Sunday 9 February 2014

A Limiting Solution part 3

Once I had created LFO Limiter, it occurred to me that I had missed one additional possibility for flexibility - it processed both stereo channels in the same way. So I duplicated the limiter section and produced the stereo version: LFO S Limiter ( available from MaxForLive.com ).


LFO S Limiter (0v01) is just two LFO Limiters stuck together - everything is duplicated and totally separate. So you really can have completely different settings on each stereo channel - even one limited and the other not. My personal preference is for more subtle differences, with the same 'Limiter' depth amount, but slightly different LFO frequencies. Having two separate channels provides more scope for complex rhythmic and syncopation of source material...

The panel design isn't the prettiest I've done, but I struggled to find a way to have the two channels shown clearly. You can see the same dilemma in many of my devices that have two separate channels - Hairbrush is a good example where I have mirrored the two sides to see how that feels, but it isn't a perfect solution. There seem to be at least three different approaches to a two-channel layout, and I'm not sure which is the best one.


Ableton use the 'Vertical Copy' layout in the 'Analog' synthesizer, and where you have a strong flow across, with two channels and a common 'central area', then it works nicely. But you only get a single row of controls, which tends to make the device wide, which can result in lots of scrolling left and right to get the correct device visible.

The two horizontal layout options are interesting. I am very familiar with the 'Horizontal Copy' from older modular synthesizers, where you just double up on the module, and so the layout automatically copies (unless the module is stereo, of course, and modern modules do seem to use horizontal mirroring sometimes). But I actually prefer the 'Horizontal Mirror' because somehow it emphasizes the two channel-ness, and looks better aesthetically. One thought I did have was to run an experiment where I make two versions and see which one gets the most downloads...
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