Yes, if you can get past the GUI (not fond of the metering), the sound is terrific. It's my favorite.

I have also used DDMF NoLimits and Toneboosters Barricade. Ignore the price and listen. These are both excellent products.

Maybe you're someone who can hear the differences, but they are a lot more subtle than you're letting on. There have been many people bragging about their analog gear and how great it sounds, only to fail blind listening tests.

In a level-matched listening test the differences between the better products and analog gear are very slight, and in many cases the digital product is the preferred sound.

Dean

Aom or fabfilter!

my customers beg to differ, but let's not discuss here, plenty of other topics.

I'm not sure if you are familiar with this, so I will mention that you can run the other products in Pro Tools using a VST to AAX wrapper. DDMF has MetaPlugin, and Blue Cat has Patchwork. Pretty much every VST I've tried has worked except one freeware plugin that has no GUI.

FYI.

Dean

It's pretty easy to convince people of the benefits of hardware over software in an uncontrolled environment. There are several YouTube videos of people showing how much better their hardware XYZ product is than the software emulation, trying to drum up business. I find them entertaining.

In every case, the level matching is off by (minimum) 1-2 db. Of course the analog version is louder, and preferred.

Even the finest mastering engineers do a lot of their work ITB these days.

Dean

My favourite limiter has been Ozone (any version from 3 and up). Mainly because it does clipping which I've noticed seems to be the best way of limiting modern hard-hitting mixes.

Have to recommend v4 of Elephant, another significant improvement over v3, very tweakable.

I can't find anything that keeps the song sounding natural while increasing the volume better than pro tools plugin Maxim.

I use Maxim across my output buss to prevent overloads, but have never tried any real "mastering" task with it. Part of that is due to the fact that I don't use Pro Tools for mastering most of the time, and Maxim is AAX only. But I'll have to give it a shot.

I like the UI quite a bit.

Elephant 4 is great. My mastering engineer thinks it's excellent but prefers Pro-L by a small margin. In any case, what I would get from the ME would be better than what I could do with any of these, and no matter what he was using...just for perspective.

Dang, made me remember that I have four tracks that still need the ME!

Got nothing to really add to the debate, but just thought I'd say:

I'm liking the yohng.com W1 Clone, on the master bus just for transparently catching overs. Works good on tracks too.

Elephant 3 is still doing it for me in a big way. I'll upgrade at some point. Not in any hurry.

TB Barricade is still mighty fine.


I'm not spending any more money on plugins, though I will stretch to the Elephant update coz I'm a massive Voxengo fan and got lots of his plugs.

In fact, I'm still learning how to use Elephant and Barricade.

But yeah, include the FR-LIMIT eaReckon FREE87, free analog-style VST effect plug-ins updated

and LoudMax LoudMax

and I couldn't be happier.

I've got Ozone 5 if I need it, but overall I would say Elephant 3 is more than I need.

Arksun. I'm really intrigued by this.

When Elephant 3 came out, everyone said it was the pinnacle of Limiting and could never be bettered. That is was all you would ever need.

Then when version 4 came out, all of a sudden, that all went out the window, and version 3 really wasn't that good any more. I realise we are talking degrees here, but still...

My question to you is, just what is better in version 4 compared to 3? And is it really such a major leap? I mean, I can do silly gain adjustments in Elephant 3. It has the added benefits of DC correction etc., so just what is so great about version 4?

I ask this humbly and respectfully. I'm looking to upgrade pretty soon to v.4, just coz I like to keep my Voxengo plugs updated anyway. I've read all the reviews, so it's not like I haven't done my homework, I'm just interested to hear a grass roots, down to earth reason why I should upgrade.

I'm a big fan of your work so I'm really curious to hear your opinion, if you got the time to spare.

I'm not in my studio so can't open up Elephant v4 to give you the exact names/details, so sorry for that.
But as someone who had v3 and then went to v4, the main improvement is the one (or two?) new modes/algos.
That is basically all I use now, the new algo.
So that is one undeniable addition to v4.

I've got basically every ITB limiter known to man
On current mastering projects I'm using Elephant v4, sometimes followed by Elixir to catch any ISPs.

Hope this helps a little.

Yes, thanks for that. That was pretty much the concensus I got from other reviews and threads around the place. I think I must have ears made of cloth or perhaps just a poor monitoring system, but I don't hear much difference between the algos in V3, well maybe a bit on some of them - they are pretty obvious. I guess I just need to buy the latest version and see for myself.

cheers.

While we're about it, how would you rate Elephant amongst all your other plugs?

Are there any other reasonably priced Limiters you could recommend? I'm curious that's all.

Thanks.

I like Elephant a lot, it is my fav Voxengo plugin.

Reasonably priced Limiters that I would recommend?

ToneBoosters Barricade.

TB Barricade

Unbeatable value at EUR 19.95

I like Barricade, but it's not my first choice.

IMO the best reasonably priced Mastering Limiter is Vladg's Limiter 6. It's free, and superb. Versatile and powerful too. There is the compressor section, the limiter, the Hi-Freq compressor, the Clipper, and the protection against ISP's.

The UI, well, I wish the metering was better. But the sound and flexibility are among the best at any price. Did I mention that it's free?

Just get it.

Dean

Yep, can't argue with that Dean, better price for sure

I've got it and use it mainly for the HF Limiter.

In fact, I'd forgotten I had it when I suggested TB Barricade (which may indicate I have too many Limiter plugins !)

cheers

Barricade is excellent too, and also very inexpensive. But Limiter6 sounds a little better on many things for me. And the multiband mode, while it isn't very flexible, is clean and really nice on those mixes that need the bottom end cleaned up a bit.

Dean

I guess it depends on what you want, I want a limiter to be as transparent and as little intrusive as possible.
Loudness is generally achieved BEFORE the limiter, I really don't think one should judge a limiter on how forgiving it's input gain and saturation algorithm is. Also "mojo" or "phatness" are IMHO again things tuned before we enter the limiter. Limiter must catch overs and ISP's have some form of release controll to tweak against source material and further be clean clean clean.
I understand the market for MOJO polishers doing several jobs at once, but i've yet to hear one that beats a decent chain.

I think Limiter 6 is a very good limiter plugin and I have been using it a lot. But in the end, I prefer Fabfilter Pro-L. I have the feeling it handles the transients slightly better. I also prefer the GUI and the way it actually shows you visually what it is doing. Sure, we have to use our ears, but it's a nice bonus for me anyway. heh

Just have to echo Beatworlds opinion, just really like the new EL-4 algorithm, sounds more transparent and I like how the transient and release controls have been expanded. Plus you have a realtime waveform and reduction graph now as well.

Thanks for the reply. I'm sorry, I probably should have said, I have Barricade. In fact, I think I have pretty much everything Jeroen has done, bar a few of his latest tricks, which I'll get in a bit.

Barricade is great. Good taste.

Cheers for the reply Arksun.

You seem to echo what everyone says, so I'm guessing it must be true about that new EL-4 algorithm. My ears are made of cloth when it comes to stuff like this, but I know a good mix when I hear it, if that makes sense.

Perhaps at this very high end of stuff it is really dependent on the program material you are using. And also I suspect you have a monitoring system/room that you are familiar with and trust. I don't have that, so maybe I'm being a bit harsh on myself.

Anyway, thanks for the input, I'll get v4 pretty soon I think just to check that new algo out. Also what you said about the realtime waveform graph is intriguing. I know that there was something like that in v3, so it will be interesting to see how it differs. No big deal. Aleksey is one of my favourite devs and I got quite a few of his toys. So many people say now that v4 is much better. I think this seals it for me.


Thanks.