threshold (per band); also, it doesn't seem to be LP.
still:
Voxengo rocks!

[bcgood]

Originally Posted by virtualaudio

Elephant 3 seems a big improvement over 2, with it's increased tweak-ability and better LP oversampling.
I agree though that the led meters take a bit of getting used to; I preferred the Elephant 2 meters; you could really see when just the transients were being suppressed and when the body of the music was being limited; 3 is less obvious.

I agree with this. I prefer the Elephant 2 meters as well. I also preferred the Elephant 2 dials, they where easier to turn with more accuracy.

[macc]

Finally tried this out. I bought it without trying it cos of the price, the fact I knew it would be good , and that Aleksey deserves support.

My first impressions (after 20 minutes or so trying this against PSP Xenon) - wow. I really REALLY like it, a lot. the twekability of transient response is worth the price of admission, but I really like all the features. Dyn mode especially - lovely!

Agreed about the UI though - the old knobs felt less 'twitchy', but I am sort of gettin used to the meters.

Great work!