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.
Usage notes for VST2 / VST3 / AU:
Hold down the Shift key to adjust the sliders more precisely.
Click in the lower right corner to toggle the GUI size between Normal and Large. Available only if the host supports resizing. Not available on Windows and Mac legacy versions.
The „Fader Link“ function works reliably only in the graphical user interface. In the „generic“ or „controls“ view of some DAW hosts, the link works, but the output fader change is not displayed.
Installation instructions can be found in the readme in the zip file or through the links in the tutorials section.
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.
Gain reduction meter with peak hold marker. Not available on legacy versions.
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 and VST 3 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) on Windows and Linux.
The Mac OS X Plugins are „Universal 2 Binaries“ with support for Intel Mac and ARM64 based Silicon.
The notarized Mac version was created with the friendly support of the guys from PlugInGuru.
For the users of older MAC OS a legacy version is available. The legacy Audio Unit version was built with Symbiosis from NuEdge Development.
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.
Release notes v1.44:
VST3/AU: Saving parameters is now working.
VST2: Display problems in the large GUI fixed.
Cleaner transients in ISP mode.
