Best non Waves L2 brickwall limiter for VST.

[edIT]

Any suggestions? Tried the Elemental Audio. I'm impressed, tried the Wave Arts, that ones alright. Anymore? I'm not gonna be using it on my stereo bus. mainly gonna be using it on my Input fader so that Cubase doeesn't clip when recording. In other word I'm not gonna be using it to slam anything. The thresh won't be dropped. I just need a sick transparent brickwall plugin that will not let anything go above the ceiling.

[oranges]

I dont use the EAS Finis for slamming tracks, its pretty rotten for slamming above -12dB. It is however a good limiter just for peaks and I've occasionaly used it to straighten out guide vocals into final cuts with it. I usually put it over most problem tracks and esp. on the 2buss directly after Voxengo Elephant. It is good but their may be other freeware alternative out there that you might like such as the DigitalFishPhones Fillet pack; a lot of people swear by them.

[Teacher]

Timeworks Mastering Compressor

[edIT]

I heard Timeworks is great but I'm a Mac guy. And in response to orange's reply. I'm not slamming tracks either. Most of the slamming happens on my Crane Song STC-8 then hitting mmy Apogee Rosetta 800. I'm basically putting a bricwall on the input fader of Cubase so that the "program itself" does not clip. I know it sounds kind of crazy, but the Apogee's have a high tolerance when being hit hard and sometimes the pops and clicks are coming from the DAW itself, and when putting something like a Waves L2 etc... on the input fader with no threshold dropped etc..... It pretty much just stops the overs dead in their tracks. And that's essentially what I'm looking for. A brickwall just to sit there and do it's job (not let anything pass the ceiling) without sounding like crap. Will try out some of your guys' suggestions.

[dasbin]

Er...

Digital clipping generally occurs at the A/D stage. Putting a brickwall on your input fader isn't going to do jack about it. You just have to watch your levels, period.

Of course it can also occur on output if any of your tracks has content flatlined at 0db. But Cubase mixes at 32 bit so you're not going to get any internal clipping, either. So long as your master buss doesn't clip, you're set. I'm not sure why you think that you're getting software clipping; it's impossible unless you're clipping the master buss or a plugin somewhere that only does 24-bit-integer. And all of that can be fixed by just turning down the levels.
In other words, worry about clipping on the way in and the way out, not in between (except for the usual good gain staging of course). A VST limiter tagged into your input isn't going to help anything.

You need a fast hardware limiter before the A/D if you want to really eliminate any chance of clipping.

[edIT]

yeah generaly clipping does occur at the A/D, but the "program itself" also has a tendency to clip and be less tolerant. I don't realy know the science of it, but you'll just have to try it. I have an Apogee and it is very tolerant to hot levels, and will not break up uless you sending machine gun fire through the thing. Cubase on the other hand is not as tolerant. And on numerous occasions I have been able to avoid pops and clicks by simply putting an L2 on the input channel. I knw it sounds crazy. But try it. And I said I can't break down the science of it, but I know it just works. And even though you don't get overs with no L2 plugin on the input channel (the channel comes in as a straight brick), I can't describe it, but I will not get pops and clicks with the thing on. Sounds cray I know and completely makes no sense in theory. But it works.

[spherop]

voxengo elephant - prefer it over anything i've tried including l2.

[TheSweetener]

Even if I don't believe that Cubase causes these problems, why don't you try to turn down the Cubase inputfader to -0.1 db instead of wasting CPU power with several limiter plugins?