Welcome to the Mastering Limiter Mega Test. Audio was sent through each plugin with extreme gain (+16db) to test the dynamics and sound quality. Not much mucking around was done inside the plugin. In the case of the Sonnox plugin, some soft knee was used. The Brainworx Limiter plugin was confusing and I believe it wasn’t good for my test since it had saturation. Had I used the XL v2 I might have had better results.

Mastering Limiter Test Shootout by stealthgear

This is a completely different use for limiters than my drum squashing test. While it was okay to have some distortion when mixing drums, I don’t believe its acceptable in a digital mastering limiter. The A.O.M. Limiter and Brainworx Limiter plugins weren’t what I was looking for.

Plugins that retained dynamics were preferred (5-6db was excellent). The free LoudMax plugin performed excellently with top scores in dynamics. Ozone 5 sounded great, but it had an average range. Some mucking around might improve it. Ozone is a great plugin suite with many controls. Sonnox was a top performer with top dynamics. Even the free Apple AUPeakLimiter was excellent. The Waves plugins worked fine, but each had some interesting characteristics that may be unwanted in a master recording. It depends on the application. L3 is an insane limiter and will work with specific genres. Further tests with different content may be needed. I’d stick with the tried & true Sonnox OR the LoudMax is just as good if you haven’t the cash or the time to muck around.

Winners: Sonnox Oxford & LoudMax, L3 Maximizer.

http://www.propellerheads.se/products/reason/new/

A new rack adds midi. You can even control your gear with its internal CV!

This program looks like the holy grail of music making. I have been experimenting in other programs and hardware instruments for a long time, but nothing was as good for sampling and effects than Reason. I think I’ll be purchasing a new copy.

“Musical ideas are prisoners, more than one might believe, of musical devices.” - Pierre Schaeffer, 1977

Remember that someone, somewhere, has made your accomplishment obsolete or has plans to do so in the next month. Your work with the microprocessor is fully automated and tagged, only to be experienced years later. Your music is a data object. It was created by software. You told it to release digital waste and now the data and noise is stored on the internet forever. Its obsolete.

Artists will release their music in object form in the future. Fans will manipulate recorded samples as panning vectors with embedded effects programming. Full audio plugins will be encoded inside the music files. No longer will slicing, filtering, and cutting be required.

Anti-DRM Pirates will decode studio released soundtracks back into objects. Remixed movie soundtracks will be recreated at basic levels. Home users will rival the studio mixers talent and make their names through custom sound mixes available through sharing sites.

We need a new musical language that allows anyone to tweak the inner workings of our recordings. Cut & Chop sampling, Melodyne, time-stretching, and filtered remixing was just the beginning. Welcome to the world of sound object programming where all your outside musical skill and hardware is useless and your imagination is truly unlimited.

Here is a neat page where I found the top image of Laurie Spiegal.