Limitless

Contents

1 Introduction 2

1.1 System Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

1.1.1 Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

1.1.2 Mac OS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

1.2 Installation and Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

1.2.1 How to Install on Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

1.2.2 How to Install on OS X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

2 Getting Started With Limitless 6

3 How Limitless works and a guide to Limiting 9

4 Main Controls 11

4.1 Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

4.2 Master Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

4.2.1 Threshold . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
 4.2.2 Ceiling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

4.2.3 Release . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

4.2.4 Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

4.3 Frequency Graph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

4.4 Time Graph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

4.5 History Graph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

4.6 PPM / GR Meter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

4.7 Loudness Meters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

5 Advanced Controls 15

5.1 Controls when not in Manual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

5.1.1 Input Trim . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

5.1.2 Slope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

5.1.3 Separation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

5.1.4 StereoLink . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

5.2 Further Controls in Manual Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

5.2.1 Lookahead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

5.2.2 Knee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

5.2.3 Weighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

5.2.4 Release Shape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

5.2.5 Dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

5.2.6 Per-band release (on Frequency Graph or Band Strips) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

6 Band Strips 19

7 Clipping 20

8 Dither 21
9 Other UI 22

9.1 The Menu Bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

9.1.1 Gain Lock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

9.1.2 HPF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

9.1.3 ISP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

9.1.4 Preset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

9.1.5 Undo / Redo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

9.1.6 A / B and Copy To . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

9.1.7 Graph Button . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

9.1.8 Layout Button . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

9.1.9 Setup Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

9.1.10 Bypass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

9.2 Presets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

9.2.1 Previous / Next . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

9.2.2 Preset Menu / Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

9.2.3 GUI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

9.2.4 Preset / Bank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

9.2.5 Load / Save . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

9.3 MIDI Learn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

10 Advanced DSP 26

10.1 HPF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

10.2 Gain Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

10.3 Transient Separation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

10.4 Inter-sample Peaks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

10.5 Clipper Oversampling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

11 Preferences and Options 28

11.1 Instance Prefs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

11.2 Global Prefs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

12 Troubleshooting 33

12.1 Get in touch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

 Limitless : Introduction

1 Introduction

1.1 System Requirements

1.1.1 Windows

Limitless works with Windows Vista, 7, 8 and 10, 32bit and 64bit.
VST, VST3 and AAX are supported in both 32bit and 64bit hosts.
RTAS is supported in 32bit ProTools 7 or newer.

1.1.2 Mac OS

Limitless requires OS X 10.7 or newer on Intel Mac.

VST, VST3, AU and AAX are supported in both 32bit and 64bit hosts.
RTAS is supported in 32bit ProTools 7 or newer.

1.2 Installation and Setup

1.2.1 How to Install on Windows

You need two files to install; the plugin installer and the license file. Both are available from the My
Stuff area of the DMGAudio site whilst logged in. If you’re using a demo, download the installer
from the site, and use the form to have your license file emailed to you.

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 Limitless : Introduction : Installation and Setup

Double-click license.reg, and this box will open:

Click “Yes" and the license is installed.

Now double-click the zip-file which contains the installer.
Double-click the installer; it will look like this:

Click “next" (changing any options if you need to), and Limitless is installed!
Reload your host, and enjoy!

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 Limitless : Introduction : Installation and Setup

1.2.2 How to Install on OS X

You need two files to install; the plugin installer and the license file. Both are available from the My
Stuff area of the DMGAudio site whilst logged in. If you’re using a demo, download the installer
from the site, and use the form to have your license file emailed to you.

If you are using Safari, one or both of these files may be automatically unzipped for you.
If not, double-click them to decompress them, so you get this:

Double-click “license.command" to install the license. The license will install, and you’ll get the
following message to confirm:

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 Limitless : Introduction : Installation and Setup

Now double-click the installer, and it will launch. It looks like this:

Click through until it installs, and everything is set! Now relaunch your host and enjoy!

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 Limitless : Getting Started With Limitless

2 Getting Started With Limitless

Basic workflow: Reduce Threshold until track reaches desired loudness. Enjoy!

By default Limitless opens in the simplified mode shown above, which includes the essential
controls, and a set of Frequency, Time and Loudness graphs so you can easily monitor what
Limitless is doing.

If you want to calibrate against peaks, click the Graph Selector in the top-right and change it from
FREQ to TIME.
Drag the graph up/down to adjust the Threshold and left/right to zoom in and out in time.

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 Limitless : Getting Started With Limitless

The HISTORY graph shows the Loudness history of the track, and the Integrated Loudness is
shown in the bottom-right along with LRA and True Peak.

The Style menu allows you to quickly pick from a built-in set of program-dependent styles. When
not in manual, an icon appears to the right of the style name. Clicking this icon will copy the
settings for that style into manual mode, providing a quick starting point for further adjustment.

The Release time allows you to determine how fast Limitless reduces attenuation as the dynamics
reduce in level.

The Ceiling control sets the target peak value, which you might set to -0.1 for CD masters.

It’s good practice to set the Threshold by first engaging the Link icon (between Threshold and
Ceiling) which locks the Ceiling level to the Threshold level, so you can audition the action of the
limiter without the overall signal level increasing. Once Threshold is set, unclick Link and you’re
done!

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 Limitless : Getting Started With Limitless

As you’d expect from a DMGAudio product, if you want to go deeper you can - much deeper.
Clicking the Layout symbol (left of Setup) in the top right opens a panel with further controls you
can use to fine-tune Limitless, engage Dither, or configure the pre-limiter Clipper.

Presets are accessed using the Preset button, as discussed in the Presets section of the manual.

A / B for parameter settings is accessed from the bar at the top of the screen and allows A-H
banks of settings for quick comparison.

You can drag the bottom-right of the UI to resize the plugin UI.

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 Limitless : How Limitless works and a guide to Limiting

3 How Limitless works and a guide to Limiting

The Threshold control on a limiter is really an input gain. Limiting at the threshold and then turning
the gain up is the same as turning the gain up and then limiting at 0dBFS.

The simplest limiter adds gain and clips. It wouldn’t be much of a limiter, but it would make things
louder. A more sophisticated limiter will work out how much gain is reduced when clipping and
release it gently. More sophisticated still is the technique of delaying the audio (lookahead), to
allow a gentle attack time. There’s a problem with having one release time though, which is that
either you set the release time short, so that it recovers quickly after a peak, and suffer it sounding
aggressive on loud sustained material, or you set it long and have dips in level after every
transient. In general, a compromise here is a bad compromise.

One solution to this problem is to automatically adapt the release time to the duration of the
transient. This improves matters, but it depends on how well the algorithm adapts to your specific
material. A better solution, and one that many engineers adopt, is to use a pair of limiters - one to
control the dynamics, and another to catch the peaks. This is the strategy that Limitless adopts,
but in an integrated way - the dynamics limiter allows transients to pass, configurably, letting the
second stage catch the peaks.

Limitless also goes further, with a linear phase crossover of up to 6 bands. By separating out the
bands we can prevent the scenario where one loud frequency drags down everything else.
Multiband limiters have a reputation for sounding aggressive, when in fact they can achieve much
greater transparency (as Limitless will demonstrate). The bad rap appears to be a consequence of
the release time issue described above.

To a mathematician, limiting is a delightfully well specified problem. The peaks reach but do not
exceed 0dBFS. Given another constraint, it’s possible to formulate the problem in such a way that
a numerical solver can be built to achieve certain criteria. In Limitless, the operating principle is
that the most transparent limiting is a fixed gain reduction - so we strive for maximal smoothness of
the gain reduction signals. With the constraints of peak limiting and maximal smoothness, we
designed a numerical solver, which per-sample solves to find the gentlest possible adjustments
that will prevent clipping.

So here’s Limitless. It can be louder than other limiters without audible distortion, but that’s not the
point. Using Limitless you can achieve pop loudness without losing your dynamics. More
importantly, Limitless is designed around modern loudness standards, so it’s easy to target a
specific Loudness - full metering and history is built in.

Another trick a lot of top-flight engineers use is clipping the signal before the limiter, to reduce the
work the limiter has to do to peaks. Limitless features a full-spec clipper with massive
oversampling, so you can achieve the “clipped convertor” effect inside the box. And at the output is
a simple but thoroughly modern dither.

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 Limitless : How Limitless works and a guide to Limiting

We’re excited to introduce Limitless to the DMGAudio range, because now you can build a
pro-grade mastering facility just from DMGAudio processors and a DAW, and you’ll have the best
gear money can buy whatever your objective.

On the other hand, if you just need to squeeze 6dB out of a render to test it on a big system
tonight, Limitless makes it a 1-click affair, and it’ll sound better than any alternative.

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 Limitless : Main Controls

4 Main Controls

4.1 Controls

Sliders

Sliders are used for adjusting the most important settings.

They can be dragged to adjust, or shift-dragged for fine-adjust.
Double-clicking will jump the slider position to wherever you click.
Sliders can be adjusted using the mousewheel.

Text Values

Text values are rendered in blue, and followed by a unit in darker blue.
They can be adjusted by dragging with the mouse or shift-dragged for fine-adjust.
When double-clicked, you will be able to enter text. Press enter to confirm the new value.
Text values can be adjusted using the mousewheel.

Dropdown Menus

The Dropdown menus are Style, Clipping, Clipping Oversampling and Dither.
Clicking a Dropdown Menu allows you to select from a discrete list of options.
You can cycle through options using the mousewheel.

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 Limitless : Main Controls : Master Controls

4.2 Master Controls

4.2.1 Threshold

Threshold is the main control used to control Limitless. It sets the threshold at which Limitless
should start clipping. Gain is auto-applied to bring this level up to 0dBFS, so dragging down the
Threshold increases level in general.

4.2.2 Ceiling

Ceiling is an output gain after all the limiting has taken place. It sets the output level for the plugin.
Traditionally, this is set to -0.1dB for CD masters.

4.2.3 Release

Release sets the release time for Limitless. After a section that requires limiting has passed, the
gain is slowly turned up, and the release time sets the rate of gain return. On traditional limiters,
setting the release can be a fiddly compromise, since it is influenced by both the transients and the
dynamics of the signal. In Limitless, the release time responds only to signal dynamics, while
transients are handled in a program-dependent way.

4.2.4 Style

Style opens a menu of stylistic options for the Limiting process. These allow you to jump quickly to
an appropriate style of processing for your audio. All settings can be adjusted in Manual mode,
and once you’ve picked a style, you can move it to Manual mode for further adjustment by clicking
Copy to Manual. The pre-set styles are: Aggressive, Punchy, Warm, Smooth, Tight, and
Transparent.

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 Limitless : Main Controls : Frequency Graph

4.3 Frequency Graph

The Frequency Graph allows configuration of the frequencies of the multiband crossover by
dragging left/right, and can be used for EQ work by dragging nodes up/down. Right-click/drag a
node to audition its frequency range.

Double-click a node to remove it from the crossover set (to use fewer bands of crossover).

Moving the pointer over a node opens a tooltip which allows fine adjustment of the band frequency
and gain. When in Manual mode, the tooltip also allows adjustment of the band’s release time.

A spectrum analyser is shown behind the crossover curves, and the instantaneous gain reduction
of the limiter engine is displayed as the centre line.

Many aspects of the graph are configurable as described in the Preferences sections below.

4.4 Time Graph

The Time Graph shows the history of processing, combining all bands of the limiter engine. The

Page 16
 Limitless : Main Controls : History Graph

signal peaks are displayed in the vertical center of the graph, with the top-half showing the Left
channel and the bottom-half showing the Right. Dragging the graph will adjust the threshold. As
peaks cross the limiter threshold, they’re rendered in a bright green, and you’ll see the gain
reduction responding to them in red at the top and bottom of the graph. Dragging left/right allows
you to zoom in and out in time, and there are options in Setup to allow beat-synched redraw.

4.5 History Graph

The History Graph shows the history of the Short-Term loudness of the signal. The Short-Term
LRA is displayed around it to indicate the variance of the dynamics. Dragging left/right allows you
to zoom in and out in time. Dragging up/down sets the loudness target calliper at the middle,
allowing you to zoom in on a dynamic range of interest.

4.6 PPM / GR Meter

The PPM/GR meter shows the output levels of the Left/Right or Mid/Side signals, alongside the
gain reduction per-channel. Labels under and above the meter show current signal/gain reduction
peak values.

Right/double-clicking the meter switches to a configurable zoomed view, allowing you to zoom in to
see fine gain reduction levels.

4.7 Loudness Meters

Below the PPM/GR Meter are the Loudness measurements. Click pause/play to suspend/resume
measurement, or reset to restart the measurement process. The metering is fully r128-live
compliant, and includes True Peak and LRA measurement. You can toggle between gated (LUFS)
and ungated (LKFS) loudness by clicking the display.

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 Limitless : Advanced Controls

5 Advanced Controls

5.1 Controls when not in Manual

5.1.1 Input Trim

The Input Trim is a gain applied before any processing immediately at the input of the plugin. This
makes it easy to compensate for excessive input levels.

5.1.2 Slope

Slope defines the slope in dB/oct of the crossover. It applies to all bands. At 24dB/oct, a standard
Linkwitz-Riley 4th order crossover is achieved, albeit Linear Phase.

5.1.3 Separation

The Separation determines the degree of independence between the bands.

At 0%, Limitless acts like a wide-band limiter, distributing gain reduction equally between all bands.
At 100% Limitless is able to adjust bands independently to achieve a more transparent effect. It
behaves, in a sense, like a multiband dynamic EQ.

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 Limitless : Advanced Controls : Further Controls in Manual Mode

At 200% separation, Limitless will encourage errant bands to work harder, so as to minimise the
gain reduction experienced by other bands.

Setting to 100% is the ideal default. If there is a perceptible change in the EQ balance of the track
as a result of limiting behaviour, you might consider reducing the setting. On the other hand, if you
have an unusual element in the mix which is causing trouble, it might be worthwhile increasing the
setting to tame the element, and ease pressure off other bands.

5.1.4 StereoLink

At 100% both Left and Right channels (per-band) will move together. This typically results in more
limiting than is absolutely necessary, but does preserve stereo image perfectly. At 0% Left and
Right channels operate independently. This results in the minimum limiting but can and will cause
movement in the stereo field.

Typically starting at 100% and reducing until stereo movement is detectible will allow you maximal
transparency.

5.2 Further Controls in Manual Mode

When in manual mode, a variety of further options are available to you. The non-manual Styles
include settings for each of these parameters, and can easily be viewed by choosing a Style and
clicking “copy to manual”. Alternatively, browse the “Styles” preset folder, to familiarise yourself
with likely settings to achieve specific characters for limiting.

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 Limitless : Advanced Controls : Further Controls in Manual Mode

5.2.1 Lookahead

The Lookahead should be considered as the “attack time” of the limiter - except that the audio is
automatically delayed to ensure that no peak ever clips. Short times can be aggressive. Longer
times make for a quieter signal since the limiter starts reducing gain ahead of time. Ideally, you will
set Limitless so that the Lookahead is used only to catch peaks, and the dynamic limiter will
handle dynamic matters. This will allow you to use very short lookahead times without perceptible
distortion.

5.2.2 Knee

The Knee starts reducing gain a little before the Threshold level, so as to achieve “soft knee”
behaviour. This can make the limiting process more transparent, but at the cost of overall
loudness, since it specifically sets Limitless to spend more of the time reducing GR.

The parameter determines the width of the knee in dB around the Threshold level. With Threshold
at 0dB, and Knee at 3dB, Limitless will enter soft compression at -3dBFS, increasing ratio with
signal level, and reach hard limiting at +3dBFS.

5.2.3 Weighting

At its core, Limitless is solving a numerical procedure to distribute gain reduction between bands in
such a way that gain-change per band is minimised. The Weighting allows you to encourage
Limitless to prefer to reduce gain of low frequency bands (at 100%) or high frequency bands (at
-100%). Setting to 100% can achieve an increase in perceptual loudness without needing to adjust
the threshold.

The control goes from -400% to 400% so you can evaluate the effect at its extremes.

5.2.4 Release Shape

When processing dynamic material, some material sounds better with a Log release (100%),
whilst other material is better with an Inverse Log release (0%). Sadly we have no general theory
to guide you on your choice here - it seems to depend very specifically on the audio material.
Consequently, we provided both release shapes, and you are able to blend between them.

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 Limitless : Advanced Controls : Further Controls in Manual Mode

5.2.5 Dynamics

The old adage that it is better to take 1dB off with two limiters than 2dB off with a single limiter is
based on a deeper truth. If you have one release time that is triggered by both transients and
dynamic content alike, then you end up with “holes” in the audio - dips in level following every
transient. Evidently it is necessary to handle transients separately from dynamics somehow, and
assign separate release times to each. Previous strategies for this have included
program-dependent release methods, whereby the release time is reduced in response to
transients. These strategies suffer from the caprice of the release algorithm’s applicability to a
specific piece of audio. The solution we present in Limitless is to offer a pair of limiters, one which
handles transients and has a very short release time (equal to the lookahead time), and one which
handles the dynamic behaviour with a more conventional release time.

The Dynamics control acts to determine the effective attack time of the dynamic limiter - peaks that
the dynamic limiter misses are caught by the transient limiter. At 100%, the dynamic limiter does
all the work; transients will invoke the full release time. At 0%, the transient limiter does all the
work. Between the two, the workload is distributed between both limiter stages. 50% is a good
default and can be increased if the action sounds too aggressive, or reduced if greater loudness is
desirable.

5.2.6 Per-band release (on Frequency Graph or Band Strips)

When Band Strips are shown, or you hover over a node on the Frequency Graph, you are able to
configure the release time per-band for the dynamic limiter. These release times are held relative
to the master release time, so adjusting the master release will always alter the per-band timings
too. See the Style presets for examples of distribution of release times for the bands.

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 Limitless : Band Strips

6 Band Strips

When enabled (Setup->Instance Prefs->Band Strips->Display=Show), the Band Strips reflect the
state of each of the crossover bands.

At the top of each strip is the band center frequency. Below is a large fader for adjusting band gain
(pre-limiter) next to a gain reduction meter for the band.

The band’s release time is shown next, and the base of the channel offers Mute/Solo buttons for
auditioning the crossover.

Double-clicking the area around the center frequency will disable the band (to use fewer crossover
bands), and double-clicking a disabled band will reinstate it to the crossover set.

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 Limitless : Clipping

7 Clipping

The Clipping module is pre-limiter. Many engineers like to clip peaks before limiting, and this
section allows precisely this.

You can click the Clipping label to quickly enable or disable this section.

To the right of the Clipping label is a dropdown menu, allowing you to select a Clipping algorithm
from Swell, Swell2, Swell3, Knee and Knee2.

Each algorithm can be tuned using the Soften control.

Swell and Swell2 are simple waveshapers which mostly add 3rd order harmonic distortion to
increase perceived level.

Swell3 is a more gentle waveshaper, the harmonics of which depend intricately on the setting of
the Soften control.

Knee offers a range of clipping shapes, from hard clipping (ADC clipping) at 0% Soften to smooth
softclip at 100% Soften.

Knee2 is a second flexible clipper with adjustable clipping hardness.

The Drive control allows you to drive the input signal into the clipper, and also attenuates the
volume afterwards.

The Amount control is a wet-dry mix between input and distorted signal. At 0% you hear input,
and at 100% just clipped signal.

The Trim control offers a gain after the clipping process, allowing you to calibrate level before
going to the limiter.

The Oversample menu offers up to 64x oversampling.

Page 23
 Limitless : Dither

8 Dither

You can click the Dither label to quickly enable or disable this section.

To the right of the Dither label is a dropdown menu, allowing you to select the bitdepth for your
target format.

The Shaping determines the intensity of the noise shaping.

At 0% is ideal TPDF dither.
At 100% is a classic psychoacoustic noise-shaping curve, which pushes down noise in the mids
and moves it up to the top end.
At 200% is very extreme noise shaping!

To set up the Dither, you should simply pick the correct bitdepth, and then audition the noise
shaping at 100%, adjusting to taste.

The level of the noise is always calibrated correctly to ensure textbook-perfect dithering.

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 Limitless : Other UI

9 Other UI

9.1 The Menu Bar

9.1.1 Gain Lock

The Gain Lock can be engaged to lock the Threshold, Ceiling and Input Trim parameters and
prevent them from adjustment. This can make auditioning presets much easier.

Right-clicking the Gain Lock opens a menu allowing you to lock the parameters of Limitless by
section, including the HPF, ISP, Dither, Clipper and Limiter parameters.

9.1.2 HPF

The HPF button engages a high-pass filter to remove ultra-low-frequency content from your signal.
The parameters for the HPF can be configured in the Advanced DSP section.

9.1.3 ISP

Engage this control to cause Limitless to try to prevent inter-sample peaks.

9.1.4 Preset

Pressing this button will pop out the Preset tray. See Presets.

9.1.5 Undo / Redo

A full undo/redo for any parameter changes on the UI.

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 Limitless : Other UI : The Menu Bar

9.1.6 A / B and Copy To

Limitless maintains 8 banks of controls at all times, so you can easily A / B (or A / H) through
different variants of your settings.

For example, you might create a curve, then use Copy To to copy it to B, then modify that a little
and keep going to get as many different settings as you want to evaluate. Then you can use the A /
B menu to audition each setting.

If you’d like the auditioning process to happen with one click, simply right-click on the A / B button.
You can configure (in Global Prefs, A / B Toggle) whether this toggles between the last two settings
you visited, or between all visited.

9.1.7 Graph Button

Clicking the Graph button opens a menu to allow you to select between the Frequency, Time and
History graphs.

9.1.8 Layout Button

Clicking the Layout button allows you to hide or show the Advanced controls.

9.1.9 Setup Panel

This opens the Setup Panel, which allows further configuration of Limitless. See Preferences and
Options.

9.1.10 Bypass

The Bypass button bypasses all processing within Limitless and routes the input directly to the
output.

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 Limitless : Other UI : Presets

9.2 Presets

Limitless includes a set of presets, which you can add to, to build up your library of settings.

By default, on OS X they reside at /Library/Application Support/DMGAudio/Limitless/Presets/

and on Windows, at C:\Users\<you>\Documents and Settings\DMGAudio\Limitless\Presets\.

You can change the location of the presets on Windows by re-running the installer and changing
the “DMGAudio Limitless resources folder” path during the install.

Saving presets into these folders will allow you to select them from the Preset menu.

Don’t forget to include these files in your backups.

9.2.1 Previous / Next

These buttons allow you to quickly jump back and forward within the list of presets.
They grey out to show you when there’s no further to go.

9.2.2 Preset Menu / Name

This shows the Preset name which can be modified with a right-click. Clicking here will open the
Preset Menu, which is a multi-level menu of all of the presets you currently have saved.
You can arrange this folder to suit your needs, but be aware that installing updates will reinstall the
factory set.

9.2.3 GUI

The state of the GUI button determines whether loading a preset can alter the UI state.
When disabled, any UI configuration in a preset will be ignored.

9.2.4 Preset / Bank

Banks contain your full set of A/B settings, whereas a Preset contains only the values displayed
onscreen. Using this selector, you can choose whether to save Banks or Presets, and whether to
load a Preset into the current A/B bank, or to load a Bank to replace all settings.

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 Limitless : Other UI : MIDI Learn

9.2.5 Load / Save

Use these buttons to open a window to save or load presets/banks as selected.

9.3 MIDI Learn

You can right-click (or Ctrl+Click on mac) any control to open the MIDI Learn menu. Selecting
“Learn...” will wait for MIDI CC input and bind the control to the first MIDI CC controller received.
Parameters are displayed in green to indicate that they have been MIDI Learned. MIDI Learn
mappings affect all instances of a plugin and are saved globally, making it easy to map the plugins
to your MIDI Controller. Right/Ctrl clicking a Learned parameter displays a menu with information
about the mapping and an “Unlearn” option to forget the MIDI mapping.

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 Limitless : Advanced DSP

10 Advanced DSP

10.1 HPF

HPF Freq sets the cutoff frequency for the high-pass filter (when enabled).

HPF Slope sets the slope in dB/oct for the high-pass filter.
The HPF is a regular minimum phase coincident-pole design.

10.2 Gain Structure

Thres Pre Clip allows you to move the Threshold gain stage before the clipper module. This
means that when engaged, lowering the threshold will increase the drive to the clipper.

10.3 Transient Separation

By default, the Separation control for Limitless affects both dynamic and transient limiters. In
certain cases, you might decide that you prefer the dynamic limiter to be wideband (0%
separation), and the transient limiter to be multiband (100% separation), or vice-versa, as it suits
the material. Using Trans Separation Enable allows you to set the separation for the transient

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 Limitless : Advanced DSP : Inter-sample Peaks

limiter using Trans Separation, and the separation for the dynamic limiter using the main
Separation control.

10.4 Inter-sample Peaks

Limitless offers two different algorithms for ISP limiting. Engaging the Use ITU Filter (now the
default) will use a transparent algorithm designed to guarantee matching the ITU 1770 True Peak
measurement specification. Disengaging the setting uses an “oversampling”-style algorithm more
reminiscent of other True Peak limiters, which, in some cases, can overshoot a True Peak loudness
target.

10.5 Clipper Oversampling

HQ mode uses higher specification anti-aliasing filters when using clipper oversampling.

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 Limitless : Preferences and Options

11 Preferences and Options

11.1 Instance Prefs

The settings in Instance Prefs are per-instance and can be saved with a preset.

Graph

Range determines the degree of zoom for the Frequency graph.

The Readout values, if selected, are displayed at the top of the Frequency graph.

GR Decay allows you to apply a smoothing to GR values, to ensure you can read the maximal GR
values applied to the signal.

Analyser

Decay sets the decay time for the smoothing of the response. The attack characteristic is always
an instantaneous peak-type response.

Range sets the range of the graph in dB.

Top allows you to reduce the highest gain level shown on the graph.

Tilt tilts the spectrum readout. With no tilt, white noise is rendered flat.

Smoothing allows you to have the response smoothed for a less detailed view.

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 Limitless : Preferences and Options : Instance Prefs

Display allows you to configure the standard Analyser mode to be plotted as filled or outlined.

Time Graph

Sync Mode will stop the graph from scrolling, and will instead wrap the playhead from left-to-right.
When combined with a synchronised time, this can allow easy comparison bar-by-bar.

Use Time to choose between showing freely-zoomable time duration, and locking the time
duration to the tempo reported by the DAW.

GR Range determines how many dB of gain reduction should be shown in the margins above and
below the graph.

Freeze On allows you to pick whether hovering over the graph will cause it to pause redraw, or
whether a double-click is used to pause/resume.

GR Draw allows you to pick filled or outlined gain reduction curves on the time plot.

Band Strips

Display is used to show per-band controls below the Graph section when in Advanced mode.

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 Limitless : Preferences and Options : Global Prefs

11.2 Global Prefs

The settings in Global Prefs are shared between all instances.

Meter Ballistic allows you to pick the ballistics used by the meters.

Meter Peak/Hold sets the holding behaviour of peaks.

Meter Scale allows configuration of a K-Meter scale for the PPM meter, between the K-12, K-14
and K-20 standards.

Meter Peak is used to select the colour of the peaks shown on the PPM meter.

Meter Zoom Range configures the range shown in PPM zoomed mode (when the meter is
double-clicked or right-clicked).

Meter Auto Range allows the PPM meter to zoom out to ensure that GR values can be displayed
when in PPM zoomed mode.

Meter Range sets the range of the main meters in non-zoomed mode.

Meter Shows Clipping determines whether a representation of the GR from the clipping module
is displayed on the main GR meters.

ProTools Opt/Shift determines whether you expect ProTools style keyboard modifiers
(Opt/Alt for reset to default and Apple/Ctrl for fine-adjust).

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 Limitless : Preferences and Options : Global Prefs

MouseWheel Sensitivity configures mousewheel response for knobs and textboxes.

Hide Mouse will cause the mouse to disappear while you’re adjusting a value to reduce
distraction.

Reset Loudness On determines whether the Loudness statistics should be reset when Limitless
detects a change in transport (pressing play in the DAW), or only when clicked.

Graph

Tooltips follow allows you to choose whether the Frequency graph tooltips respond to mouse
movement, or adjustments made by a control surface.

MouseWheel Zoom can enable or disable zooming into/out of the Frequency graph.

Swap Alt/Right swaps over Alt and Right, so that Alt-dragging engages autolisten.

Band Linking can be disabled to prevent selection of multiple nodes on the Bandsplit graph.

Show Bandsplits determines whether the frequency response curve for each band is shown
permanently or only while the pointer is hovering over the graph.

Misc

Unlinked Ceiling determines whether, when unlinking Ceiling and Threshold, the Ceiling value
should jump to its previous setting, or whether it should remain matching the Threshold setting.

Optimise allows you to select between optimising CPU usage at the cost of some additional

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 Limitless : Preferences and Options : Global Prefs

latency, or whether you wish to minimise absolute latency at the cost of CPU. In general you
should optimise for CPU unless you have specific realtime requirements.

GR Meters Show determines whether the GR meters show the Full GR applied to the signal, or
just the GR pertaining to the dynamic processing. If you find the GR readouts move too quickly
and are distracting, try Dynamic.

Save Compression allows you to adjust the degree of compression used when saving state for a
preset or within a session. If you want to text-edit presets, or want fastest-possible save times,
switch this Off. By default this is set to Smallest to minimise session file sizes.

A / B Toggle allows you to determine how right-clicking the A / B menu cycles through A / B
banks. Last 2 swaps between the last two A / B banks you have visited. Visited allows you to cycle
through all A / B banks you’ve visited so far. If you want to assign the A/B bank selector to a MIDI
CC parameter, select ’MIDI Learn’ and then a right-click on the A/B menu will bring up MIDI learn
options.

A / B Automation allows you to determine whether changing A / B bank writes full automation to
the session, or just records the change of A / B bank.

Mouseover Help allows you to hide or reinstate the help display at the base of the plugin window
after it has been closed.

OpenGL allows you to disable OpenGL in case there are compatibility issues with your machine.
Toggling this option will require you to close and re-open the UI.

Save as default is used to save the state of this instance as the state that new instances will have
when created.

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 Limitless : Troubleshooting

12 Troubleshooting

12.1 Get in touch

If you run into trouble, get in touch! We’re here to help, after all!

For technical support, feature requests and general discussion, visit:

http://dmgaudio.com/contact.php

Or you can just email us directly at: [email protected]

For support with DMGAudio software, sending email is the way to go. It allows us to be much
faster and more responsive, and we try to spend more time answering our emails than hanging out
on social media!

For general discussion though, please feel free to drop by on Facebook/Twitter and tell us how
you’re getting on. We’ll be posting news about updates there too - but also do join the DMGAudio
mailing list to make sure you never miss out.

http://facebook.com/dmgaudio

http://twitter.com/dmgaudio

http://www.youtube.com/c/dmgaudioofficial

Questions about licensing, license transfers and discounts are covered in our FAQ.

Information about version numbers, updates, features and bug fixes is listed under the
Specifications tab on the Limitless Product Page.

Limitless Manual version 1.06 © DMGAudio 2016

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