Waves L3 Ll Multimaximizer
The L3 plugin is the one that really started to put Waves ahead of the competition in terms of flexibility and power. The L1 and L2 plugins were always great, and they contained an awesome look-ahead feature to help really dial in the perfect loudness mix. The L3 takes it to an entirely new level with multiband limiting. The plugin has a PL mixer, huge digital resolution, re-quantization and dither, master and individual automatic release controls, supports up to 24bit/96KHz resolution and has mono/stereo components. To use this plugin, you simply enable it on your master buss and start shaping the tone. This is one of the more complex limiters out there, so you might want to check out the manual for this.
Another thing you can do is check out Youtube videos on how to properly use a complex multimaximizer like this. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE This plugin takes a little more RAM and processing power than the standard L1 and L2 plugins. That said, it's still not a huge deal with today's machines. Waves is the king when it comes to stability. I've never experienced a directly related crash with these plugins, nor have I experienced any freezing or glitches.
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The plugin is cross platform compatible, so Mac and PC users alike can use this without any issues at all. As a Mac user, that's a big thing for me. There is one issue, however. This plugin is a 32 bit plugin for OS X.
- More Waves L3 Ll Multimaximizer images.
- New to Waves? Watch our FREE 7. L3-LL Multimaximizer and L3-LL Ultramaximizer; User Guide. L3 Multimaximizer is still the most important dynamics processor in.
I work in a 64 bit DAW, and I need to have a special bridge application run every time I want to use this. It's not a huge deal, but I hope they update it later on in the future. I've been using the Mercury bundle for the past six or so months now, and I'm loving every second of it. OVERALL OPINION This is one of the more powerful limiters out there. There are lots of features packed into this, and it can be a touch overwhelming for first timers.
That said, just take everything one step at a time, and you'll soon realize what everything does and how it shapes the sound. I actually prefer L1 and L2 at times for simple mixes, but when I'm concentrating on professional style mixes, I'll break out something like this, or its newer brother - the. The process of installing Waves Ltd. L3 Multimaximizer Native was quick and easy and was one without compatibility issues or other problems. The whole process only took a few minutes and I had the plug-in up and running on my machine quickly. The interface of the software didn't take too long to figure out as I was familiar with Waves Ltd. L2 and this version has some similar functions.
At the same time, the L3 is a lot more in depth and it took me a little while to get used to the new features and understand what everything did. Even if you aren't familiar with previous versions of this plug-in, the interface is user friendly enough that it shouldn't take you too long to understand the plug-in. I haven't seen the manual for Waves Ltd. L3 Multimaximizer Native, but it isn't really necessary as the plug-in can be figured out without one. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE Since installing the Waves Ltd. L3 Multimaximizer Native plug-in, I haven't encountered any problems at all in terms of running the plug-in. Since this is a mastering plug-in for the most part, I usually don't use more than one of them at a once and I've never had a problem doing so.
I am currently running the plug-in on a Mac Book Pro that has a 2.2 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 4 GB of RAM. I run the plug-in in Pro Tools LE 7.4 that runs off of a audio interface. While it largely depends on what machine you are running the plug-in on, as long as you have a pretty good machine I don't see why you wouldn't be able to run this plug-in to its full capacity without issues.
OVERALL OPINION Since this is a relatively new plug-in, I've only been running the Waves Ltd. L3 Multimaximizer Native for a few months, but I already like it much better than its predecessor, the Waves L2. It has more features and definitely has a cleaner sound, which is saying a lot as I was a big fan of the L2.
Waves L2 Vs L3
The price of the Waves Ltd. L3 Multimaximizer Native is pretty reasonable and I would say it is definitely a good investment for any home studio owner who is looking for a good limiter. Overall, this is a very powerful plug-in that I would recommend to home studio owners and professional engineers alike.
Review: Mastering Limiters - Waves L3 series Jochem de Jong Introduction: One of the main parts of mastering a track is maximizing the volume. To do this you can use a limiter or multiband limiter. The four different limiters of the Waves L3 series are very popular: L3 Ultramaximizer L3 Multimaximizer L3-LL L3-16 What is most notable about all these limiters is that they use two new techniques that Waves developed: the PLMixer and the ARC. The limiters from the Waves L3 series have only one threshold, despite their multiband set-up. The PLMixer (Peak Limit Mixer) allows you – when you cross that threshold – to distribute the total required attenuation (gain reduction) as efficiently as possible across the various frequency bands.
This takes into account the way the human ear reacts to different frequency areas, so the end result is as transparent as possible. The nice thing about this is that you only have one threshold value that you set for all bands at the same time and the result is usually better than that of a traditional multiband limiter with several thresholds. If you set the release time carefully, you can make sure that the presence of a limiter is less noticeable. With the ARC (Adaptive Release Control) on the L3 limiters this is done for you automatically.
As you can also manually assign a separate release time per frequency band, you have a lot of options to fine-tune your settings. Comparison: The L3 Ultramaximizer is the simplest model in the series in terms of GUI, but uses 5 different frequency bands, just like the L3 Multimaximizer; they are just not visible in the interface. With the L3 Multimaximizer you can control the gain and the priority of the different frequency bands. The gain is really superfluous, because you can just as easily put an equalizer before the limiter in your mastering chain. It makes the interface unnecessarily complex.
However, the priority allows you to influence the distribution of the attenuation (through the PLMixer), which can be handy if one of the frequency bands is under too much pressure. L3-LL (low latency) is similar to the L3 Multimaximizer, with the exception of it not being linear phase. This makes the latency of this model much lower, so you can also use the L3-LL during mixing, for example. The L3-16 is also comparable to the L3-Multimaximizer, but has 16 instead of 5 frequency bands, which allows the PLMixer to work more precisely. Test: - In the default settings, at a maximum of about 3 dB gain reduction, you can’t hear much difference between the various models, except that the L3-16 sounds a bit more transparent.
Different release characters give the limiters different sounds, a few of which are very pleasant. At a maximum of about 6 dB gain reduction you can really start hearing the limiters at work. In contrast to the other three models, the L3-16 starts to sound a bit unstable, because the frequency bands are so narrow. You can fix this easily though by setting the separation to high instead of medium. With the same settings, the L3-LL has about 0.5 dB more gain reduction than the other models. In addition, with the three limiters with priority you can more successfully mask their workings than with the simple L3 Ultramaximizer.
However, big adjustments in the priority of the L3 Multimaximizer sometimes result in brief changes in the tonal balance that are very noticeable. This is less so with the L3-16.
Buy Waves L3-ll Multimaximizer
With all models some release characters give more subtlety. With the L3-16 ‘drum punch’ is a good choice for more extreme limiting. With the other models ‘aggressive' is a good choice in that respect. At an (exaggerated) maximum of about 9 dB gain reduction you can clearly hear the limiters at work. With the L3 Ultramaximizer, the L3 Multimaximizer and the L3-LL the low end starts to disappear.
Waves L3 16
The release character ‘aggressive’ gives a bit more stability, but will not work miracles. After a few changes in the priority, the L3 Multimaximizer sounds a bit more subtle than the L3 Ultramaximizer. With the L3-16 doesn't the low is maintained.
However, this model starts to sound unstable because of the narrow frequency bands, even with separation set to high. You can correct this a little with the priority, but not sufficiently. The release character ‘drum punch’ results in another small improvement, but not enough to mask 9 dB gain reduction. Conclusion: For tracks that only need a few dB’s worth of gain reduction, the L3-16 sounds the most transparent. If you need more gain reduction, I think the L3 Multimaximizer sounds most stable, but with an increase in the gain reduction the low end suffers. The L3-16 sounds much better at the low end and is more transparent, but will sound less and less stable.
For tracks that have a lot of low end, the L3-16 is the best choice, although it will perhaps need quite a bit of tweaking of the different frequency bands. For tracks with less low end the L3 Multimaximizer is the best choice. For a quick mastering session, the L3 Ultramaximizer is a good and user-friendly choice, and if you want to use a multiband limiter in your mix then the L3-LL is an excellent option.