L316 has potential?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ove Karlsen
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Ove Karlsen

Ove Karlsen

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I am testing Waves L316, since manybands-limiters are a powerful concept.

http://www.ovekarlsen.com/tmp/L316-test.wav

It is quite good, maybe slightly noisy. One can wonder why Waves did not include longer lookahead option, for this manybands limiter. Also some more general controls, would be good, the priority section is already quite good.

What do you think? Do you think there are better manybands limiters? Or what do you think is the best traditional 3-8 band multiband?

PBWY
 
I think most would argue that there are no "traditional" maul-the-band - er, "multiband" limiters.
 
Massive Master said:
I think most would argue that there are no "traditional" maul-the-band - er, "multiband" limiters.
Click to expand...

I agree.

On that note John, I am curious if you had a chance to check out the Paul Frindle plug-in offering....the ProAudioDSP DSM V2....?

Plugin Allaiance has been doing these daily holiday specials...and I picked it up for $99, but have yet to try it, though the video demo made it interesting enough for me.
It's not your typical multiband comp, and they talk about the issues with maul-the-band comps, and how the DSM does things differently, using "spectrum capture" of both frequency-domain and the dynamic characteristics of mixes.

http://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/plugins/detail/dynamic_spectrum_mapper_v2.html
 
I agree that multibands do not always work. But traditional multiband = 3-8 bands typically with attack and release, and the usual controls. While ofcourse in more recent manyband-limiters more general ideas can be applied, from a psychoacoustic perspective. For instance, maximal limiting, without audible movement in the bands. And when CPU gets to be enough, someone will probably realize a zerocross manybands limiter, that does perfect limiting :)

I have also tried some FFT manyhband stuff, but they are inharmonic. Is "DSM" different?

Many/Multibands, no doubt have been much responsible for the "loudness war" argument. However for peak processing, theoretically more bands = better. But one needs to do something sensible with that aswell.

A traditional compressor before can ofcourse also be very nice.

Peace Be With You.
 
traditional multiband = 3-8 bands typically with attack and release, and the usual controls
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What I meant by "no traditional" MBL's is that I honestly don't know of a single mastering engineer that uses one with any regularity. I know they're constantly marketed as some "secret weapon" (just like maul-the-band compressors have been - and still are I guess).
John, I am curious if you had a chance to check out the Paul Frindle plug-in offering....the ProAudioDSP DSM V2
Click to expand...
Can't say I have.
 
Massive Master said:
What I meant by "no traditional" MBL's is that I honestly don't know of a single mastering engineer that uses one with any regularity. I know they're constantly marketed as some "secret weapon" (just like maul-the-band compressors have been - and still are I guess).

Can't say I have.
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I didn´t use them for a long time myself, actually either. But the manybands-processes are a bit interesting, so I have tried them. And multiband sometimes are genre-correct.

I did a master on a track, that was genre correct, without multiband. Just oldschool "drive the input, to the point of no objectionable distortion", using a softclipper. But had some problems getting as loud as modern masters. When listening to it, I found that peaks could be softened a bit with multiband though. And that got me loud enough, and I don´t really feel that I sacrificed anything. The stuff in those days could be quite brute, and in that respect, limiting is very nice. Some tweaking to get it sounding right though :)

"Vintage Beat" - :)

PS: A problem with many limiters, and true for multiband also, is that when release is fast, peak is the same level as program. Which I have fixed in my own limiter, having a "peak through" section, and a good standard preset if you want to try it :)

PBWY
 
Millennium DSP :)

My own limiter is also getting ready.



With a litte mixtweaking, one gets it as loud as a boosted L316 master. So while manybands are an interesting concept, they are not necessary, and avoiding them also avoids an area of DSP that is yet not quite developed fully, while this limiter is perfected.

Read also more about my open-source project here: Engineering | Oves Blog

PBWY
 
I really love the FF MB pro plug in for multi-band, it's by far the best sounding and most transparent plug-in I've heard for the job, to the point where I'd say it's the best multiband compressor on the market for any money. I can literally perfect the sound.
 
Btyre2013 said:
I really love the FF MB pro plug in for multi-band, it's by far the best sounding and most transparent plug-in I've heard for the job, to the point where I'd say it's the best multiband compressor on the market for any money. I can literally perfect the sound.
Click to expand...

FabFilter Pro-MB - Multiband Compressor Plug-In VST VST3 AU AAX RTAS AudioSuite

Looks like a traditional multiband. Fabfilter actually did a saturated attack, after I did mine way back many years ago. Maybe they have some sense :) I can always try it.

PBWY
 
Ok. I just tried it. I did not load normally in Logic Audio (5, win). But I could wrap it in EnergyXT VST. Smooth FFT display on my low-jitter windows XP. But as I try to do basic 3 band limiting, to test it a bit, the GUI gets abit in the way, too much colours, and bouncy GUI elements. I thought about this the other day: With so many people trying to do VST plugins, maybe the obscurity level should be tried minimized as much as possible. Due to obscure GUIs, inane marketingspeech etc, I rarely even try VST plugins anymore :)

But.. yes there is some sense here. One obvious thing is a lookahead setting, that many forget. Turning lookahead up on midrange ;)

For someone who neither believes in gay, or love at all, but God, the GUI is not that good, but if you need a traditional multiband, it actually might be one of the better I have tried.

With all bands set to knee off, linearphase filters, no attack, fast release, full range, it sounds like a typical multiband, doing peak limiting, Which the plugin seems to do ok.

If one uses a similar setup many times, maybe the GUI is not such a problem though.

Attaching my own limiter after, and linearphase eq before, easily gives a sound, fairly wellknown from TC and similar.

http://www.ovekarlsen.com/tmp/fftest_idonot.wav

:)

PBWY!
 
I tested it a bit more, and found it to sound ok up to 4 bands, but after that bandsplitting artifacts become too much. The L316 is a much better manybands process, than this at 10, but for 3-4 bands, it is quite ok.

PBWY.
 
Or actually combining the manyband, for purely peaks, and the multiband, for a bit more processing, to a singleband would be the best.

Which then probably approximating optimal bandsplits with 24dB LR splits, will make this feasible.

PBWY.
 
Talking about food, I just ate some salami and sweet chili on bread. Delicious.
 
What I am going to be aiming at is something like this, I suppose:

The Fabfilter also sounds much better with a linearphase EQ after, personally I prefer my own gaussian.

Mastersection here is, highpass, EQ, L316, EQ, Fabfilter w/ 4 bands, EQ, Millennium Limiter.



PBWY.
 
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