New! Sonible Smart Limit - Is Auto-Mastering Finally Here??

saunable has released a brand new smart limiter  which promises to speed up and automate mastering   is it the fabfilter pro l2 killer let's find out   but first please like and subscribe  and hit the bell for notifications   i've started a patreon where you can get early  video views mixed feedback and other benefits and   head over to palebluedot.ca for free goodies and  information on my mini course on mix separation   there's a lot to unpack here but let's see how  easy it is to get up and running with smart   limiter so when i first insert smart limiter i  see an interface that seems mostly intuitive and   familiar it kind of reminds me of pro l2 with the  loudness sidebar expanded on the right hand side   and similar to many limiters it has an  input gain slider that drives limiting   and will increase the output game by default  what's slightly different is that the true   peak brick wall limiter is stacked directly above  the input visually this makes a lot of sense the   input gain is what will make your master louder  and the limit is where nothing will go beyond   most streaming services want -1 db of headroom  these days so this is helpful now all you have   to do to start using smart limiter's smart  features is select a genre from the list   i'm using an alternative rock song for this with  an integrated loudness level of about -22 db lufs   so let's select alternative here should match   and then just like smart eq you have to let  smart limiter learn your program material   the best thing to do is loop the loudest  part of your song usually the end of the   song and popular music and then hit the learn  button smart limit will start doing its thing we have a big gain let's go through the interface  and see what smart limiter is doing to the mix so we have reset and bypass and i love  that they have a nice transparent bypass   that's latency compensated  with no glitches or dropouts   use this instead of your daw's  bypass button when comparing and speaking of comparing here's one of my  favorite features to see on a mastering limiter   auto compensated gain or  in this case constant game   if i click this then smart limit adjusts the  gain to match the average level of the mix so now when i bypass i can just hear whatever changes smart  limit is actually making to the track   and not getting distracted  by the difference in loudness   this way since it's compensated i can hear the  original mix compared to the compressed mix this can be a real eye opener but in this case  this sounds like a pretty transparent limiting   it's impressive we also have the delta here which  is great for hearing exactly what the limiter is   compressing this is the difference between  the compressed signal and the normal signal next we have our loudness readout expressed in  lufs or loudness units full scale the most common   standard for measuring loudness these days i won't  go into detail with this stuff in this review   but i encourage you to read up on these things  further if you want to get deeper into mastering   but for now smart limit is taking  care of all this stuff for us moving back to the left we have  our big old limiter controls   as i mentioned earlier turning up the  input game is what makes your master louder we're essentially pushing this mix into a brick  wall and forcing it to be as loud as it can   while managing how much we  crush the peaks to get there   it's like smart filter decided 10.8 db is  enough and it sounds like a good place to be   and since i have spotify selected as the target  it automatically has -1 db set as the true peak   limit or the absolute maximum limit where the  signal will be cut off by a brick wall limiter   where smart limiter really starts to deviate it's  in the lower part of this section on the far left   we have distortion monitoring which i don't think  i've seen in any other limiter let's take a look basically the more red lines you see in the  spectrum the more distortion is being incurred   by the limiter limiters are by definition  always imparting distortion on the signal it's   just a matter how much is audible and acceptable  watch what happens when i crank the input level we get a lot more red seeing it a lot in the  mids and high mids i actually wouldn't mind   this display being a bit bigger so i can get some  more information on exactly where distortion's   happening but we get the point and i actually  kind of like how this sounds even fully crushed but i'm a sucker for over compression  i realize this is probably a bit much i'm going to put this back  to its suggested settings   neat trick to go back to what smart  limiter chose click the logo on the   right of the genre selector and that'll reset  it back to its originally suggested settings now here's where things get intriguing the sound  shaping panel these all shape how smart limit will   process the material the style dial determines  how aggressively the limiter works on your mix   to the left it's safer limiting and  then higher settings is hard limiting   again smart limit will choose what it thinks is  the best but play around with this to find what   fits best you might find the more aggressive  limiting is better for your source material the saturation dial can be used to  impart a little more juice into the track   and increase perceived loudness let's  crank this to see what it sounds like oh look at this look at the distortion  monitoring dancing with the light actually the saturation sounds really good a little bit much here but i could see  hitting this hard when you want a modern   over-the-top tape sound i might need  to pull out smart limit for the drums   then we have balance the most enigmatic setting  here balance claims to adjust the actual spectral   balance of the track and optimize it for limiting  so i assume this is probably bringing in some of   that smart eq technology to correct perceived  imperfections in the track it's very subtle seems to make this mix a  bit darker when i crank it i think i'll just trust smart  limit to figure that out   next is bass control which looks to  enhance the low end of your mix and   this is kind of unexpected for a limiter  there's not a lot of explanation for what   this does but turning it up does remind  me of using something like waves r bass that adds a smooth base character to your track   this might be great for mixes  that sound a little thin and what i missed earlier until i read the manual   was the attack and release settings  are here on the input gain threshold   so if you're not happy with smart limits attack  and release suggestions you can go ahead and   change these manually and speaking of something i  love is that there's an automatic release setting   on this it's a great option to have especially  on a plug-in like this that is trying to automate   the process to my ears this usually sounds  better than leaving it at manual but of course   experiment to taste and it's nice to be able to  turn off auto and just adjust this yourself here's   another unique feature hit quality check and  smart limiter will let you know how you're doing   unsurprisingly it was pretty darn happy with  its own settings but if i turn up the input we i'll get a warning so you can play with this  and know what smart limit is trying to keep you   within the target ranges and quality check tells  you exactly how much to turn the output down to   get the target loudness level it's right over here  so with spotify we need to turn this mix down 4.7   to get to -14 lufs now i got to say for an  automatic limiter i'm kind of surprised it   doesn't adjust this output gain automatically  next we have a very useful but complex section the   loudness and dynamics grid i'm not going to go in  too much detail about this because it demands more   time and reading than i have for this review but  i think professional mastering engineers are going   to trample over themselves to get this once they  see it for the layperson the most salient point   might be the closer these crosshairs are together  the more cohesive your master's loudness and   dynamics are apart from that i'm moving on to save  time it's a great feature i'm glad it's all here   just for fun i want to hear how smart  limit compares to many people's mastering   limiter of choice fabfilter pro l2 so i've  duplicated the track and we can see that i   need to apply about 10.8 db of gain to get  a similar loudness so let's try to do that will just breathe okay so that same input gain on l2 is not  getting us quite as loud the smart limit i   mean we're going to have some architectural  differences here so let's raise the game trying to get to about 9.3 l ufs update this there we go getting closer okay we're hitting about 9.3 9.4 let's  see i'm gonna switch between the two i'm gonna switch between the two limiters now pretty close well it's pretty close  to these two if i keep going back   and forth and tweaking i'm pretty sure i  get these to be almost indistinguishable   which says a lot for pro l which has mostly  manual settings and smart limit which   could allow any user to get this result  merely by hitting learn very impressive so all in all i would highly recommend this plugin   if you're looking for a pro level limiter  for your masters or need a hand getting there   then this is right for you and at the 89  euro introductory price it's way cheaper   than pro l2 i love pro l2 but smart limiter may  move up the ranks in the top spot in my chain   that's all for now thanks for watching don't  forget to like and subscribe and head over to   palebluedot.ca and sign up for my newsletter i'm  giving away a free contact instrument and mixing   cheat sheet plus you can get information on my new  mini course about mixing until next time mix well you

Channel: palebluedot studios

Views: 3,098

Keywords: Sonible, smart limit, limiter, vst plugins, best free vst plugins, free vst plugins 2021, top free vst plugins, best free vst, free vst plugins for vocals, music production tutorials, music production for beginners, music production tips, vst, pitchproof, free VST, best vst plugins

Id: 6wdkOTdHzfs

Length: 13min 24sec (804 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 13 2021