Originally Posted by HankRhodes ➡️

:D :D :D
Someone who made this parody is a genius

Originally Posted by Username TBD ➡️

If you want anything from adaptr audio, shadow hills, or black box, and don't want to buy from PA, you can now pick them up at plugin boutique.

IIRC dear reality also removed one of their plugins from the PA store.

I guess there may have been some exclusive listing arrangements with PA that recently expired.

Originally Posted by Dr Gruv ➡️

I wish PSP would make an installer like PA or other companies. I miss the emails of updates.

Originally Posted by musicman691 ➡️

I use limiters as a safety valve and never just to raise the apparent level of anything. Not into that kind of thing and certainly not in the realm of Death Magnetic. BTW Lars did acknowledge that he was the cause of that overblown mix engineering for what he told the engineer to do.

I use a limiter on my drum bus - actually I have two drum busses. One that collects all the feeds from the individual tracks which feeds a second drum bus and has a send to a separate drum verb track which returns to drum bus 2. Both busses get a limiter. Either Pro L2 or the SSL Limiter. Yes I have others but they don't get used.

My other use for a limiter is on my 2-bus and that's always Pro L2. All my limiters are set at either -.2dB or -.5dB.

Compressor on the 2-bus. That can be the SHMC green or red and sometimes an SSL bus comp emulation. Compressors on tracks and busses as needed but ONLY as needed. Just like eq's I don't put compressors on everything.

Clippers - NEVER! Just not my cup of Earl Grey (hot).

Originally Posted by tempsperdu ➡️

Do many of you use limiters on most of what you produce?

Originally Posted by Eigenwert ➡️

Apparently we now are on the page number which equals the year when Hitler came to power.

Originally Posted by greggybud ➡️

Like others, my limiter is mostly for protection at the end. Occasionally I use it on individual tracks for more of an effect.

I have read of some people here who always mix into heavier limiting because you then have a better idea of how the finished track will sound...continuously working through out the project. I have never done it that way and doubt I ever would.

One thing I feel that still gets overlooked regarding limiters and loudness; There is a relatively small group of mix engineers who work with a relatively small group of MEs on a very regular basis. However they amount for a large proportion of commercial releases. You see the same names all the time. The mix engineer will know in advance what the ME is going to do. The ME will know what the mix engineer has typically already done, and naturally where it should end up.

Mix engineers know the basics of song composition. They know what elements or instruments work together and what elements distracts or contradicts. They know what to place where, and when to leave something completely out. And they know who is in charge, usually the producer or A&R guy and their ultimate expectations. The few final pre-mastered mixes I have heard, its like it's really 98% there.

Because of the above, pop mixes are usually delivered to a ME relatively "hot."

This makes the work of an ME much easier with focus on cohesion, balancing tracks, technical errors etc. There will be extra volume achieved in limiting, but it's not like what I think I people often assume.

I attribute this issue to slick plug-in marketing where users, unlike professionals, attempt to get majority of volume at the limiting stage. There is a hobbyist demand for quick and easy limiting. For years there has been continual limiter competition among developers to get the most volume with the least nasty artifacts.

My poor forgotten yet transparent L-2...it's not worth much past maybe 2-3db.

Originally Posted by squig ➡️

We're revisiting 1939

Originally Posted by synesthetic ➡️

Some you should give a try are missing.
DMG Limtless - usually in the top 5 of lists
AOM Invisible Limiter - comes up frequently
Newfangled Audio Elevate - bundle but powerful, my go to
sonible smart:limit - AI but who gives a f
Weiss Maximizer - maximizer but nice
Voxengo Elephant
Edit: Forgot DSM V3

Originally Posted by Fleer ➡️

Ist er wieder da?

Originally Posted by starmaker ➡️

It's very interesting that you return the verb track to drum bus 2. I will have to try that. Thank you for the insight.

I was wondering if you do re-amping with external guitar pedals

Originally Posted by squig ➡️

Nobody ever talks about DDMF NoLimits2, a bit surprising given all the love here for MagicDeathEye. It's been my go to limiter for the last year or so replacing TDR Limiter 6 GE.

Originally Posted by tempsperdu ➡️

Just curious, mainly because I haven't got very far in my understanding of when to use limiters / clippers / compression etc. Do many of you use limiters on most of what you produce?

Originally Posted by tempsperdu ➡️

Funny you should mention that, I was looking at it a couple of hours ago, and even though I'm totally inexperienced, it stood out from the others I tried.

Originally Posted by squig ➡️

I put a limiter at the end of my mixbus chain from the get go. Some plugin volume knobs are horrible to control (Acustica :cough and without a limiter you can get some nasty volume spikes. I put the limiter second last in my chain before Airwindows TPDFWide (ditherer).

Before the limiter I usually stack a couple of compressors and a tape plugin, all not doing much gain reduction individually. Lately: Kush Blyss > Kazrog True 252 > Lindell SBC > London Acoustics Taipei > DDMF NoLimits2 > MetricAB > TPDFWide

I also use limiters on channels and sub-busses, not on everything though. I used NoLimits2 on almost every voice on a recent TVC.

Originally Posted by tempsperdu ➡️

Just curious, mainly because I haven't got very far in my understanding of when to use limiters / clippers / compression etc. Do many of you use limiters on most of what you produce?

Originally Posted by kindafishy ➡️

Interested to see where this discussion goes.

For me, it's no rules and the music dictates what it needs.

I use high ratio compression (so limiting) at times as an option when I want to reduce crest factor of low to low mid frequency instruments and vocals when I don't want to dig into the RMS energy. In other words, for controlling peaks on non-percussive, longer wave form sources. Choice is mostly about character, so the same as why any particular compressor would be chosen.

I don't really reach for the type of limiter that has been traditionally marketed in the plugin world as a dedicated limiter, so things like a lot of the stuff being mentioned in people's lists here are not plugins that I have or use.

I don't master, I mix and I do try to maintain clean headroom at the track, group bus and mix bus level.

For a client mix, I do offer to 'bring tracks up to commercial distribution levels' for anyone who wants that but isn't going to be using mastering for one reason or another. I am careful not to call it mastering though, because I don't think that is what I am doing. For this purpose, and as the exception to my "I don't really reach for..." statement above, I am using smart limit as my last plugin on the mix bus if it is requested but I find I generally don't have to have it doing more than 1 or 2 dB to hit the 'target' that has been requested. I turn all the stuff off on it that it wants to do like channel unlinking, saturation, balance and bass control. I'll maybe tweak the style parameter a little. I like the metering and I find that with everything turned off it is quite transparent so it suits my purpose.

Prior to using smart limit, I wasn't using anything because I wasn't concerned about setting final levels. Just mixing.

If I was going to focus more on limiters as a final dynamic and loudness tool, my first choice would probably be TDR Limiter 6. I appreciate what goes into their tools based on a lot of the posts that FabienTDR has made over the years. His understanding of the limits and capabilities of digital and his ability to express that in the quality of his plugins is quite striking. Well, at least the way he talks about it makes it seem that way to me .

That, plus this great Dan Worrall video doesn't hurt either.



I'd grab Limter 6, learn how to get the most of it and then decide where to go from there (but only if it really didn't do something that I wanted it to do once I knew what I was doing with it), but in the meantime, smart limit is good because it is easy and it stays out of my way.

Originally Posted by Emokeez ➡️

I don’t think the microphone modelling will be useful for voice. It is basically the two-notes guitar cab simulation that has switchable mics. I don’t think it can be used for mic modelling alone for vocals.

And it is not USB powered, it needs the power supply due to the valve which runs at high voltages (a lot of cheaper audio gear with valves run the valves at lower voltages which don’t get the best out of the valve).

The best things about the interface, even at full price, are obviously guitar focussed but you can make good use of those features even without using the amp sim stuff.

the valve preamp would be nice to have. It’s a high voltage valve and can be used on guitar and the mic and line input as well. You can switch it off for mic/line so you only need to use it when it actually adds something good.

I’d imagine it will sound good with synths which I would use a lot. I also want to get back into playing guitar and like the fact you can use it without a computer, which is a minor thing for me but might work out to be genius. Just being able to play without the distractions of a DAW/computer reminds me of when I had the first POD. I used to just sit and play in the evenings and really enjoyed it even though I’m not much of a guitarist. I find the DAW too much of a distraction when you have so many options and then I’m off doing other things. Having three presets it’s perfect. Just choose one and play.

But the feature that interests me the most is the re-amping. I have been setting up a lot of my old gear recently and have set up a Patchbay which lets me route audio out of the DAW and through external fx. It turns out that that’s a lot of fun even if not strictly necessary but I’m in this for fun. If I spend a couple of hours farting about making things sound awful by running them through an old Alesis 3630 it’s time we’ll spent

And to get to the point; the reamping feature of the Sono ramps this up hugely as it would allow me to really easily run any audio from the DAW though guitar pedals as it sends out a guitar high impedance signal. This removes the need for additional DIs to convert signals and had the potential to make things really quick and frictionless. And running DAW tracks through guitar pedals is fun.

I’m guessing you can go straight from the out back through the guitar input to run existing tracks through the valve preamp as well. Might be fun to do that instead of using a preamp plugin?

Just the fact I’ve written so much here shows that there’s a lot of stuff in the interface the makes things interesting all for less £s than an entry level Audient interface. And even an entry level Audient should sound better than what I already have.

And it had ADAT inputs. You can get an old MOTI 2408 audio interface without the pci card for peanuts. At least you could last time I looked. And then you have an extra 8 crunchy 1990s 20 but converters as the converters of the 2408 works without the pci card.

And It got great reviews from guitarist focussed mags when it was released at full price. For £149 any drawbacks are minor and not relevant at the price and make it a worthwhile box to have even as a second interface or POD-u-like.

Anyway. I think I’ve sold one to myself.

Originally Posted by kindafishy ➡️

For me, it's no rules and the music dictates what it needs.

Originally Posted by Lights ➡️

Heh. Well, regardless of whether I end up buying one I hope you enjoy it. I'm primarily interested in the fact that this has a built in valve/tube for the mic input (and that it supposedly has a great headphone amp). I no longer have any outboard gear that the re-amp solution would support.
It also is interesting that it appears to produce two recording streams to the DAW simultaneously: one with the amp/mic modeling stuff printed, and one "dry." (Although if you switch the valve in, that is considered part of the dry signal, which is a bummer).
I sold my tube mic, so having a tube pre is attractive... but if I bought this, it would be my primary audio interface and I'm not sure that's what I need. I think I need a second headphone output more than a tube pre.

Originally Posted by squig ➡️

Nobody ever talks about DDMF NoLimits2, a bit surprising given all the love here for MagicDeathEye. It's been my go to limiter for the last year or so replacing TDR Limiter 6 GE.

Originally Posted by musicman691 ➡️

Last things first - my pedals aren't that clean. So once the guitar is in the box that's where it stays. Never got into the whole re-amp thing.

As to returning the verb track to drum bus 2 that's so I have total control of the drums and don't have to sweat things like soloing tracks and so on. It also allows me to totally drop out the drums with one click. I have one reverb for the whole kit to keep all kit pieces in the same sound environment.

Originally Posted by mark123 ➡️

I got SSL Drumstrip on one of their really good sales last year for about the same price as now.

Then, I thought, geez, why did I get this….probably another one to just collect more v-dust. However, I really have to agree with both of you! I was quite surprised how easy it was to get nice results from this. Very glad I got it! And as a bonus, one can get cableguys timeshaper for free from PB at present, which is also good!

Originally Posted by starmaker ➡️

I was wondering how you record the guitar then. Do you use a whole chain like for example Comp - > Distortion -> Modulation -> Delay -> Reverb, or do you save Modulation, Delay and Reverb for the DAW? I always have a feeling that Modulation, Delay and Reverb give me more control in the DAW than when I have those elements in a recording chain. And do you always record the guitar dry simulteneously?

I am gonna use your drum bus routing approach for my other parallel processing as well. I do agree soloing all those tracks is just a hassle. Thank you for the elaboration.