Home "Mastering" Limiter Plugin Shootout!

[wedge]

Here are the contenders:

Ozone (the limiter included therein); and

Massey L2007

I'm using ProTools... Which choice is the better, and why? I've got my suspicions, but I'd like to get a sampling of opines before I take the plunge...

[inverseroom]

You might consider adding Voxengo Elephant to the list...I use both it and the Ozone limiter, and boy, they are both great, at least in my view.

[iC]

Also FinalPlug 5 from wave arts has a nice variety of dither options, as well as a powerful and clean limiter, just stay away from the auto release... it works and all, but one should really tailor release times to the music...

[@?,*???&?]

Finalizer or bust for home mastering.

I did not just say that.

[leigh]

Here are the contenders:

Ozone (the limiter included therein); and

Massey L2007

I'm using ProTools... Which choice is the better, and why? I've got my suspicions, but I'd like to get a sampling of opines before I take the plunge...

The Massey is $89 or free (for full and demo versions, respectively). I love it.

I haven't heard the Ozone, but if all you want is a limiter, you're paying for more than that with the Ozone package. I'd love to play around with it, but for simple, home "mastering", I keep it simple with just some limiting and dither anyways... so while Ozone's many options would be fun, I don't think they're stuff I would reach for in most quick and dirty situations.

Massey doesn't have it's own dithering, but in PT you've got the POWr plug-in.

I'm mostly just spewing facts here, nothing that you couldn't already know from reading the product lit.

Ozone's got a pretty good demo available, maybe I'll try it out one of these days...

http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/o ... wnload.asp

Leigh

[inverseroom]

Man, I hope smassey goes VST one of these days...

...and you go PC, Leigh...

[auralman]

In all fairness, you have to include the L2.

Also, from a mastering perspective, why limiters? It's not like a mastering engineer plugs in one device, twiddles with it, and calls it a day? I personally abandoned mastering engineers years ago after way too many disappointing experiences, now do my own and after some serious honesty sessions and trial and error, I've got a few combos I try in plugin world that yeild some yummy results. I'll usually start with either one multi-band compressor or two or three different compressors keyed to different frequencies (the difference being one compressor vs. a couple different ones. Then EQ land, then a limiter, then a compressor, then another limiter. This gives me a very very very fine level of control, and some great results.

Plugins?
IK Multimedia TRacks EQ and compressor
Massey C2 Stereo
Massey L2007
Waves L2
Renaissance Compressor
Digidesign compressor (the one that comes with PT7.X)
Massey EQ


I'd love to play with the UA stuff, but I don't have the $ for it. Same applies for the URS stuff (and the McDSP stuff I hear....). The above was all I could afford. But I'm getting great results with it, especially the Massey EQ, the TRacks compressor and the Massey compressor. I find I don't reach much for the limiters if I've gain staged everything well up to that point. I might tickle it for 1db here or there, but it's pretty minimal. Whatever - sorry if this is post-jacking.

[leigh]

Man, I hope smassey goes VST one of these days...

...and you go PC, Leigh...

Aye aye, cap'n.

[8th_note]

I can vouch for Ozone. It's got several modules and I've used them all at one time or another. It's a serious learning curve but the Ozone Mastering Guide is a great resource.

[electric sound of jim]

I've used these:

Ozone
L1, L2, L3
Massey (briefly)
Wave Arts
UAD Precision

The UAD is far and away my favourite. I liked my brief demo of the Massey but I've never really put it through its paces.

[wedge]

I was actually hoping to get a side-by-side comparison of the Ozone *limiter* versus the Massey limiter. I realize that Ozone does a lot more, but I want to start my home mastering chain with a good limiter. Which one's better and why-diddly-eye?

[inverseroom]

I was actually hoping to get a side-by-side comparison of the Ozone *limiter* versus the Massey limiter. I realize that Ozone does a lot more, but I want to start my home mastering chain with a good limiter. Which one's better and why-diddly-eye?

Why don't you try the

MIIIISSSSSSTAAAAHHHHHH SPAHHHHHKKKKLE LIMITAHHHHHHHHH!

That you're advertising in your av?

[Soundmonkey]

My $.02

I have Ozone and have found it useful as a channel strip plugin. I've had good luck with it when some serious surgery needs to be done, making bad kick sounds useable for instance. It offers a lot of flexibility.
I guess it's just the interface and having all the elements together in one place that lets you try a lot of things fast to save crappy source tracks.(yes some of the bad sounds were recorded by me )
It's also cool that you can reorder all the modules. Kind of high latency though.

I've used it for DIY mastering but can't comment on its relative quality as far that that goes.

-Matt

[wedge]

MIIIISSSSSSTAAAAHHHHHH SPAHHHHHKKKKLE LIMITAHHHHHHHHH!

Your avatar scares me... reminds me of the Ring, which scared the Jabesus out of me...

[markitzero]

I recently purchased the Massey limiter, and while it sounds amazing, I ended up using the L2 on a metal record I just finished. I would definitely choose the Massey over the L2 for most things, but sometimes that weird, overly-tight, heart-attack inducing, extreme limiting that the L2 is capable of is just what the doctor ordered. That was a weird description, but I think it sums up the L2 quite nicely.