If the Loudness War taught us anything (is it safe to take our ear defenders off yet, by the way?), it's that maintaining dynamics in your mix is just as important as achieving a high volume level. What you need, then, is a master limiter that works with a certain amount of musical sensitivity.
Enter DMG Audio's Limitless, which we're assured is "not your traditional dynamics processor". This delivers multi-band dual-stage processing that's designed to separate dynamics and transients, generating smooth gain reduction curves and resulting in transparent limiting.
There's a minimalist vibe to the interface, and Limitless can operate in both simple and advanced modes.
Specs are below, and you can find out more in the video above. Further details can be found on the DMG Audio website, where Limitless can currently be purchased at the discounted price of £120. It's available for PC and Mac in VST/AU/AAX formats, and you can also download a demo.
DMG Audio Limitless features
Overview
- Cutting edge peak limiter to complete your mastering chain.
- Iterative solver algorithm provides the gentlest, most transparent limiting.
- Dual-stage dynamic handling separates transients and dynamics.
- Beautiful, minimalist user interface.
- Bit-transparent linear phase crossover.
- Inter-sample (True-) peak suppression.
- High-pass filter for DC removal.
- Simple and advanced modes: simple is click and bounce; advanced allows fine-grained control.
- 64x oversampled pre-limiter clipper with multiple clip algorithms.
- Noise-shaped dither with adjustable noise shaping intensity.
- Full integrated EBU R-128 Loudness metering.
- Extensive graphing and feedback.
- Windows VST, VST3 and AAX as 32+64bit, RTAS 32bit
- Mac VST, VST3, AU and AAX as 32+64bit, RTAS 32bit
Sound
- 6 band variable-slope Linear Phase crossover.
- State of the art iterative numerical solver for optimally smooth gain reduction.
- Dual-stage limiting to separate dynamics and transients.
- Style menu provides quick access to useful limiting characters.
- Variable stereo linkage.
- Full gain staging on input, clipper, limiter threshold and output ceiling.
- Master and per-band release controls.
- Loudness weighting control - to optimise for bass or perceptual loudness without EQ.
Vision
- Simple four-control interface.
- Advanced section for precision control.
- Spectrum analyser for crossover configuration.
- Time-plot to highlight peaks and visualise the clipping process.
- Loudness History with EBU R128 compliance.
- Freely-resizable UI.
- Mac Retina support.
- 8 A/B banks.
- Gain-lock to protect gain staging whilst auditioning presets.
- Configurable zoomable PPM and GR meters.
