DMGAudio Limitless
The Master Limiter

The New Art of Limiting

Featuring full loudness metering and DMGAudio's state of the art algorithms this is not your traditional dynamics processor.
Limitless implements multi-band dual-stage processing that intelligently separates dynamics and transients, and generates the smoothest possible gain reduction curves.

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.

CONCEPT:
How Limitless works and a guide to Limiting

The Threshold control on a limiter is really an input gain. Limiting at the threshold and then turning the gain up is the same as turning the gain up and then limiting at 0dBFS.
The simplest limiter adds gain and clips. It wouldn't be much of a limiter, but it would make things louder. A more sophisticated limiter will work out how much gain is reduced when clipping and release it gently. More sophisticated still is the technique of delaying the audio (lookahead), to allow a gentle attack time. There's a problem with having one release time though, which is that either you set the release time short, so that it recovers quickly after a peak, and suffer it sounding aggressive on loud sustained material, or you set it long and have dips in level after every transient. In general, a compromise here is a bad compromise.
One solution to this problem is to automatically adapt the release time to the duration of the transient. This improves matters, but it depends on how well the algorithm adapts to your specific material. A better solution, and one that many engineers adopt, is to use a pair of limiters - one to control the dynamics, and another to catch the peaks. This is the strategy that Limitless adopts, but in an integrated way - the dynamics limiter allows transients to pass, configurably, letting the second stage catch the peaks.
Limitless also goes further, with a linear phase crossover of up to 6 bands. By separating out the bands we can prevent the scenario where one loud frequency drags down everything else. Multiband limiters have a reputation for sounding aggressive, when in fact they can achieve much greater transparency (as Limitless will demonstrate). The bad rap appears to be a consequence of the release time issue described above.
To a mathematician, limiting is a delightfully well specified problem. The peaks reach but do not exceed 0dBFS. Given another constraint, it's possible to formulate the problem in such a way that a numerical solver can be built to achieve certain criteria. In Limitless, the operating principle is that the most transparent limiting is a fixed gain reduction - so we strive for maximal smoothness of the gain reduction signals. With the constraints of peak limiting and maximal smoothness, we designed a numerical solver, which per-sample solves to find the gentlest possible adjustments that will prevent clipping.
So here's Limitless. It can be louder than other limiters without audible distortion, but that's not the point. Using Limitless you can achieve pop loudness without losing your dynamics. More importantly, Limitless is designed around modern loudness standards, so it's easy to target a specific Loudness - full metering and history is built in.
Another trick a lot of top-flight engineers use is clipping the signal before the limiter, to reduce the work the limiter has to do to peaks. Limitless features a full-spec clipper with massive oversampling, so you can achieve the "clipped convertor" effect inside the box. And at the output is a simple but thoroughly modern dither.
We're excited to introduce Limitless to the DMGAudio range, because now you can build a pro-grade mastering facility just from DMGAudio processors and a DAW, and you'll have the best gear money can buy whatever your objective.
On the other hand, if you just need to squeeze 6dB out of a render to test it on a big system tonight, Limitless makes it a 1-click affair, and it'll sound better than any alternative.

SPECIFICATIONS:
Windows System Requirements

• Windows XP / Vista / Windows 7 / Windows 8 / Windows 10
• 32bit or 64bit
• ProTools 7 or newer.
• A host that supports VST or VST3, such as:
  • Steinberg Cubase
  • Steinberg Nuendo
  • Steinberg Wavelab
  • Sony ACID Pro
  • Ableton Live
  • Cockos Reaper
  • Magix Sequoia
  • Magix Samplitude
  • AudioMulch

Mac OS System Requirements

• OS X 10.5 or newer, including El Capitan (10.11)
• Intel Mac
• ProTools 7 or newer.
• A host that supports VST, AU or VST3, such as:
  • Apple Logic (32bit or 64bit)
  • Apple Garageband
  • Steinberg Cubase
  • Steinberg Nuendo
  • Ableton Live

Specifically not supported
(might work, but I can't test/support these platforms):

• Windows 95/98
• OS X 10.0,10.1,10.2,10.3,10.4

REVIEWS:
Sonically, it's rich, clear and capable of high levels with impressive sound quality. It has been very interesting changing the cross-over slope on-the-fly and hearing the changes in tonality. This is a killer app.
Alan Silverman - www.arfproductions.com

its a winner for sure. i mastered a whole album today - 17 songs - and no problems. it went quickly. big, fast and solid.
S Husky Höskulds Wikipedia

Throw all other limiters in the trash.
Nate Wood Wikipedia

The most transparent limiter i have ever used!
Dom & Roland domandroland.com

With bar raising code and mind shattering clarity even with as little as a 2db crest, it's game over.
Marc Royal Wikipedia

Limitless brings music forward where others push it back. It retains more depth than the competition and maintains a robust stereo image, even when pushed beyond the point that other limiters fall apart.
Ady Connor trkmastering.co.uk


Info from gearslutz (developers, contributors and beta-testers):

DaveGamble:
Hi all,

I've spent a long time thinking about multiband limiters, and why no-one likes them. There are two kinds of multiband limiters: multiband dynamics processors followed by a wideband limiter, and truly multiband limiters. Well... there was really only one truly multiband limiter, but now there's two.

Waves L3 was groundbreaking... or, it should have been, but actually it's just really aggressive. I wanted a technical understanding of why I would consistently prefer L2 to L3.

Sometime around august last year, I had an idea for the design of a multiband limiter - something to basically magic a set of gain-reduction signals into making a limited signal with the friendliest possible gain-reduction curves. I fully destroyed an A4 notepad with scribbling, ending up with a very chunky proof and something I could implement.

Turns out, we don't like L3 because it *solves the wrong problem*. L3 tries to maximise gain at all costs. Don't do that; it makes spikey curves that impart distortion. Turns out (and here I'm somewhat giving the game away to anyone who wants to steal the idea) that the "right" strategy (based on weeks of listening tests) is to make the gain reduction curves as smooth as possible.

If you stop worrying about maximal loudness and instead design for invisibility, then invisibility is what you get. Whilst for the same drive, you get a quieter result, the distortion is dramatically reduced. So you can drive harder and actually end up with a perceptually louder result.

So, we built that and played with it loads and listened and listened and listened (to everything we could find, mastered or not).

Then we found out that release really matters for limiters. I should expand on that. Obviously release is crucial, but there's more than one way to implement a release, and an infinity of ways to implement an autorelease.

So, generally, you get one limiter to sort some peaks, with a fast release time (So you don't get dips in level after transients), and then maybe another one to flatten dynamics a little, and that one needs a slower release.

There are a lot of limiters which have auto-releases which basically adjust the release time depending on whether they think they're seeing transients or dynamics. Aaaaand we listened. And it's a crapshoot. Some material works great with one, some with another, and it's always a bit of a compromise.

So we had this idea we should basically just have two limiters that work together, to distribute the work between them. You get a dynamic limiter with configurable release time, which is in a "sane" range, like a few hundred ms, and a transient limiter with a configurable time which is a couple of ms at most.

End result is, dynamics don't pay for transients, and everything still gets done. All multiband too!

It's been a fun beta, and we're going to release on monday. If all goes well, we'll have a video introduction, and I might even make some videos explaining some concepts myself (though that's guaranteed to be weird).

I'm going to invite some beta testers to pop up to help me explain things.

Dave.

(NB: This is for Mac and PC. iOS is not supported!)

______________________________________________

DaveGamble:
[...]The benefit of a multiband limiter is that (effectively) rather than dipping the gain of the whole track, I can apply a very brief burst of EQ that consequently means that the audio won't clip! It allows for limiting that's much harder to hear.

Years ago (before loudness standards), I might have pointed out that this means you can get things louder without sounding distorted, but nowadays I'll just say it makes for increased transparency. It means that if what you want is your audio to sound the same, just louder, you can have that.

On the topic of Loudness, we have built in a full r128-live metering system, plus loudness history (with LRA variance etc). So this is all set for hitting loudness targets while working. Saves you switching between your workstation and a measurement tool.

______________________________________________

Conundra:
I am using DMG Limitless in a mastering job right now and it really makes a big difference to the perceived depth and openness of the signal compared to my other limiters. It brings the music forward where other processors often tend to push it back and that is the thing I notice most when using it and comparing it to my other maximisers.

I am not a fan of multiband processors and usually would only use perhaps one split band for correctional duties. This thing is insanely good however and it's been a real eye (and ear) opener for me. It is one multiband process that I am happy to let near my audio and that of my clients.

As with all DMG Audio processors, the interface and feature set can be customised to be either simple, fast and unfussy or as deep and complex as you like. When you want to go in deep, the facility is there and you're not left wanting. All done with stunning control and faultless precision.

It has extremely modern and comprehensive loudness metering and visualisation options and more than a few unique tricks and workflow enhancements up it's sleeve.

It can be configured to have up to 6 bands that are fully adjustable in terms of frequency range and the crossover slope can be anything between 6dB and 96dB in increments of 6 dB. Each of the bands has an adjustable release time for the slower limiter under the hood, and the master release on the main part of the GUI scales these up and down in tandem. You can "push or pull" each band pre limiter by -6 to +6dB which gives basic EQ control over a track's spectrum and force more or less limiting in any one range.

It can be configured to be wideband, multiband and everything in between whilst shooting for absolute perceived loudness or robustly maintaining a strong low end weight (perfect for hard hitting Dance music). This weighting function can be fully adjusted to the task at hand or you can pick a preset style of limiting to suit the genre and / or mix you are working on.

It features a truly excellent multimode clipper module that can be engaged before the multi band limiter(s) which includes up to 64x oversampling. It can be used to saturate and / or hard/soft clip the signal and this gives up to 4dB of extra gain for free that is both punchy and transparent.

You can lock the input gain, threshold and ceiling controls to facilitate the auditioning of presets and there are preconfigured "Styles" that can be selected for a fast and unfussy workflow. These styles can also be copied to the advanced manual settings for fine tuning if desired.

There is a switchable and configurable high pass filter that acts as a DC blocker and will go as gentle as 6dB/oct @ 1hz right up to and including 48db/oct as high as 50hz. For a well mixed track that needs only an HPF and loudness maximisation, you can master using this plugin alone.

It has an ISP (inter sample peak) mode that kills overshoots and does so with barely perceivable differences to the limiting action which is highly unusual and a huge bonus. There's some pretty serious maths behind both the ISP protection and the multiband GR distribution and this is what makes Limitless so effective.

The GUI is configurable and freely resizable and the major controls are touch screen friendly. The Gain Reduction meter has a variable and automatically adjusting range which is great for smashing a signal or delicately shaving off a quarter of a dB.

The plugin also features an excellent dither that was developed after listening tests with Bob Katz and can be switched in and faded between TPDF and perceptual loudness noise shaping and beyond.

It's been a pleasure to be a part of the development process with this plugin and for me it has all but replaced my other maximisers. I simply can't find material where my current go to of Elephant beats it!

Cheers

Conundra
______________________________________________

Oktalski:
[...] Limitless does single band just as well as multi-band, and everything in between (% links for bands and stereo).

It gives you options to try to better your results, rather than just pulling the gain down and hoping for the best with arbitrary settings. You can do that with Limitless if you like, and it'll make a great guess as to what to do, or you can manually tune it to the project you're working on. If you want a single band with automatic release, you've got it, but also the opportunity to make the master sound better.

In practice, the reason you'd want to use this particular multi-band is the results it delivers compared to single band solutions. Prior MBL's have had pretty apparent issues as regards transparency, on Monday we'll hope you'll find that we've solved those problems and the advantages of multi-band become apparent. All this said, we found some use-cases along the way where the result of single-band performance was as good, if not better, than multi-band. This is a system designed to empower the engineer to make these sorts of judgement calls, instead of relying on voodoo and systemic limitations.

______________________________________________

thermos:
I was going to tip Dave to that one as well, as that is (was) the best one. I have been a part of the beta and am liking Limitless on everything better than Ozone. I generally use wideband with Limitless, but multiband sounds better than Ozone 7 to me as well as its more customizable. For instance Ozone will just eat bass immediately which isn't always needed. You can let limitless do that too, or you can tell it to take it easy on that freq range. Ozone is still really good, but it's nice to have a bit more flexibility which I'm finding makes a big difference.

In general I'm finding it more open than Ozone (and way better than Elephant 4 in every way). Great dither, very good Dc offset removal (what would you expect from Dave), really great analyzer tools (from Equilibrium) and generally a sweet sound that's in the same family as Equilibrium and Essence. Im real happy about its existence.

______________________________________________

DaveGamble:
Well, I had this idea that it would be neat to be able to blend from TPDF to something psychoacoustic, so that's what we did. Bob Katz helped, because he's awesome at these things. So, basically you pick your bitdepth, then you have a control that goes from 0% (TPDF) -> 100% (psychoacoustic) -> 200% (crazy low noise in the mids, loads at the top). You can adjust to taste.

There is +NO+ compensation for noise level. The level of added dither noise is always the exact minimum needed for removal of quantize noise.

Dave.

______________________________________________

Oktalski:
[...] any limiter could be a track limiter. In all honesty, we didn't design Limitless for high track counts - we built it for sonic supremacy. When a design choice had to be made between quality and efficiency, quality won every time and CPU usage was deemed a secondary concern.

It makes a great bus limiter, but I certainly wouldn't want to try running more than half a dozen instances simultaneously on my desktop i7.

______________________________________________

DMGAudio Limitless Page:
http://dmgaudio.com/products_limitless.php

Price:
Until Feb 25th: £120. ~ $172 ~ €159.

DMG Audio family discounts reduce it by 5% per product up to 20%,
so min cost is £96 ~ $137 ~ €127.

Next month, RRP: £149.99 ~ $214 ~ €198 (or £120 ~ $172 ~ €159 for DMG Audio family).

MORE INFO IN GEARSLUTZ THREAD:
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/mastering-forum/1062848-dmg-limitless.html

LIMITLESS MANUAL
[It's a first revision/edition, so manual still in process, possibly there are some edits may be...But there are all the details of Limitless can be seen as well as "how-to-use"]
http://dmgaudio.com/dl/DMGAudio_Limitless_Manual.pdf

 

Last edited: Jan 25, 2016

What i say?DMG quality software. They dont lie. Patience. Lets see how it sound. Nice info mate.

 

guys, remember I said months ago:
"Imagine if DMG Audio releases limiter" or "FabFilter Pro-L2"

With DMG's one I was right))) let's wait for Pro-L2)))) heh...but I don't use Pro-L, but most of you maybe yes...
Unfortunately I didn't like Ozone as well, but their IV limiter mode is interesting, but I still use Voxengo Elephant 4.3 and AOM Invisible Limiter, rarely IK Stealth Limiter (balanced/tight).
Let's see what DMG offers)) I hope it will be my 1st place go-to limiter)))

 

These days i mixed acoustic session; only quality Clipper ~ -1.5db, instead of using Limiter(on master). Curious how DMG Limitless clipper is.

 

Clipper it's kind of usual clipping, but with oversampling you achieve less aliasing, as well you can adjust the softness/hardness...
AOM Invisible Limiter is a kind of high-quality hard clipper with a bit of softness))

 

EDIT: Added more info from developers to the main post

 

Guys, I don't know is it true or not, but on gearslutz one of the users said DMG Limitless costs $450
If it's so, limiter should be superior quality we haven't seen before!

 

Damn, I was just thinking how DMG prices are within my price range so I could afford it.

But on the other hand I don't limit everything I do to 3dB of dynamics... I practically don't need a special limiter like this. I need a limiter that can catch ISPs, give me just a few dBs, and do it as transparently as it can - handle the transients gracefully. That's it. So Fabfilter L2 is already an overkill for me, or just about any limiter with proper oversampling and transient handling.

I'm glad to see DMG releasing a proper limiter, though! Great work Mr. Gamble! As usual.

 

DMG said the same when they came up with Essance, calling it "the best" while still Pro-DS kicked ass and being no.1 in my book AND in the shootout against DMG's. It's easy to come up with a lot of theoretical talk these days to look like you overly-know what you are doing as a developer, but that will never guarantee anything unless the end user test it for himself. Until i test this limiter myself, i can't believe anything anymore. Of course DMG have quality products, but not all of them will be no.1s

 

True, Evorax. Unless we test it properly everything is just pure speculation. And hopefully the price will be something more down to earth, for us mortals. I simply won't use plugins that I can't afford, but I would like to test it properly no matter what.

 

Grab the manual. So, it's a first revision/edition, so manual still in process, possibly there are some edits may be...But there are all the details of Limitless can be seen as well as "how-to-use".
http://dmgaudio.com/dl/DMGAudio_Limitless_Manual.pdf

 

forward to R2R & UTOPiA immediately

 

too much hype.

 

everybody waited for too-much-hyped IK T-Racks Stealth Limiter, but it is almost the same as AOM Invisible Limiter, but with additional modes such as "more pumping" (balanced) and "more distortion" (harmonics 1/2) and without some features that AOM Invisible Limiter has. So, you waited for this, and you are happy now?
Possibly, Limitless is a game changer, really.

 

FabFilter Pro-L is enough for me until they release L2 (...soon, it is time) and I, as a legit owner, will get it at special (update) price.

 

thantrax,
fortunately I don't like Pro-L at all, even with LimiterN6 I get results much louder and more transparent.
But Pro-L2 will be interesting. Maybe more modes will be, sound louder, "attackier" and cleaner, and oversampling should be much more than x4 (maybe up to x16, or even minimum x8).

 

@mild pump milk

Are you using Limiter NO6? WOW. I hope TDR guys will develop a limiter based on it (...dreaming is priceless...). Anyway, I thinked to use it but it is too hard so had tried TB Barricade first, then bx_limiter and finally FF Pro-L. The last one is my current choice 'cause is cpu friendly and easy-to-use. Transparency is not so valuable for what I do.

 

I'm also waiting for TDR Limiter NO6 to come out. The word on the e-street is it's in the making as we speak. Actually they should release it soon.

 

That's a great news, I'm a big fan of D.Gamble work, I even slowly buy his plugs (but it's a bit expansive)....I couldn't live without EXpurgate (man you can get creative with this one, incredible gate imho), Essence, Compassion or Equilibrium...I tried to use Dualism too, his visualization tool, but my CPU couldn't handle it (which is a shame because it is a great tool), so I have to stick with Nugen Vizualizer (which is good too).
I barely use single band limiters, so multi would be an overkill, but I would be very curious to testdrive it. I can't wait !

 

All this science and theory just to make shit louder?

(OK, it's more than that but you catch my drift :P)

Guess it can be useful as a more surgical tool but I'm not sure it's going to be used as such and as much, by me at least. Actually, I barely use comps/limiters these days.

I don't doubt it's a very good tool but I just don't think it's as necessary as the hype makes it look. Do you really need +200dB of uncolored gain? Good to have it if it's really needed though...

Anyway... Mostly thinking out loud. I must retire to my cave now.