Mastering Limiter is a Rona Audio mastering-grade true-peak limiter. It raises a mix to its final loudness while guaranteeing that the output never exceeds the chosen true-peak CEILING – the requirement of every streaming platform, broadcaster and disc format. The whole nonlinear signal path runs oversampled (4x at 44.1 / 48 kHz), so the ceiling is a genuine inter-sample (true-peak) ceiling and the optional SOFT CLIP stage is alias-free.
This is the mastering edition: every control is stepped (detented) – 0.5 dB gains and thresholds, 0.1 dB ceiling, fixed LOOKAHEAD and RELEASE tables, 10 % link steps – so settings are exactly repeatable, easy to note down and trivial to A/B. Metering covers the classic family VU meters, a gain-reduction LED ladder and a BS.1770 / EBU R128 loudness and true-peak readout of the output.
The software is supplied as VST3 and AAX plug-ins for Windows and macOS and is used inside a compatible VST3, AAX or AU host / DAW.
Figure 1 – the complete plugin interface
- POWER — Click-free power; OFF passes the input through the latency-matched dry path (bit-transparent)
- INPUT — Input trim before the clipper / limiter (drives the limiter harder)
- THRESHOLD — Level above which limiting starts; the make-up gain (CEILING – THRESHOLD) is applied automatically
- CEILING — Output true-peak ceiling (the limiter never lets the oversampled peak exceed it)
- LOOKAHEAD — Lookahead / attack window of the gain envelope: 0.1 ms / 0.2 ms / 0.3 ms / 0.5 ms / 0.75 ms / 1 ms / 1.5 ms / 2 ms / 3 ms / 5 ms / 7.5 ms / 10 ms
- RELEASE — Release time: 10 ms / 20 ms / 30 ms / 50 ms / 80 ms / 100 ms / 150 ms / 200 ms / 300 ms / 500 ms / 800 ms / 1.2 s
- RELEASE MODE — AUTO = program-dependent two-stage release derived from RELEASE; MANUAL = single stage at RELEASE
- STYLE — TRANSPARENT / PUNCHY / SMOOTH – attack shape and AUTO release character
- LINK — Stereo link of the gain computer: 100 % = both channels share the deeper reduction (stable image), 0 % = independent
- SOFT CLIP — Engages the oversampled soft clipper ahead of the limiter
- CLIP CEIL — Soft-clipper ceiling relative to THRESHOLD: +0 = clipper handles all peaks, +6 = only the fastest peaks are rounded
- DITHER — Output word-length dither: OFF / 24 BIT / 16 BIT (TPDF + 2nd-order noise shaping)
- GAIN MATCH — Monitor: removes the static gain (INPUT + make-up) so A/B against bypass is level matched
- RESET — Momentary trigger: clears INTEGRATED loudness, TRUE PEAK MAX, OVERS and TIME
57 factory presets in 10 categories. Installed, activated and updated with RONA License Manager.
