A.O.M. Invisible Limiter Plugs

[James Steele]

Well, was going to put this in the Plug Ins Sale category, but it doesn't really go on sale... so sharing this here since it's kind of a "tip." I'm wanted to share this plugin I heard about from a YouTube video. It is made by a Japanese developer called A.O.M. and there are actually three variations of this limiter. The original, G2 (2nd Gen) and G3 (3rd Gen).

First here's the video that made me curious about this limiter. It's actually pretty interesting. This guy is something of a Cubase guru, but here talks about this obscure limiter that I'd never heard of before and how it was his big secret back during the "loudness wars."



Anyway... the particular plugin he shows in this video is the G2 and the link to that page is here:

https://aom-factory.jp/products/invisible-limiter-g2/

You can download A.O.M.'s plugin installer here:

https://aom-factory.jp/download/

It's one of those installers where it contains all of their products and then you can click the box to install just the plugs you want. They will install in demo mode with some white noise every so often. Anyway... I tried the demo of Invisible Limiter G2 and Invisible Limiter G3. I ended up buying Invisible Limiter G2... and it was painful because it wasn't cheap... 22000 Yen, or $165 or so. Yeah... I know... what was I thinking?

Now I know loudness is out, but... I have to say I found it to be pretty amazing when I demoed it. You can push it really hard and it still sound pretty clean. Just now I used it on a rock mix and when I A/B'd it with Ozone 10 and it sounded cleaner. I dunno... just give the demo a try. It's not cheap that's for sure and on A.O.M.s FAQ page they make it clear that they have no plans to put it on sale. Ugh.

Anyway... curious what some of the rest of you may think. I may embarrass myself and some of you will try it and tell me you think it sucks. LOL

[mikehalloran]

I haven't done any K-LOVE mixes in awhile but this seems to be a natural (pardon the pun) tool if I get that work again.'

K-LOVE is a network of 10W Christian radio stations across the country. So that the music can be heard at the fringes of a station's range, they put it through a brickwall limiter that crushes the life out of an ordinary mix. I have a way to mix that 'pre-crushes' the tracks the so that their limiter has only a minor effect on my mix if any. You can't do this to a Master — that's what they do.

I figured this out after listening to horrible track after horrible track… then they played a U2 track and it sounded barely affected. It was an epiphany

[James Steele]

I'd be interested in what you think, Mike? It was hard for me to describe what I heard, but it compelled me to buy this plug. I got the G2 only because that was in the video. The G3 is presumably "better" being third generation. However, it's not cheap by todays competitive plugin market standards, and they don't discount.

I could have possibly made up for it by adjusting EQ in Ozone 10, but it appeared that at similar loudness, Ozone "threw a blanket over the sound" and it felt like some of the high end was attenuated. The Invisible Limiter was... well... seemingly more "invisible."

I am interested in what others think after demoing it.