LoudMax is a Look-Ahead Brickwall Loudness Maximizer Plugin with a clean transparent sound. It is designed to retain the
original character of the music as much as possible even at high
compression levels.
Downloads:
VST Plugin v1.38 for Windows PC 32/64bit
AU/VST Plugins v1.38 for Mac published by PlugInGuru
AU/VST Plugins v1.38 for older Mac OS X 32/64bit (OS 10.5 - 10.14)
LADSPA Plugin v1.38 for Linux x86 32/64bit
Winamp Plugin v1.38
Additional Releases:
GUI-less VST Plugin v1.38 for Windows PC 32/64bit
Winamp Plugin v1.38 32/64bit (zipped dll)
Please note the disclaimer on the right!
Release notes v1.38:
- The rounding behavior of the algorithm was fixed.
Main range of application:
- Audio Mastering
- Output Limiter/Maximizer for web radio stations
Controls:
- One slider for threshold, one for the output level
- Meters for input, output and gain reduction in relation to the desired threshold
- Link: Output slider will be coupled to the threshold slider
- ISP: Inter-sample peak detection for true peak limiting
Features:
- True Peak Limiting (Further information for ISP below)
- Supported Samplerates: 2kHz - 384kHz
- Latency: 1.25ms (+ 6 samples with ISP)
- Look-Ahead and Attack Time: 1.25ms
- Release Time: Automatic - depending on the input signal
- No audible distortion
- Possible overdrive: 740dB
- Very low CPU usage
LoudMax is available as VST 2.4 Plugin for Windows and Mac OS X, Audio
Unit Plugin for Mac OS X, LADSPA Plugin for Linux x86 and as Winamp
Plugin.
A SSE2-capable CPU is
necessary (Pentium 4 / AMD Athlon 64 or newer).
The Mac OS X Plugins are "Universal Binaries" with support for Intel Mac.
The Audio Unit version was built with Symbiosis from NuEdge Development.
The version for MAC OS Catalina was created with the friendly support of the guys from PlugInGuru.
For the users of older MAC OS a legacy version is available.
The
Linux Plugin has no meters since LADSPA doesn´t support a custom GUI.
But it supports 5.1 surround modes. See README file in the LADSPA zip
package for further informations.
The Winamp Plugin
also supports 5.1 surround. Built-in stereo overdrive protection avoids
distortions in a subsequent stereo downmix.
The
Winamp Plugin has a simplified user interface. Only one slider for
adjusting the maximum amplification. The maximum output level is 0dB.
The GUI was designed by LimeFlavour based on the idea and colorscheme of Sinkmusic.
Thanks to Hannes Druener for using his MacBook and testing.
Thanks to PlugInGuru for hosting the MAC files.
Inter-Sample Peak Detection:
The
higher the frequency, the greater the probability that the true peak
will be between two digital audio samples. These true peak overshoots
can be up to 3 dB for proper band-limited audio and even much more for
pathological signals. This can become a problem not only with poor D/A
converters, but also with subsequent sample rate conversions, e.g. from
44.1 to 48 kHz or vice versa, and the use of audio compression such as
MP3 or AAC.
For more information see the "Tutorials" section.
When ISP is turned on, four additional samples are
calculated between every two samples present. This reduces true peak
overshoots for proper band-limited audio to 0.2 dB and for pathological
signals to 0.5 dB.
ITU-R BS.1770: There are coefficients given in
this recommendation for the calculation of inter-sample peaks.
Unfortunately these coefficients do not seem to be optimal for limiters. They have a
negative effect on transients and lead to high overshoots in true peak
meters that use higher quality upsampling. Therefore LoudMax uses
optimized coefficients that do not affect transients and reduce the
overshoots to similar values with all true peak meters tested. The
downside is that BS.1770 calibrated true peak meters will also detect
overshoots of up to 0.2 dB with LoudMax ISP detection. So if you need to
guarantee a true peak level of -1.0 dB for example, set the output
level to -1.2 dB or even -1.5 dB.
Using ISP will double the CPU
utilization and increase latency by 6 samples.
LoudMax
changes the latency dynamically when ISP is switched. Note that most
hosts do not adjust latency compensation while playing, but at the next
stop/start.