Thanks for the video dude. I still love the L2 after all these years and recommend it to all my students to get that "pop" sound. I also used the hardware when it first came out. The plugin is great. It just has that sound that is so familiar to people. It is like a subtle bit of magic dust. It is also good to use two instances in mid/side which is possible with a little work.
YUP IT WORKS! What do I Notice: The Vocals Coloration now sounds exactly like it did during the mixing stage!!! When I used the DMG or FAB L2 AloneThe coloration use to change and sound a deeper tone when pushing the threshold. I also noticed that the Tracks Now Sounds way less Crunchy now after applying the TRICK! I also use DMG!
thank you so much. I owned a mastering studio 20 years ago and my engineer was George Lambert. We cut vinyl as well as mastering cd's. We had a huge amount of hardware including the L2, Chiswick Reach Compressor and GML parametric eq which was my personal favorite combination. George taught me how to use that and the results were incredible. Now I am producing pop music again and trying to master all digital and it sounds like a wonky donkey. Stuck on L2 until I found this video so thank you again.
Great tip! I have all the L series limiters and fell to the illusion that the L2 was passé. Nope! I use Reaper so your double mono L2 trick worked great on a track that has a lot of crunchy electric guitar on it. It did exactly what you said it would. Brought them forward, tweaked the mids in just the right zone, and spread the whole mix while giving a nice little nudge to the overall mids! Nice! Thanks! I’m about ten years in now and finally starting to sort things out and am looking at the mastering stage. Just discovered your channel! You’re tips are spot on! 👍
Gladly I have now the rarely L2 hardware version from waves and I will never ever give it away 🥰 I think it’s great tool in my hybrid studio and very good sounding. Thank you for this super tip and your good video. Kind regards from Germany, Jerryl
Wow - would never have known this! Tried it and, yes... there is a change in mid range crunch that I probably would never have noticed but now it's pointed out it's so obvious! Thanks for such a superb description... 👍👍👍
Many of us have (or had) the hardware L2 because the sequence was this: L1 (software), L2 (hardware), L2 (software L2), then the others, L3 etc. And correct: there was no real competition at the time. Jünger, and Sony perhaps. Of course, with really good converters (on the analog side) some minor clipping often sounded better than limiting. Waves really ought to (and could) update the L2 with at least oversampling, un-linking, and perhaps the better meter resolution of the software.
Yeah, great Thomas! I work`d with the L2 Hardware in the 90s, but now to use the Waves L2 Plugin for the mono left and right side, is a amazing favourite trick of your´s and bring me a lot of steps higher 🙂 thanks a lot for sharing this Video. Cheers Reen Monrow
For whatever reason I dont like the multiband version of DMG limiter, but TrackLimit is my go too, I just put it on aggressive or Punchy and whatever that eq profile does is the exact sound Im looking for.
Hi there! nice info! i will suggest if you try the pings routing conenctor in reaper plugion chains and i think you can put 2 L2 ,one for the left and the other for the right channels! Cherrs
The reason there's no unlink on the plugin? Because it's 20 years old, and twenty years ago, CPUs were not powerful enough to be able to reliably handle the load of two, unkinked limiters. That's my belief. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, please. 👍 Nice video, thanks.
Yeah, that might very well be the case, although I would suspect that most of the calculations for both channels would need to be done regardless. But CPU consumption was certainly more important back then, good point. :) /Thomas
I use an l1 and l2 plugin in tandem to smash my mixes (for volume and just for reference). I gotta say I'm probably happy with the rests 40% of the time. These limiters do not seem to bring stuff out of the speakers but they seem to make things quieter if that makes any sense. Any advice on what to use to bring my mixes to a satisfactory listening level outside my studio and not get totally blanketed neutered mixes but also not over hype the mixes either?
Modern limiters tend to sound much better for increasing loudness IMO. The L2 is famous for making things quieter. It's really useful if the snare is too loud in the mix. /Thomas
Modern limiters are so powerful and so much transparent compared to their predecessors. And yet the recordings of the 90s- 2000s era still sounds so good , so warm and punchy and have a very decent amount of dynamic range compared to the todays modern masters ( ''despite the fierce loudness wars at that time).. I guess the musical content and the creativity goes deep down while the audio technologies goes sky rocket..
Yes, routing that in Cubase and wavelab is something that neither me or Thomas know how to do. Maybe somebody who is a cubase or wavelab user can also comment! Good question! /sofia
The Waves L2 is the only one I use mainly for its character, but I sometimes use two or more limiters in series if I need to make a loud master. Then it's mostly about balancing the limiter artifacts. /Thomas
deadmau5 was using exactly your method on his songs (2 mono , after main limiter , only 1.5 threshold,all) when i saw that , I was like why anybody want to use two limiter together and I was tend to think he is a moron edm producer that just copy plugins together now you explain it all to me with example at the end and the vibes was so much different with and without , I understand I was the fool one
The L2 plugin DOES have dual mono mode. So it can work just like the hardware in that regard. When you load the plugin, you just have to choose dual mono instead of stereo. I don't know why you think it didn't have this option. Maybe waves updated the plugin since you made this video. My version of the L2 is the older v12 though and it still has the dual mono mode. So even older version can link or decouple the left and right stereo channels.
Try it! I haven't used the L1 for this and I don't know how similar it would sound in this application, but there might be some good sounds to be found there anyway. :) /Thomas
I haven't seen the video but I do remember reading a post from him about it on a forum some years ago. The L2 trick and variations of it is way older than that though. /Thomas
Thanks for the video dude. I still love the L2 after all these years and recommend it to all my students to get that "pop" sound. I also used the hardware when it first came out. The plugin is great. It just has that sound that is so familiar to people. It is like a subtle bit of magic dust. It is also good to use two instances in mid/side which is possible with a little work.
YUP IT WORKS! What do I Notice: The Vocals Coloration now sounds exactly like it did during the mixing stage!!! When I used the DMG or FAB L2 AloneThe coloration use to change and sound a deeper tone when pushing the threshold. I also noticed that the Tracks Now Sounds way less Crunchy now after applying the TRICK! I also use DMG!
thank you so much. I owned a mastering studio 20 years ago and my engineer was George Lambert. We cut vinyl as well as mastering cd's. We had a huge amount of hardware including the L2, Chiswick Reach Compressor and GML parametric eq which was my personal favorite combination. George taught me how to use that and the results were incredible. Now I am producing pop music again and trying to master all digital and it sounds like a wonky donkey. Stuck on L2 until I found this video so thank you again.
Awesome! Thanks for sharing! /Thomas
Great tip! I have all the L series limiters and fell to the illusion that the L2 was passé. Nope! I use Reaper so your double mono L2 trick worked great on a track that has a lot of crunchy electric guitar on it. It did exactly what you said it would. Brought them forward, tweaked the mids in just the right zone, and spread the whole mix while giving a nice little nudge to the overall mids! Nice! Thanks! I’m about ten years in now and finally starting to sort things out and am looking at the mastering stage. Just discovered your channel! You’re tips are spot on! 👍
Thanks!
Thank you, much appreciated! /Thomas
Gladly I have now the rarely L2 hardware version from waves and I will never ever give it away 🥰 I think it’s great tool in my hybrid studio and very good sounding. Thank you for this super tip and your good video. Kind regards from Germany, Jerryl
Wow - would never have known this! Tried it and, yes... there is a change in mid range crunch that I probably would never have noticed but now it's pointed out it's so obvious! Thanks for such a superb description... 👍👍👍
Awesome! Glad it was helpful! :) /Thomas
Many of us have (or had) the hardware L2 because the sequence was this: L1 (software), L2 (hardware), L2 (software L2), then the others, L3 etc. And correct: there was no real competition at the time. Jünger, and Sony perhaps.
Of course, with really good converters (on the analog side) some minor clipping often sounded better than limiting.
Waves really ought to (and could) update the L2 with at least oversampling, un-linking, and perhaps the better meter resolution of the software.
I can't wait to test this trick! Thanks! I've smashed all the smashers! Salutations from astonishingly grey, wet & locked down Ireland! ☘️☮️🤘🏽🤠👍🏽☮️☘️
Now I have also smashed all the smashers on your wonderful comment! ☺️ Have a nice Saturday! /Sofia
The thing I've been asking for years.......thanks man
This trick is super interesting. Thank you for your sharing!
Hope you find it useful! :) /Thomas
Yeah, great Thomas! I work`d with the L2 Hardware in the 90s, but now to use the Waves L2 Plugin for the mono left and right side, is a amazing favourite trick of your´s and bring me a lot of steps higher 🙂 thanks a lot for sharing this Video. Cheers Reen Monrow
Glad it was helpful! /Thomas
For whatever reason I dont like the multiband version of DMG limiter, but TrackLimit is my go too, I just put it on aggressive or Punchy and whatever that eq profile does is the exact sound Im looking for.
You gave some good sauce away for free. Thank you!
We try to make ourselves useful! 😎 Glad you liked it!
Would love to see a vid on how to use DMG Limitless or Multiplicity
Thanks for the detailed information. Going to try this
Bravo! this is very interesting !
Very helpful indeed. Thank you for the tip.
Very useful trick, will use on my next master.
Great to hear! :) /Thomas
Can you do the 2 mono input output tricks on pro tools ?
Linking/unlinking feature is available on the FabFilter L2 if i'm not wrong?
Fabfilter Pro-L 2 is a completely different plugin than the old Waves L2. :) /Thomas
Great tip!
👍
Wow. Cool trick. Thanks for the share
Amazing!
Thank you for such great advice.
Super❤️
Possible in logic pro x???
The Waves L2 gives some middle grit like no other. Try other plug in but this seems to add some magic.
Very nice.....Thanks for the tip mate ;)
Interesting :) thank you for sharing
Glad you liked it! :) /Thomas
Thnx. So kind
Thanks for sharing all these tips! They are so helpful! immediately subbed :)
Hi there! nice info! i will suggest if you try the pings routing conenctor in reaper plugion chains and i think you can put 2 L2 ,one for the left and the other for the right channels! Cherrs
Thanks for sharing !
The reason there's no unlink on the plugin? Because it's 20 years old, and twenty years ago, CPUs were not powerful enough to be able to reliably handle the load of two, unkinked limiters. That's my belief. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, please. 👍 Nice video, thanks.
Yeah, that might very well be the case, although I would suspect that most of the calculations for both channels would need to be done regardless. But CPU consumption was certainly more important back then, good point. :) /Thomas
To put an L2 in L and another in R, can I open two Blue cats and put one in L and another in R? thank you
Well explained
Respect ❤
I use an l1 and l2 plugin in tandem to smash my mixes (for volume and just for reference). I gotta say I'm probably happy with the rests 40% of the time. These limiters do not seem to bring stuff out of the speakers but they seem to make things quieter if that makes any sense. Any advice on what to use to bring my mixes to a satisfactory listening level outside my studio and not get totally blanketed neutered mixes but also not over hype the mixes either?
Modern limiters tend to sound much better for increasing loudness IMO. The L2 is famous for making things quieter. It's really useful if the snare is too loud in the mix. /Thomas
the best videos thank you
🤗🤗🤗 thank you so much. Please let's have more tips. I just subscribed
👍 More tips are coming! :) /Thomas
In Logic you can load as dual mono - does this do the same thing?
great thank you
Modern limiters are so powerful and so much transparent compared to their predecessors. And yet the recordings of the 90s- 2000s era still sounds so good , so warm and punchy and have a very decent amount of dynamic range compared to the todays modern masters ( ''despite the fierce loudness wars at that time).. I guess the musical content and the creativity goes deep down while the audio technologies goes sky rocket..
it's just the loudness war that has ruined things for us. our mixes have gotten better but they got squashed more
I use Loudmax Limiter
incredible
you are the best!
How can I do that in Cubase that one is on the left and the other is also on the right....ore in to Wavelab
Yes, routing that in Cubase and wavelab is something that neither me or Thomas know how to do. Maybe somebody who is a cubase or wavelab user can also comment! Good question! /sofia
Have you tried and had any success doing this trick with other limiters at the end of the chain - for other flavours ?
The Waves L2 is the only one I use mainly for its character, but I sometimes use two or more limiters in series if I need to make a loud master. Then it's mostly about balancing the limiter artifacts. /Thomas
Those eyes! I Can Tell he knows what he is talking about by those eyes!
good shit bud
Why turn off ARC?
deadmau5 was using exactly your method on his songs (2 mono , after main limiter , only 1.5 threshold,all)
when i saw that , I was like why anybody want to use two limiter together and I was tend to think he is a moron edm producer that just copy plugins together
now you explain it all to me with example at the end and the vibes was so much different with and without , I understand I was the fool one
The L2 plugin DOES have dual mono mode. So it can work just like the hardware in that regard. When you load the plugin, you just have to choose dual mono instead of stereo. I don't know why you think it didn't have this option. Maybe waves updated the plugin since you made this video. My version of the L2 is the older v12 though and it still has the dual mono mode. So even older version can link or decouple the left and right stereo channels.
That's great! I'm still using v9 and that only has the (linked) stereo plugin and the (1 channel) mono plugin. /Thomas
Have been using it in dual/multi mono for many many years inside Pro Tools. So is this a new feature when you load it up in stereo mode?
only in pro tools you have this option on vst are l2 mono or l2 stereo
Supeeerrr👍👍
Any way to do this in logic pro x?
Very probable ☺️ We don’t use logic so we have no input on that unfortunately! /Sofia ☀️
Weldone u gat my like and subscription
Glad you liked it! We have a lot of fun things planned for this channel in the coming months. /Thomas
This is Awesome! You're Awesome! Also very cult.
Thanks! Glad you liked it! :) /Thomas
does this trick also work with L1?
Try it! I haven't used the L1 for this and I don't know how similar it would sound in this application, but there might be some good sounds to be found there anyway. :) /Thomas
@@MasteringExplained thanks Thomas, I will definitely try. Great channel anyway 💪
I still use 2 on the mater bus. Turn off the dithering
thing is it always dithers (IDR) at least to 24 bit, matching the hardware which was AES/EBU at 24 bits.
Ebb och Flod! Dags för släpp? :D
Mycket möjligt... :) /Thomas
Can you post videos of you reading bedtime stories with the same soft voice and mic you used in this video so I can fall asleep within 2 minutes
Thomas doesn’t seem to know how to answer this so I’ll just give it a thumbs up for now 😅 /Sofia
🤣
Maybe I should give up music I cant hear the difference
Don’t do that... It’s subtle but you can look for this small difference in sound if you focus your ears on the crunchiness of the upper mids. /Sofia
@@MasteringExplained i'll try again thx
Tackar
Like me, you watched Brian Lucey’s video, too 😁 He explained exactly that 1,5dB mid forward thing like 8 years ago 🫶
I haven't seen the video but I do remember reading a post from him about it on a forum some years ago. The L2 trick and variations of it is way older than that though. /Thomas