One of the most common things people worry about when setting up their home studio is mastering their audio. In this article, we will suggest 5 best free limiter plugins.
There are a lot of different types of plugins that you can use for mastering your audio, but there are also plenty of free ones. There are five limiter plugins that I’ve found to be the best for your home studio, because they allow you to get the proper volume levels without compromising on quality.
1.Limiter №6 by Vladislav Goncharov[DOWNLOAD]
The undisputed champion of free limiters, Limiter №6 combines the power of compression, limiting and soft clipping. This limiter has a five-stage, optimized signal path which improves sound quality without compromising on the volume.
Our open-source RMS compressor can blend the mix together gently. The Limiter №6 is first to take on the signal and send it through a peak limiter, a high frequency limiter and clipper, which set the final loudness of the track to prevent inter-sample clipping.
Each stage of the process is there to provide a small boost to the loudness of your audio. It will help you create a clean final audio without any background noise. The Peak Limiter offers four different limiting options to best suit your mix. You can also adjust the knee height for the perfect fit.
To get the most out of limiter #6 you should make sure to read the manual. It goes over all the workflow intricacies you’ll need to understand in order to fully utilize the plugin’s power. The manual can be quite educational and helpful for people who wish to learn about dynamic range processing.
2.Unlimited by Sonic Anomaly[DOWNLOAD]
Unlimited is a free mastering limiter released in 2017 by Sonic Anomaly. It allows you to convert your stereo sound into surround sound and can process up to 5.1 channels of audio material.
The free plugin Sonic Anomaly offers a standard RMS meter It also has an ITU-R BS.1770 compliant loudness meter for monitoring the loudness of your signal and reduces CPU usage automatically.
The advanced monitoring features ensure that Unlimited can also be used in professional studios.
There is only one downside to Unlimited and it can’t be used for anything but Windows-based DAWs. It’s a plugin in both 32-bit and 64-bit VST format, so you will need to at least have Windows 7 or higher installed in order to use this plugin in your DAW.
3.Limited-Z by LVC Audio[DOWNLOAD]
Limited-Z is an all-in-one plugin for everyone who wants to add polished and professional mastering effects. Limited-Z offers a clean, intuitive workflow and usability features like the parameter track, which make it very easy to get the desired sound. The plugin is based on LVC Audio’s popular limiter – Limited-MAX
Limited-Z is a new type of limiter plugin that makes it easy to get the high quality of mastering grade limiters with just a few keystrokes.
Limited-Z offers many configurable limiting modes, outputs for each channel gain adjustment, A/B testing features and multiple meters to help you monitor your gain reduction. The real-time waveform display & individual gain reduction meters are really useful for fine tuning.
4.LoudMax by Thomas Mundt[DOWNLOAD]
Loudmax is the perfect tool for mastering your tracks. It limits transparency and preserves your original sound even with high compression settings.
With LoudMax, you can adjust the thresholds for your desired loudness by simply dragging the slider to the desired level. This is much faster than adjusting individual sliders in other tools.
By using the vertical gain reduction meter on the right, you will see the amount of limiting applied to the sound. However, use your ears and listen out for any audible signs of pushing it too far. Make sure you give your ears a break after mixing to avoid over-compressing the song. Give it another listen few hours after to make sure it sounds great.
5.Frontier by D16 Group[DOWNLOAD]
Frontier is designed not only to limit the final output, but also to increase the volume on individual tracks. The unique limiter system can combat clipping and protect both your mix and individual tracks.
You can use Frontier to bring out the lower frequencies in your audio recordings. It’s great for drums, percussion, or bass.
Setting the release time to fast and reducing the threshold will result in catching your volume peaks. The clipper keeps the audio’s peaks at a safe level by making sure that they stay below the red zone, while not overloading the limiter.
Make sure to adjust your CPU usage in the settings when you’re preparing a project. Higher quality settings will use more CPU for limiting
Conclusion
Test these 5 best free limiter plugins by your own and see which of them is suitable best for your music studio.
